The Deadbolt Interview - From the Grammys and 3D to Jonas TV with the Jonas Brothers

From the Grammys and 3D to Jonas TV with the Jonas Brothers
by Jordan Riefe

The Jonas Brothers are quickly learning the ropes of the music business as their stars continue to soar. At the 2009 Grammy Awards, the Jonas trio of Joe, Kevin, and Nick got a lesson on how to share the stage with a legend when they performed with the great Stevie Wonder. With the Grammy ceremony in their musical rear-view mirror, the Jonas Brothers aren't slowing down as the boys are taking their talents to the worlds of film and television. Joe, Kevin, and Nick will soon be lighting up the big screen with The Jonas Brothers 3D Concert Experience on February 27 before settling into the Disney Channel line-up in May 2009 for their own TV series, Jonas, which also stars Chelsea Staub and Nicole Anderson.

Leapfrogging from the recording studio to the Grammy stage to their 3D Experience and then their Disney Channel Jonas series, the brothers are also planning an upcoming tour to keep the Jonas train alive. 2009 looks to be a busy year for one of the most popular young music acts in the business.

To promote their upcoming Jonas series on the Disney Channel, the Jonas Brothers recently took part in a press conference on the ABC/Disney Winter Press Tour where we got to hear Joe, Kevin, and Nick talk about how they're handling fame, what it's like to be famous, their upcoming 3D Experience, what fans can expect from them in their upcoming Disney series, and how they're putting an end to the rumors that the brothers are going solo.

You guys spent the summer on tour. Did you guys find it a hard adjustment to have a set schedule and not being on tour every night and performing in front of hundreds and thousands of fans?

JOE JONAS: It definitely was weird for us to switch our brains because we're so used to staying up late when we're on stage, and this is kind of like waking up early. But it was fun. It's been really cool, and it definitely is a big change for us.

Are you guys stressed trying to have a normal life, as it would indicate you are in the series?

KEVIN JONAS: No. We have an amazing team around us, amazing friends. Our cast is incredible. These guys over here are pretty cool. No, but we have an amazing family and friends, and we're just like normal guys. We like to hang out. We go shopping. We hang out with friends. We go see movies. But we just work a lot at the same time, but we love it.

All your work with Disney is so kid-friendly, yet you still have a pretty cool image. Why do you think that is?

NICK JONAS: I think, for us, we're just trying to do our best to have fun in everything that we do, and working with great people always helps, too.

You guys have had such tremendous success in the last couple of years, but there was that whole thing with Columbia Records. Why didn't it work there? Why is it working with Disney and it didn't work about Columbia?

NICK JONAS: I think, like we said before, just about working with the right people. And I think we found a real home with Hollywood Records and our partnership with Disney. It just feels right. And I think we can all agree that ever since we moved over to Hollywood and started working with Disney, that things have just been a really amazing experience, and we've had a great time in everything that we've done.

How do you think your music speaks to this generation? Because, obviously, you've captured their pulse.

JOE JONAS: I think, for us, we write about things that are real to us and the things we go through every day. And we're also -- we're the same age as a lot of the people that listen to our music, and they're going through the same things. So I guess -- we get a lot of feedback from fans saying just thank you either for encouragement, or they understand what we're going through so -- they're going through the same kind of things.

You've got a kid who plays your younger brother on the show.

JOE JONAS: Yes.

That's not your real-life younger brother?

JOE JONAS: He is.

NICK JONAS: He is.

He is? Okay. He's just not the star of the show, like you guys.

KEVIN JONAS: Oh, he's quite the star. [laughs]

NICK JONAS: He's the little star of the show.

So is it fun having your younger brother [around]? He's quite a bit younger than you.

JOE JONAS: He's seven ... eight now.

KEVIN JONAS: Eight.

JOE JONAS: He just had a birthday. And you know, it's cool for him because, for us, we didn't know how he would do, and he surprises us every day how well he does when he comes in every day. And he's in and out, and he finishes so quickly. And it's a lot of fun. We're so used to doing music that this gives us a great opportunity to have acting and music involved. And it's an easy transition for us because we're natural musicians, but acting is something that's totally different for us. And going into it, we were pretty nervous. We weren't sure how we would do. We did "Camp Rock," but doing a television series, we didn't know exactly how it would roll out. It's been a lot of fun. And it's just a great opportunity so far.

Could you talk about your favorite and most challenging scene so far?

NICK JONAS: Good question. There's an episode, episode 104, called "The Wrong Song," which is an episode about a girl who is also an artist, and I kind of have this romance going on. And I don't know that she has a show coming up where she thinks that the song that I wrote for her, as in wrote because of her, is not actually for her to sing at her show. And there was a couple fun and challenging scenes in that one.

JOE JONAS: Mm-hmm.

NICK JONAS: And I really, really like that episode a lot.

KEVIN JONAS: I think with our cast, with Chelsea and Nicole, they add so much to what we're doing. And it's really so much fun when we're all in scenes together. Each day we walk in with a whole new excited, you know, atmosphere on set because everyone knows that the scripts are going to be amazing and fun. We're in the midst of one right now that I don't think I've laughed that hard ever at a table read in my entire life. We we're just really blessed to do this because we know we are living so many people's dreams. But then to be able to work with such amazing people is awesome as well.

NICK JONAS: I think for us, too, the fact that the three of us are still very new actors, and so just to be given the opportunity to act, because it is something that we'd love to get into. And I know we're musicians and stuff, but it's an amazing opportunity. We're just thankful to be able to be on a single-camera show where we can try again when we ...

JOE JONAS: Have chances to mess up.

NICK JONAS: Just want to thank everybody over at Disney Channel, Gary, for giving us the opportunity to be able to do this. We're having a lot of fun.

So many kids today say they want to be famous. What don't they realize about being famous?

NICK JONAS: I think a lot of people, a lot of our fans come up to me and say, "I'm a songwriter. I want to be a musician one day." And that's what I love to hear, when somebody says, "I want to be a musician," "I want to be an artist," "I want to be an actor," as opposed to "I want to be a famous person." I think when you really are whole-hearted about what you do in life - and as a musician, I'm very whole-hearted about it, and I've always strived to be the best I can be, and that's the attitude you should have.

JOE JONAS: I think it's always - we always tell them, "Live to your dreams, because things are going to come that ... it may not work out right away like you hope." And just like us, when things didn't work out with the record label.

NICK JONAS: We got dropped.

JOE JONAS: ... and we got dropped and we were sitting there, kind of wondering if things would ever take off, and our management and our dad, they stuck by us and threw us, you know, an abandoned trailer. And so it was -- there was tough times, but we tell people live to those dreams because if you stick to it and you really work hard, eventually there will be a great payoff.

You are doing your movie in 3-D. And you were in Miley's 3-D. Is there any difference between you being the star of this one instead of being featured?

NICK JONAS: We were honored to be a part of Miley's movie. It was a great success. And then to be asked by Disney to do our own was so exciting. I think we had some real ideas while we were creating our stage and our tour of what we wanted to see. We were able to see the first one in 3-D and saw what certain things looked like, and we're just saw our movie. And it really looks amazing. We’re excited for people to go see it. The cool part about it is it's better than front-row seats because you feel like you're on the stage, and you feel like you're behind the scenes with us. It gets some really personal things in there too. There's this one scene in particular where it captures all the things that we went through in Time Square in New York City on our album release night, which was one of the craziest scenes.

JOE JONAS: In our lives.

NICK JONAS: And I think it's the only footage in the world of it, so it's kind of something that means a lot to us and I hope it will mean a lot to other people as well.

JOE JONAS: I think for us our favorite part about it is, for me especially, like, is not the stuff that's on stage, like he said. It's all the stuff behind the scenes. If it's us traveling with our family or if it's us having fun backstage with our band, it's just really a lot of funny things, and we're really excited for people to see it. Really proud of it.

Since you guys are always together, do you guys ever fight?

JOE JONAS: We get that question a lot. Surprisingly, we don't fight that much. I guess we've been trying to figure out why we don't fight.

KEVIN JONAS: Someone said, "You don't have time to fight." Yeah.

JOE JONAS: It might be because we have a different respect for each other. Being in a band, we know we can't get on stage and start throwing mic stands at each other.

NICK JONAS: We could, but it wouldn't be very good.

JOE JONAS: It would be on YouTube. And we decided we might as well do this and enjoy it and have fun and have respect for each other.

Out of the three of you, which of you has found it the hardest to act, and which of you is hardest on your performance?

NICK JONAS: I think I'll take both of those. I'm kind of a perfectionist in a way. I'm very hard on myself when it comes to acting, and that kind of goes hand-in-hand with your first question which is who found it the hardest to act. Not finding it too hard, I guess, but just finding kind of, as funny as it sounds, my personality in this all and kind of the humor that I can find in it. Trying to capture my own personal sense of humor. In real life, it's very dry humor. But sometimes I can't quite master that on camera. Like I said, I'm still learning, and I'm just enjoying every minute of it.

NICK JONAS: I think for all of us, we're real big on making YouTube videos, and Roger and Michael have always said they would like to incorporate that part of our humor into this as well. So far we've done a really good job in doing that and kind of incorporating ourselves in the script, and it's going really well.

Can you tell what your fans can expect from your upcoming tour? And also if you can address rumors that one of you might go solo.

JOE JONAS: Solo, I don't think so. Unless you guys want to lay it out here.

NICK JONAS: No.

KEVIN JONAS: Rumors are always something with us. There's always something new, like, you know, I just joined a wrestling club in Asia is a new one.

JOE JONAS: You're serious?

KEVIN JONAS: Yeah.

JOE JONAS: That's just awesome.

KEVIN JONAS: I know. I'm really excited about it.

JOE JONAS: What our fans can expect from our upcoming tour, obviously music and a lot of fun. We've been planning out the tour right now, and we're going to do the same kind of major cities that we hit on our last summer tour. We're going to try and do a world tour. We're going to try to go to a lot of places that we've never been, and we're writing a lot of new songs for our new record that we're going to release on Hollywood Records, and we're really excited about it.

You mentioned gossip and rumors. How do you handle that? It's been crazy this year for you.

KEVIN JONAS: You just roll with it. You just go, you know what's true. You kind of laugh about it. I guess it's an honor that they're talking about you. Sometimes it's not about the greatest things, but sometimes they're talking.

JOE JONAS: And sometimes comedians will make jokes about you at an award show and you kind of have to laugh it off because that's their job. It's kind of flattering. It's like, wow, they used me as their prop. It's pretty cool.

Do you guys consider yourselves role models for your fans? And if so, how do you live up to that responsibility?

NICK JONAS: I think we consider ourselves normal guys who are doing our best every day to make our mom proud, and that's what we've been saying from the beginning. Live like you're at the bottom even if you're at the top. For us that just means stay humble and do your best every day. We're not saying we're perfect. Nobody's perfect, but we're doing our best.

I'm sure you've scene American Idol. What are your thoughts, and have you ever wondered how you would do on a show like that?

NICK JONAS: I always thought they should make, like, an American Idol Idol so all the American Idol’s go together and compete against each other. I think that would be a lot of fun. I would definitely watch that.

KEVIN JONAS: If you really want to get scary, bring just regular artists out there, like all the artists and get them judged by everybody, or is that called the Internet? [laughs]

I am wondering if you guys watched any of the old television shows where you have musicians like The Partridge Family or going back to what we said, The Monkees or anything before you started filming?

KEVIN JONAS: Absolutely. We were actually on vacation one year, and were out by a beach when a storm came in, so it was just raining for three days. So the only thing on the TV was reruns of The Monkees?

JOE JONAS: We watched every episode.

KEVIN JONAS: For literally three days straight.

JOE JONAS: It was awesome.

KEVIN JONAS: It was amazing. And definitely watched those, The Partridge Family. Definitely, of course, we've seen the Beatles' movies - a huge inspiration. I think for us we're really excited to incorporate our music as well into this process, and that adds a whole other element for us because that's where our original passion is, as Nick said, in our heart. To combine those two things is really, really exciting.

How do you have time for yourselves, for your emotions, to help with your writing, anything like that?

NICK JONAS: I think what's really interesting about this TV show is the schedule. We will come in at 7 a.m. every morning and work to about 7. So we do have the evenings to go home and have dinner with the family. If we have to go to the studio, go to the studio. Time to kind of think and be with our family, be with each other. If we do need time to just relax, we have that time too.

So the show somewhat parallels your life a tiny bit. I'm wondering if in any of the shots might we catch something on set that belongs to you guys personally that you wanted to add to it? And might there be more opportunities to have more fans in future episodes?

KEVIN JONAS: That would definitely be something that we would want to have happen with our fans to be a part of it. Everything we do, we want our true fans to be there, because they have given us all these opportunities. Without them, we wouldn't be here today, so we definitely owe that to them. All the clothes you see and the things like that on the show, Michelle Tomaszewski, our stylist, is doing the show as well. So you see those different aspects. I think something that is very personal to us is we go to a school that definitely has a uniform that we have to wear at school every day. But each day that same uniform is altered, of course by her, to make it for ourselves. So each one has something new every single day, every episode, and that is different than anybody else in the school, but it's still the uniform.

That brings out our own personal styles, and I think that's what is really cool about this thing is they really took those moments and took those things and built it. And especially our room, actually, in the television show. They built a room that has the three different sections. One's for Joe. One's for me, and one's for Nick, and each one has our individual tastes. For example, me, I can't sleep in anything but a tour bus bunk bed. When I hit a button, you hear the horns and the flashing and everything, and it looks like I'm on a tour bus just because that's where I'm comfortable, and they built that into the wall. And Nick has a bed that has a drum set. It comes down on top of his bed. It's amazing. And Joe's looks like a stage.

-- Jordan Riefe