The Ear sat down for an interview with Ricky and Bobby Stinson before their recent Stinson Brotherz show at the Virgin River Events Center. Here is what they had to say.

The Ear: Tonight it is a Brooks and Dunn review. You two must like coming to Mesquite, as you were here recently for Margarita World, a tribute to Jimmy Buffett Alan Jackson.

Bobby Stinson: We love it here; it’s like Las Vegas used to be.

The Ear: Where are you from originally?

Bobby Stinson: Rock Island, Illinois. Our Dad and our uncles were the original Stinson Brothers. They toured around and had a bunch of hit records. We added the “z” to Stinson Brotherz for our

band name so we wouldn’t get confused with them.

We started out in LA. We were with Capital Records in Hollywood, where we made several records and had a few hits. You can find them on YouTube. Look up “Tequila Shoots.”

The Ear: What were your musical influences growing up? Was it more country than rock or the other way around?

Ricky Stinson: We were real poppy at the start, we covered artists like Duran Duan, Wam and George Michael, that kind of stuff,1980s and ‘90s music. Then we went to Nashville and signed with Atlantic Records. Our Dad became our manager and moved us to Las Vegas where we started doing these tribute shows.

We have won awards for our Brooks and Dunn Tribute. Our latest is 80s World with songs from Lover Boy, The Stray Cats, Billy Idol, Rick Springfield and George Michael.

The Ear: What got you doing Brooks and Dunn reviews?

Ricky and Bobby: Their songs were so big in the early ‘90s that we started playing them in bars and people would come up to us and say how much we looked and sounded like them. Things just started moving in that direction. Now we love the music of the acts we do. We try to be as authentic in sound and looks as we can.

The Ear: Well, thank you for the interview. Good luck with your show tonight.

The Stinson Brothers went on to play a sold-out show at the Virgin River Events Center, covering Brooks and Dunn hits like “Play Something Country,” “Red Dirt Road” and “Hard Working Man.”