They've sold millions of records around the world and toured with the likes of Michael Jackson and Celine Dion.

The Australian pop vocal group Human Nature is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon joining you from the South Point Hotel and Casino showroom.

It is here where the Las Vegas residency of the internationally acclaimed vocal group Human Nature is taking place.

Andrew Tierney, Mike Tierney, welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

-Thanks for having us.

-And you have had a residency, residencies in Las Vegas more than 10 years now.

I think it goes back to 2008.

Smokey Robinson, the legendary R&B singer-songwriter, what role did he play in that?

(Andrew Tierney) Well, actually, we've just celebrated our 15th anniversary here in Vegas, which is amazing to think we've been here this long.

But it was actually Smokey that, by him putting his name to our show, got us our start here in Vegas.

We had done a Motown record in Australia, and it was a huge success.

And someone said, You guys should take this to Vegas.

And it was so much easier said than done.

But we'd actually worked with Smokey on one of the albums.

And it was an idea of ours.

We thought maybe if Smokey would endorse our show and put his name to it, then Americans who didn't know who Human Nature were might be interested.

So he said, Sure, guys.

I'll do that.

So used it with Smokey Robinson Presents Australia's Human Nature was the first longest title in history, I think it was.

But that got our start.

-And that decision to get into Motown, how critical was that to your career?

(Mike Tierney) Well, because we grew up-- you know, we got together as a group in high school.

Andrew and I we're brothers, so we were together before that, but so the-- Yeah, we got together in high school, and we looked to groups like The Temptations, the Four Tops and Jackson 5.

A lot of those groups we kind of looked at as inspiration for us.

So you know, and then we had a career of our own.

We released some original music through the '90s and early 2000s.

And we always thought that would be something we'd love to do is an album of all our favorite Motown songs, and that's kind of what we did.

That was about-- -2006.

-We did that, and it was such a huge success for us.

And that kind of spurred this whole second part of our career of doing these live shows with the Motown music and making records and doing some duets with some of the original artists as well, like Smokey.

And so it was just, yeah, it's been a great ride.

-Oh, how cool.

So at the premiere of that show with the very long title, Smokey Robinson reportedly told the late Robin Leach about you guys.

"They were bigger than the Beatles in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia."

If that were the case, if your fame was that big, why come to the U.S.?

Was that always part of the plan?

-May have exaggerated a little.

Yeah, we'd had a great career of, yeah, as I said, original music that we toured around Asia and Australia and had some big hits there.

But we just, when the idea of Vegas came up as some way to come into a show, a residency, it just seemed really interesting to us and thought, wow, that could be something really cool.

And so we-- it took a few years for an opportunity to come up.

And the first place was the Imperial Palace that became available.

There was a room there, and that was an older casino on the Strip.

And we just thought, you know, okay, we all sat down and thought, should we give this a try?

And, you know, is this something that we'd love to do?

And we kind of decided, yeah, let's give it a go.

Let's move to Vegas and see what we can make of it.

And the rest, 15 years later, we're still here.

Yeah, it's been-- it's been an amazing ride.

-Did you move here with the idea that you were going to live here?

-We actually, the first month, we lived at the Flamingo Casino, in the rooms.

None of our rooms had windows, so it was a very rude awakening to Las Vegas.

But I guess we didn't know what would happen.

We liked the idea of trying something new and living somewhere new.

I don't know that I would ever have imagined I'd be spending 15 years of my life in Las Vegas, but we were ready for anything.

We had hoped that it would be a really long run, but, you know, at the time, I think if it lasted a year, that would have been a success for us, because it was such a big gamble and a big risk for us and our family.

So that first year was like we performed six nights a week.

We only took three weeks off, I think, just to really just do everything we could.

And yeah, every year then, we just took it one year at a time.

So now we had no idea that it would last this long, but you know, as I said, we were open to anything.

-Has that been hard rationalizing that you now have a home here and you left Australia?

-Yeah, it's difficult.

I mean, it's strange thinking back now to think, yeah, we really just moved our lives and everything that we kind of knew from Australia and moved here.

But you know, we've come to enjoy living here too.

And it's grown so much over the time we've been here, Las Vegas as a place to live, and the entertainment culture has grown so much too.

So it's been a lot.

You know, we've had daughters that have both been born here in America and in Vegas.

-What is that like?

We were talking about how your daughter may make fun of your accent.

-One of our favorite places to holiday as a family is Laguna Beach.

We'll say we're going to the beach, and my little girl Viola said, "beach"?

You mean "beach"?

And so yeah, they-- but it's kind of weird to think of the world through their eyes, because that's all they've known.

My little girl has only been to Australia twice.

So she's just-- she's American.

She does the Pledge of Allegiance.

She says "Nev-ad-a," not "Nev-au-da."

-Well, how do you say Nevada?

-Well, I catch myself.

I say Nevada, because I know; I've seen all the memes: "It's not Nevauda; it's Nevada."

But I love it here.

I love that I've had this life that I didn't expect and Vegas is my home.

It's great.

-Well, let's talk about Phil Burton, one of the members who's not here.

Toby Allen being the other.

We're happy to have the Tierney brothers.

-We're happy to be here.

-Which before we move on, you both are working on a project.

What is that?

-Could you say "Tierney brothers," because it sounds better.

-Tierney.

Yeah, because when you say it, it sounds like "teeny."

-Yes, we've just released our first single as the Tierney Brothers.

It's called "Lemonade."

It's the first album we've ever made together as just the two of us.

So we've been making music together since our bedroom as kids and, finally, this year decided to make a record.

So it's exciting.

-Did you ever fight when you were younger over who would sing what?

How did you... -I don't think.

We fought over other things, but I don't know if we fought over who would sing what.

Actually when we started, I was still a boy soprano.

Like my voice hadn't broken, so I sang all the high parts.

And then when it changed, and it was a bit harder to fit in the middle there.

But yeah, we've always, you know, as a group too, we just whoever sounded best on a particular part just, I mean, just took the lead.

And so that's always been a very easy thing to do for us.

-When you were in high school, there was an article I read, you said, You know, it wasn't quite the coolest thing to be in a vocal group back in high school.

How did you all support each other during that time?

-Well, it definitely wasn't the coolest thing.

And even through our daughters, or Mike's daughter who's really into the arts, it's still not the coolest thing at most schools to be in the arts.

They call them-- what's she called it?

-La-la.

-La-la losers, because they sing in the choir.

You're a la-la loser.

So we were the la-la losers at our school.

But we just loved it so much.

I guess because there was the four of us, we kind of had a security in numbers, if you will.

And we started to perform at some school events, and so we kind of got a bit of notoriety as being good at what we did.

So people understood why we did it.

But yeah, I kind of think of kids growing up these days and how it is a struggle to, to just feel comfortable being different.

And we, you know, we're living proof that it is okay to be different.

And you'll come through the end; you'll see light on the other side.

-Awesome.

Back to Phil.

He will not be here at your dates that are scheduled through November here at the South Point, correct?

-Correct, yeah.

So in the states now, it's just me, Andrew, and Toby, who perform here.

And he decided to move back.

He didn't love living in Vegas with his family, and he-- and he had family back in Australia too, so he, during COVID that time, he made the decision to move back and spend time back there.

But we, once we came through that time of COVID, we, at that time, we didn't know if we had an opportunity still to perform in Vegas.

But thankfully this great room here at South Point has came up, and it's just been a great place for us to perform.

It's such a fantastic showroom and probably one of the best rooms that we've performed in, in Vegas.

So it's-- -How so?

Why?

-It just feels like old Vegas, but it's new.

And the capabilities of the room are fantastic.

Like the technology is here, the crew is great, and South Point has such a fan base of the property.

You know, people come here, they love South Point.

And locals love South Point.

And so we feel that when we get here, that this feels like something people really want to do.

On the Strip, it's you have so much choice.

Do I go and see Steve Aoki?

Do I go and see Carrie Underwood?

Do I go see Bruno Mars when he's in town?

There's so much choice.

And I think Nevadans and Las Vegans want to-- want their place to feel comfortable and local, and they come here and it's we feel that in the crowd.

It's awesome.

-You said "Nevadans" perfectly.

-Did I?

-And Phil had mentioned in an article that raising kids in Las Vegas he viewed as a challenge at times.

He mentioned a certain scenario in which he was driving with his daughter.

She saw a billboard of you and said, There's Daddy.

The next billboard was of a woman in a bikini.

And she said, Oh, is that mommy?

-Have you experienced any challenges similar to that?

How do you feel about it?

-It seems these days there's only injury lawyers on billboards.

-Injury lawyers galore or marijuana dispensaries.

-There you go.

I know, marijuana dispensaries as well.

How are you addressing these issues with kids?

-I think every city every place you raise your kids, you're going to look for things you want to steer them away from, right?

I don't have any issues with Vegas.

I think it's-- I've never thought of that.

I kind of just raised my daughter with my wife, Heather.

And we just, we didn't have to steer her away from anything, but maybe watching the news.

-Seriously.

-I just don't want to watch the news or spend too much time on social media because you just get bombarded with probably the worst of the world.

Whereas, I think if you just focus on music and being at home and family life, then it's the best wherever you are.

-Anything you want to add to that, or could we talk about you both being married to sisters?

-I know.

That connection goes even deeper.

Our daughters are double-cousins because our wives are sisters as well.

-They're not sister wives, but-- clarify.

-But it's great.

We have inbuilt family dynamic, I guess.

We're here in Vegas because we, you know, obviously have my brother here.

And yeah, we're quite close.

And our daughters are close too.

So we-- it's great.

It kind of worked out really well for us that we don't feel like we're missing family so much because we have family here.

So that's probably why we've kind of made it a comfortable and happy lives for ourselves here too.

-Your partnership with PBS, that happened around the same time that you had the Venetian residency.

What made you want to do that national special with PBS?

Why was it a good fit?

-Well, PBS always seemed such a great supporter of the arts.

And we were doing a show we felt would work really well on PBS, and the audience that love the arts are big fans of PBS.

So we spoke to a bunch of people, and they, and Smokey as well, about the idea of doing a PBS special, and everyone said it'd be fantastic for our show.

That's why we did it.

It was a great thing to visit all the different stations around the country and get to do interviews in those live pledge shows.

It was like this world we didn't even know existed until we were in it.

And we actually did it twice.

We did it with the Jukebox show as well.

We have a great history with PBS, and every time I watch shows with my wife, you can't miss that trumpet line.

Is it the Masterpiece, the trumpet line?

It's part of my life.

And so, yes, I'm really humbled and honored to be part of the PBS legacy.

It's great.

-Well, we appreciate your support.

And we are going to wrap up now with a little bit of singing.

Give our viewers a little taste.

-Some sibling harmony.

♪ My girl, my girl ♪ ♪ My girl ♪ ♪ Talkin' 'bout my girl ♪ ♪ My girl ♪ -There you go.

-Beautiful.

-We got it in 10 seconds?

-Got in under time?

-Yeah, we're just a little concerned about fair use of media.

Okay.

Mike Tierney, Andrew Tierney, thank you so much for joining Nevada Week In Person.

See Human Nature here at South Point Showroom.