36 years after Nelson launched their debut album After the Rain in 1990, Matthew and Gunnar Nelson are nonetheless having the time of their lives, and coming again to Niagara Falls to honour their father is one thing they all the time stay up for.
The twins are returning to Fallsview On line casino’s Avalon Theatre later this month for eight exhibits in 5 days to carry out Ricky Nelson Remembered, beginning Oct. 14. It’s the multimedia tribute to their father that they’ve been staging, on and off, for many years. As of late it’s a uncommon factor. The brothers have spent the previous couple of years centered on Nelson, the band that made them MTV stars in 1990, and on enjoying arenas.
“We really don’t do Ricky Nelson Remembered apart from Fallsview now,” Gunnar explains. “So once we really do get to drag out all of the stops on the Ricky Nelson Remembered present, it’s quite a lot of enjoyable. It’s type of like a household reunion. It’s good to go to with our dad on this stuff, you recognize, simply to type of return to our roots.”
Music Life Journal caught up with Matthew and Gunnar final month and talked about how the tribute started on a U.S. naval base in Japan, what rising up as a Nelson was actually like when dwelling life was nothing like Ozzie and Harriet, the guide that lastly allow them to inform their facet of the story, and a Toronto musician they idolize who confirmed up at certainly one of their exhibits 10 years in the past with out them figuring out.
A “play date” on the Falls
The October exhibits will probably be their sixth time coming to the Avalon Theatre, beforehand enjoying the intimate theatre in 2015, 2016, 2019, 2020 and 2023. They discuss in regards to the venue with actual affection.
“It’s actually certainly one of our favourite locations to play,” Gunnar mentioned. “That theater is certainly one of my favourite locations to play. It’s simply so stunning there.” He praised the crew as “first-rate” and mentioned there isn’t a foul seat in the home. Then he introduced up a line from their grandmother, Harriet Nelson, that the brothers clearly dwell by.
“Our Grandma Harriet mentioned, ‘You realize, boys, in your profession, some days you’re going to work, some days you’re going to play.’ We all know once we come to Fallsview, it’s going to be a play date.”
Off stage, the twins do what each customer does. Gunnar admits to spending quite a lot of time on video calls, turning his cellphone round to indicate mates the view. “They’ve received a zipper line, you’ve received to do all that stuff,” he mentioned. “However truthfully, it’s simply so strikingly stunning while you stroll out of that resort.”
Matthew’s favorite Niagara reminiscence is a stranger one. On a stroll throughout their final go to, the brothers got here throughout a mariachi troupe performing. “It was so fascinating and totally different and peculiar that we had been in Niagara and there was a mariachi troupe,” he laughed. “It was type of a kind of bizarre moments of my life.”
They’re additionally glad in regards to the timing this yr. “Luckily, this time they booked us at a time of yr when it’s not 40 under,” Gunnar mentioned. “There’s no chilly like Canada chilly, proper off the water there. It’s bracing. However that is going to be a gorgeous time of yr, a good time to see a extremely cool rock present.”
This run additionally brings a brand new band lineup. On earlier visits, the brothers had been backed by the band of bassist Tommy Vee, son of the late Bobby Vee, who, like Ricky Nelson, was a teen idol within the early Nineteen Sixties. This time followers will see a special group on stage, one thing the twins mentioned they’re wanting ahead to.
From a naval base in Japan to a celebration of life
Ricky Nelson Remembered began with the brothers getting the identical request all over the place they went. “Each place we went all around the world, any person requested us to play our dad’s music,” Matthew mentioned. “We grew up with it. We cherished it. We cherished our dad; we had been very shut with him. However we simply needed to ensure that it was greater than sometimes throwing in ‘Backyard Social gathering’ or one thing like that.”
He believes their father by no means received his due, even after promoting a reported half a billion data. “To us, he was our dad and our greatest pal. So we thought if the second ever got here the place we may put one thing collectively as a full present, we’d do it.”
That second got here a couple of a long time in the past with a cellphone name from the U.S. navy. The naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, was placing on a vacation live performance for sailors who couldn’t get dwelling. It had a ’50s theme, and the commandant was a giant Ricky Nelson fan. Would the twins fly over?
Matthew had doubts. “I mentioned, ‘Effectively, these youngsters are so younger, they’re not going to know who we’re, not to mention our dad.’ And he mentioned, ‘It simply doesn’t matter.’ And by the way in which, if it doesn’t work out, no person’s going to learn about it. It’s a very good trigger.”
They went, and performed what Matthew calls “mainly an oldies present, a rockabilly present.” The 18- and 19-year-old sailors cherished it. “We had been having a lot enjoyable. I checked out Gunnar and mentioned, ‘Why haven’t we been doing this? That is enjoyable.’ I felt nearer to our dad musically.”
Again dwelling, Matthew discovered an editor and commenced going via household footage to construct the visuals that at the moment are a giant a part of the present. The set record got here from one thing very private. “The music began with a set record that our dad had in his guitar case,” Matthew mentioned. “It was the final set that he ran when he was alive. And I assumed that was a very good start line: what he thought was the perfect present he may do in 90 minutes.”
“You could possibly all the time discover a tribute present someplace, however we have a look at this as type of a celebration-of-life present for us.” — Matthew Nelson
The present has grown over time, however its coronary heart hasn’t modified. “Folks understand that it’s extra than simply some guys getting up there and singing some songs they know,” Matthew mentioned. “We’re telling tales about our life with our dad and our household and what it was like rising up a Nelson. It’s very actual and really heartfelt.”
The tribute is now a special-occasion occasion, slotted round a schedule that has included area dates with Rick Springfield and Night time Ranger. “Fallsview is an important day for us, and will probably be so long as they’ll have us,” Matthew mentioned. “We have a look at it as type of the crown jewel in our touring life.” The brothers have all the time mentioned they’ll preserve doing it till it’s clearly time to mothball it. “That hasn’t occurred but.”
Rising up a Nelson
Few households are as rooted in American leisure because the twins’. In case you haven’t figured it out but, Matthew and Gunnar are the dual sons of Rock and Roll Corridor of Famer Ricky Nelson and the grandsons of TV icons Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, stars of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, certainly one of tv’s longest-running sitcoms. On their mom’s facet, their grandparents are Heisman Trophy winner Tom Harmon and actress Elyse Knox, their uncle is actor Mark Harmon, and their aunt is Kelly Harmon, well-known because the Tic Tac mannequin. With appearing and sports activities each within the household, Music Life Journal requested what pulled them towards music.
Gunnar traced it to a selected reminiscence: the primary time they noticed their father carry out, at a theater at Knott’s Berry Farm in Southern California. “We had been infants sitting on little crates on the facet of the stage, and we didn’t understand up till that time that our dad was particular,” he mentioned. “He was up there making the viewers blissful, and he was blissful. And we simply thought, man, that is the best factor on the planet.”
After that, music stuffed the home. Ricky was placing collectively the Stone Canyon Band at dwelling. “He all the time appeared to have an acoustic guitar in his hand. He was all the time writing songs, and there have been all the time hippies over on the home making music,” Gunnar mentioned. “I suppose it could be no totally different than rising up as a Manning in a soccer household. It turns into your regular. You don’t understand as a child how particular that basically is. It’s simply what your loved ones does.”
The Nelsons are additionally the one household in historical past to attain No. 1 hits in three successive generations, a feat acknowledged by Guinness World Data. It began in 1935, when Ozzie Nelson and His Orchestra, the band Harriet sang with, went to No. 1 with “And Then Some.” Ricky adopted with “Poor Little Idiot” in 1958 and “Travelin’ Man” in 1961. Then, in 1990, Matthew and Gunnar took Nelson’s “(Can’t Reside With out Your) Love and Affection” to the highest of the Billboard Scorching 100.
Why music, not appearing?
Each brothers have Display Actors Guild playing cards, and Matthew studied some appearing and internet hosting. However they are saying music received due to what it lets them say.
“We’re songwriters earlier than something,” Matthew mentioned. “We love writing songs. We love creating that and baring that to folks and saying, ‘I hope you prefer it,’ or ‘I hope it turns into the soundtrack of your life.’ Appearing is about being the perfect liar, if you consider it. And the factor about music is, music is the reality. That’s the hugest distinction.”
Gunnar pointed to the dwell connection as effectively. “We have now members of our household which are actors who by no means get that instantaneous connection or suggestions with the viewers,” he mentioned. “For us, we get to look out within the viewers and see folks mouthing the phrases again to us that we wrote. I believe we’re type of hooked on that.” Then he shared one other of his grandmother Harriet’s sayings: “‘Bear in mind, fellas, the Nelsons have by no means been within the leisure enterprise. We’ve been within the connection enterprise. In case you don’t lose sight of that, you get the important thing to the town.’”
They are saying their father felt the identical method, regardless that he earned actual appearing credit score, together with the position of Colorado [Ryan] in Rio Bravo. “He instructed us the one factor you don’t get on a soundstage,” Matthew mentioned. “There’s no actual interplay with anyone besides the individual you’re appearing with. He mentioned music is all about being in that second with all of these folks, and you’ll really feel that power. I believe that’s why they name it enjoying music.”
There was a extra sensible purpose too. “My dad hated getting up within the morning,” Matthew mentioned with amusing. “He mentioned, ‘I’d rise up at six o’clock within the morning and be within the make-up chair.’ That sucks irrespective of who you might be. That is what I like to do: simply hanging out with my brother, a extremely nice tune, a narrative, and an viewers. Seems like enjoyable to me.”
“Music is the reality”
The brothers’ level about honesty comes up repeatedly in their very own songwriting. Gunnar mentioned their best-known songs are about letting go of issues that weren’t meant to be, at a time when lots of their friends had been writing about “Mr. Brownstone.”
“For the 2 of us, nobody was going to consider that we grew up dwelling out of a dumpster, so we weren’t cosplaying that method,” he mentioned. “However we grew up in Southern California, and our era of fogeys type of skipped that complete Ozzie and Harriet very best. So music to us, humorous sufficient, was our salvation.”
He feels a lot of that story received misplaced when Nelson took off. “I suppose our report firm again within the day did us no service,” he mentioned. “They didn’t speak about the truth that we began enjoying once we had been six, began enjoying L.A. golf equipment professionally once we had been 12, and all the time wrote our personal stuff. We produced that first report ourselves, and there have been grown males who took credit score for it that shouldn’t have. They simply marketed us as a heavy metallic boy band.”
The picture caught. “Matt and I by no means did a single interview for a teen journal, ever,” Gunnar mentioned. “However the report firm bought all of our photos to these teen magazines. It was free publicity. Enterprise-wise, very sensible. There was no social media; that’s how you probably did it.” Matthew added that it was the period of New Youngsters on the Block, “and that’s not what we had been doing in any respect.”
The timing was tough too. After the Rain got here out in 1990, not lengthy after the Milli Vanilli lip-sync scandal broke. “Folks had a horrible style of their mouth from all of that stuff that wasn’t actual,” Gunnar mentioned. “And the 2 of us had the picture that we had. We had been responsible till confirmed harmless, coming from the place we come from, the household we come from. So we mainly needed to exit with a few acoustic guitars and the songs that we’d written and are available out of the field in opposition to the present.”
The songs received out anyway. “(Can’t Reside With out Your) Love and Affection” was one of many high singles of 1990, ending at No. 27 on Billboard’s year-end Scorching 100 and beating out Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Child” at No. 45.
The brothers mentioned the reception was totally different in Europe. “There’s no type of guilty-pleasure vibe with us there; we’re simply rock stars,” Matthew mentioned. He sees the identical sample in how critics handled his father. “Ozzie and Harriet made him any person the crucial press didn’t take severely, a made-for-TV musician. Over there, they didn’t get the present, so he was identical to Elvis or Buddy Holly.”
“Relentlessly optimistic”
The brothers have by no means gone for the tortured-artist act. Matthew recalled a current look on Billy Corgan’s podcast, the place the Smashing Pumpkins frontman paid them a praise they’ve taken to coronary heart. “He mentioned, ‘I adopted you guys and actually did some analysis into you, and also you’re relentlessly optimistic.’ And I believe that’s our model,” Matthew mentioned. “What we selected to do was discover the silver lining in any darkish cloud and write about it.”
“We’ve by no means taken that complete woe-is-me, life-sucks type of factor. And it’s been actually annoying to lots of people, as a result of right here we’re, over 40 years later, nonetheless making music.” — Gunnar Nelson
“I’m not saying it hasn’t been tough,” Gunnar mentioned. “It’s tough for everyone. However we simply have gratitude for every little thing, and I believe that’s the true wealth in life.”
Matthew added another reason the reminiscences keep sharp. “We’ve performed 1000’s of exhibits. And since we’ve by no means performed substances, we bear in mind every little thing.”
The guide: “Now what?”
Final December, the brothers revealed a guide known as What Occurred To Your Hair? When requested if it’s an extension of the tales they inform on stage, Gunnar was clear that it isn’t.
“It addressed two issues,” he mentioned. “One, it instructed the reality in regards to the preconception that Matt and I had been a few nepo infants who had a belief fund and had been making music as a pastime. And it additionally tells the reality about what occurred in our dad’s airplane crash, for the primary time. We weren’t allowed to speak about that up till now. In order that was crucial to us.”
Ricky Nelson died on December 31, 1985, when the airplane carrying him and his band crashed in Texas. The twins had been 18. Within the guide, they lastly give their very own account.
Past that, Gunnar mentioned, the guide isn’t a household historical past however their very own story. “Everybody’s received a journey; ours was simply an epic one which required two folks to climate.” It covers the trade’s paradigm shift when grunge took over, and a childhood that was nothing just like the TV model of the Nelson family.
“Matt and I had been latchkey youngsters, and music was our salvation,” he mentioned. “That’s what received us out of the household ghetto that we discovered ourselves in at the moment. Our dad was on the highway on a regular basis. Our mother was addicted and self-absorbed. And Matt and I had been like an afterthought. Again in that day, folks had been anticipated to have youngsters, and while you had been a Nelson, you had been actually anticipated to have youngsters. However then you’ve the children. Now what?
“Luckily, Matthew and I got here into this world collectively, and we just about raised ourselves. And the via line all the time was music. Music was the hope in our lives.”
No ghostwriters, and three clean pages
As heavy as a few of it’s, Matthew mentioned the guide takes its tone from certainly one of their father’s guidelines. “He mentioned, ‘By no means lose your humorousness, since you’re going to wish it,’” Matthew mentioned. “This guide, it’ll make you cry, nevertheless it’ll make you snigger out loud. Lots of people instructed us that in the identical sentence, they cried and laughed.”
That tone is why they wrote it themselves. “We have now a sure rhythm and a sure tone, and that’s why we didn’t use any ghostwriters,” Matthew mentioned. “Gunnar took a chapter, I took a chapter. For as a lot as folks noticed us on MTV, once we seemed like scorching Swedish chicks, they actually didn’t know what made us tick. I believe it answered that query.”
The humour begins on the again cowl. “You all the time have the superlatives on the again cowl that individuals are studying within the airport,” Gunnar mentioned. “In distinction, on our again cowl, the primary quote is: ‘I used to be married to their father. I’m not impressed. — Mother.’”
Gunnar’s favorite half is Chapter 45. “The title of the chapter is ‘All the Issues We Should Say About Our Ex-Wives,’ and it’s three clean pages,” he mentioned. “I do know that everyone upsells and stuff, however severely, it’s totally different, man. You’re going to have a good time, I promise.”
The guide is out there on Amazon, and the brothers additionally recorded the audiobook themselves. Followers hoping to purchase a duplicate at Fallsview ought to plan forward, although. Bringing merchandise throughout the border is a trouble. “We get the total cavity search once we need to deliver merch throughout the border,” Gunnar joked. Matthew recommended ordering it forward of time: “In case you order one on Amazon, we’d be blissful to signal it.”
A Canadian connection
In August 2016, the brothers performed the CNE Bandshell in Toronto performing Ricky Nelson Remembered and threw in a few Nelson tunes, together with (Can’t Reside With out Your) Love and Affection. When the tune completed, they instructed the gang that Canadian band Platinum Blonde is a giant inspiration to them they usually used to have their album Standing Within the Darkish on repeat. They mentioned the album was an inspiration to them and had helped form After the Rain.
“(Platinum Blonde singer) Mark Holmes was within the viewers while you noticed us,” Matthew mentioned. “We didn’t realize it. He was there with you while you had been seeing that present.”
“We had no thought,” Gunnar added. “Fairly cool, man. I simply love Platinum Blonde. I assumed that was so cool. ‘Standing within the Darkish’ and all that.”
The twins are additionally massive followers Niagara Falls’ personal Honeymoon Suite. Gunnar known as singer Johnnie Dee “badass” and mentioned guitarist Derry Grehan is “simply such an excellent man.”
The twins mentioned they’d like to do a tour package deal that includes Nelson, Platinum Blonde and Honeymoon Suite. “It could be so good to tour with these two bands in Canada, simply to go throughout Canada, the three of us,” Matthew mentioned. “What a very good tour that may be!”
When requested if they’d ever attempt to set one thing up, Gunnar replied, “We’re gonna attempt. I believe that’d be wonderful. Why not?”
Canadian promoters, take observe.
Nonetheless dwelling the dream
The brothers aren’t slowing down. A brand new Nelson album is due in February on Frontiers Data. “It’s an excellent report,” Gunnar mentioned. “And we haven’t stop, man. We like it.”
Additionally they picked up an entire new viewers final yr. Nelson had been featured within the 2025 season finale of HBO Max’s Peacemaker, an episode titled “Full Nelson,” performing “To Get Again To You” whereas John Cena’s Peacemaker watched from the gang. Collection creator James Gunn additionally directed the tune’s music video, which makes use of footage from the episode.
They’ll put the arena-rock gear away for a bit after they attain Niagara, although, and spend per week in October with their dad’s songs, his set record, and the outdated household footage. Each evening is totally different, Matthew mentioned, and that’s nonetheless the attraction after 1000’s of exhibits.
“Right here we’re, over 40 years later, nonetheless making music, nonetheless writing books, nonetheless enjoying exhibits and having a good time,” Gunnar added. “We’re actually dwelling the dream.”
Going by this dialog, Grandma Harriet was proper: for Matthew and Gunnar Nelson, it has by no means been the leisure enterprise. It’s the connection enterprise.
Ricky Nelson Remembered with Matthew and Gunnar Nelson performs eight exhibits on the Avalon Theatre, Fallsview On line casino Resort, Niagara Falls, Ontario, October 14-18, 2026. CLICK HERE for more information and tickets.
What Occurred To Your Hair?! is out there on Amazon in print and as an audiobook they narrate themselves.
CONNECT with Matthew & Gunnar Nelson | NELSON – Web site | Fb | Instagram | YouTube | Ricky Nelson Remembered
