JONAS BROTHER'S DREAM STORY (added
2005)
I
got the pleasure of listening to the new CD by the Jonas Brothers.
Their music is upbeat and fun to listen to by the pool, at the
beach, etc. Their voices really sound awesome together.
Here is their story...
It's no wonder since the boys' influences include
an eclectic mix of artists ranging from the Ramones to the Jackson
5 to the Modern Lovers--all purveyors of tight, catchy anthems.
After recently wrapping up a summer tour with Jesse McCartney,
the Backstreet Boys and the Click Five, the Jonas boys got hooked
on the rush of bringing a crowd to its feet (and didn't mind signing
autographs for the throngs of excited fans waiting for them after
each show). One thing is for sure, the Jonas Brothers are all
ready to keep the momentum going strong. "We go crazy on
stage!," says Kevin. "It's so much fun!"
Music always played a major part in the brothers'
lives growing up in Wyckoff, New Jersey. Their parents are both
musicians, so gathering around the piano for sing-alongs was an
essential part of regular family bonding, yet each brother found
his own musical calling in a different way.
The oldest, Kevin, who plays guitar and sings backing
vocals, was home sick one day when he found a guitar and a "Teach
Yourself Guitar" book lying around the house. "I spent
the next three days learning how to play the basic chords,"
Kevin remembers. "That was about four years ago."
Nicholas, who shares lead vocals with Joseph in
the group, began singing as soon as he could talk. "From
the time I was two years old, I would wake up in the morning and
start singing all the time, every second of the day," he
says. Nicholas, whose voice has been compared to that of previous
prodigies Stevie Wonder and Taylor Hanson, was "discovered"
singing while getting his hair cut in a local barbershop. His
poignant voice caught the attention of a woman in the shop who
immediately referred him to a professional show business manager.
Before long, Nicholas was performing on Broadway in shows like
"Annie Get Your Gun," "Beauty and the Beast"
and "Les Misérables.
Joseph's original plan, however, was slightly different
than his brothers. He first dreamed of becoming a comedian and
wanted to audition for sketch comedy shows. "But I was always
attached to music and loved listening to different kinds of music,
especially rock," he says. "And then I watched Nick
on Broadway and I decided I wanted to sing and perform too."
Following in his younger brother's footsteps, it didn't long for
Joseph to land a role in Baz Luhrmann's Broadway production of
"La Bohème."
Before forming their band, the Jonas Brothers had
appeared together in a series of commercials for Burger King,
LEGOS, Battle Bots and Clorox--to name just a few. But as time
went on, they found themselves spending more and more time down
in their basement, writing songs and practicing together as a
band.
Meanwhile, Daylight/Columbia Records, after hearing
Nicholas' incredible voice, began planning a solo record with
him. And then fate intervened….
Nicholas and his brothers began submitting songs that they'd written
together with the intention of having them appear on Nicholas'
solo album. When the label became aware that Nicholas had musically
talented siblings, a group performance was arranged. After a spectacular
group audition was held for the label, the direction was clear.
"All three of us were signed pretty much on the spot as the
Jonas Brothers," Kevin says.
For the Jonas boys, the real fun began as they
combined their musical abilities to write and record their debut
album together, quickly realizing how lucky they were to have
each other for both personal and professional inspiration. "It's
awesome to have my brothers on stage and in the studio with me,"
explains Nicholas. "You have a security that everything is
going to be okay, even when you mess up."
As Kevin puts it, "It feels like the most
natural thing we could be doing. When we write a song we get in
a triangle. I start playing the chords that we've chosen over
and over and then we'll keep going around in a
circle until we have figured out the lyrics for our song."
They're all particularly proud of their vocal chemistry
as well. "Nicholas is the powerhouse vocal," says Joseph.
"He's just got this young, soulful voice that catches everyone's
ear."
"Joseph just has this really cool, smooth
rock voice," Nicholas points out. "He really knows how
to get the crowd going. Kevin is the one that holds us all together.
Joseph and I are the singers and we take turns on keyboards, and
percussion, but Kevin mostly plays the guitar and that's the part
of the group that we need--he's the glue that keeps it together."
Joseph sees them all collaborating for years to
come. "We're brothers so it's not like if we got upset at
each other that we can be like, 'Well I quit.' They're still my
brothers. We love to do this and we know we're going to keep doing
for a very long time."
For It's About Time, the brothers had the chance
to learn from the best by collaborating with some of the most
accomplished writers in the industry including Adam Schlesinger
(Fountains of Wayne), Michael Mangini (Joss Stone), Desmond Child
(Aerosmith, Bon Jovi), Billy Mann (Jessica Simpson, Destiny's
Child) and Steve Greenberg (Joss Stone, Hanson). The Grammy-winning
duo of Greenberg and Mangini, fresh off their success with Joss
Stone's two acclaimed albums, produced It's About Time, drawing
on the Jonas Brothers' unpretentious garage rock sound and affinity
for hooky 70's British punk
records.
Inspiration for the group's songs comes directly
from the boys' personal experiences--from the highs and lows of
dating to being on the road to
having been given the opportunity to follow their dreams at such
a young age. "A lot of it is about typical teenage love stuff
like 'Oh, what am I going to do if I can't see her today?' It's
not stuff that we don't know about," says Nicholas.
"There's been heartbreaks and there's been
crushes so we know how it feels and can write about it,"
explains Kevin, but overall, the songs of the Jonas Brothers celebrate
the joy of living and encourage people to feel good. "The
album is meant to get people up and have fun and raise their energy,"
says Joseph.
"We decided to call the album It's About Time,"
Nicholas reveals, "because so many of our songs seem to deal
with different aspects of time." Kevin continues the explanation
of the concept, "There's '6 Minutes,' which is about how
quickly you can run through the full range of emotions when you
feel strongly about someone you just met. There's '7:05,' about
etching in your memory the exact time a relationship ended, and,
well, the list goes on."
Songs on the album that stand out for the boys
include their tune "Time
For Me to Fly," a catchy, fast track that is about "following
our dream of making music" according to Kevin. "The
song is about us working hard, playing music every night and trying
to make things happen."
One of the more personal tracks on the record is
the first single, "Mandy," which is about a girl that
their mother, a sign language teacher, taught to sign so that
she could pursue her dream of working with the hearing impaired.
Nicholas, Joseph and Kevin each formed a special friendship with
Mandy. "We were writing songs one day and decided we wanted
to write about something really nice--so we wrote a song about
Mandy," recalls Nicholas. "She's the nicest girl you
will ever meet. She knows what you're thinking all the time."
"Don't Tell Anyone," one of the more
emotional songs on the record, is about liking someone but not
being able to admit it. "One Day At A Time" talks about
how minutes seem like days after you find yourself on the wrong
end of a breakup. "That's probably the darkest song on the
album," says Kevin.
For now the brothers are just relishing in the experience of having
other
people hear their music live and making new fans one city at a
time while they are on the road. "We've known for a while
how it felt to be on stage, but we never knew how it would feel
to have people love music that we've written and which we both
play and sing. It's very gratifying when fans come up
to us after shows and tell us how much they relate to our songs,"
says Joseph.
"We all have such passion for what
we do and for our band," explains Kevin.
Nicholas adds, "It's crazy that one day I
was singing Backstreet Boys songs in my basement--and just last
week there I was onstage with them!! Our dreams have really come
true and we're just so lucky."
- Enter
the Jonas Brothers CD Giveaway
- Jonas
Brothers
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