Joe Jonas Talks New Single, "Work It Out"

Joe Jonas stops by to talk about his new single, "Work It Out" and his new album due out this October!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Live from the Mercedes Benz Interview Lounge.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Joe Jonas is here.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
Today is the day, Friday, July nineteenth, the release of
work It Out.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's out today.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
What a song. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
It feels good to sing a song, to be back
here with you guys. What's good to have you here,
just like home.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
It's good to have you here without those other two.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah, I'm glad the other guys are not here.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, I know, screwed up. I heard you, so I'm
going to play work it Out in a minute.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Of course, it's no secret that at one point this
song could have been a song for all of you,
or a song for Dnce even and I heard that.
Nick actually thought, oh, this is our new song, and
You're like, what was that conversation in life?

Speaker 1 (00:45):
So technically it was a different song. But the story
goes when we were working probably four or five months
ago for More Brothers Music. I started working with this
guy Alexander twenty three, producer musician Justin Tranner, who I
wrote Kick by the Ocean with, and another writer Bo
and we worked in a song called only Love, and
that song I just felt so close to and I

(01:08):
couldn't really find out. I couldn't figure out why. I
felt like it wasn't right for the brothers and it
wasn't right for DNC, and I kind of selfish. It
was like, I want to create something. I have a
lot to say. I don't feel comfortable with other people
being the voice of these songs. So I kind of
had to sit down. Nick was gonna go do a
movie with Paul Rudd, Kevin got another season claiming fame,
and then I was like, hey, and I also been

(01:30):
wanting to write some music. You guys cool with that,
and I want to take that song you really like
And Nick was like, well, damn, I really like that song.
But fine. So that started the kind of journey for
me to kind of create a new album. So there's
no vicious fight over a song. Oh there was a
vicious I mean it was a lot of blood. Okay,
there's a reason they're out here.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
But you know what, we go through these different chapters
in our lives where we have the challenges, we have
the great things in the sad things, the scary things,
and at those times I wish we all had songwriting capabilities.
I wish we could all sit down and do an
album and obviously this album is a very personal thing.
It comes at an interesting time in your life. And

(02:08):
I'm just reading over some of the things you've said
in other interviews about how you wake up and to go, Okay,
if I don't start controlling my life now, it's going
to be like craziness forever. And so you came to
this point in your life where this album is sort
of reflecting that in your life.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Definitely, I mean, it's very therapeutic for me, and I
agree with you. I'm so grateful that I have music
as such like a tool to be able to use
as an output. I mean, obviously I think therapy is
great and talking to somebody's great friends, family, but ultimately
as creators that we can put pen to paper and

(02:47):
feel like we can release it and sometimes share it
with the world, sometimes just keep it for yourself, and
it's like, great, I needed to do that for myself
and for athletes is going to run. For myself, I'm
so happy that I have music. And you know, the
last year doing our tour, seventy plus songs each night
or sixty I think sixty nine, so nice songs. There

(03:08):
was a lot of times where I was I would
go through the setlist and I'm like, God, I really
don't want to play this one. But then you perform
it and see how it affects somebody in the audience,
and like, how lucky am I that I get to
do this for almost twenty some years. There you go
and I get to make people feel something, whether if
it's emotional or you realize, wow, that's their song that
got them through that difficult time. So I wanted to
create something that was like, look, if this helps somebody
else through what they're going through, great and work it out.

(03:31):
Is essentially that it's the idea of a conversation you
can have with yourself in the mirror where you're like, look,
no one's gonna come save you from me what you're
going through. You got to shake it off yourself and
figure this out. And then it's kind of explaining it
to other people and saying, all right, I've gone through it,
maybe I can help you along the way, and like
a pop rock fun way that you don't really realize
what you're listening to.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
When there are heavy lyrics, so like poppy music.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
I mean, some of my favorite songs of all time
are are really heavy lyrics. With happy music, and until
you I sect them, you don't really understand that.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Sometimes you write a song or an artist. An artist
will write a song and it really is I got
to get this out of my system, and it really
is just kind of lashing out of the whole world
about how I hate people.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
I just I just need to.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
And they performed these songs at their concerts, thinking I
just crapped all over our audience emotionally, just once again,
and I'm getting away with it and they're clap.

Speaker 5 (04:21):
Have you ever written one? And you're like, yeah, this
one I'm not going to release, and like, I'm just
gonna keep this one under my pillow from me.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yes, you know, that's funny you say that. There was
a song I was thinking about recently and I played
for some of the record labels that are in the hallway,
and this is years ago, and I was going through
something and I wrote this song just like I was like, ah,
I was really angry about a situation and I was like,
what do you guys think, And they're like, well, it's cool.
I don't know if you'll want to have this released
in like or have to be thinking about this in

(04:47):
a year. And I was like, you know, you're right. Yeah,
I'm like, you don't want to create an enemy out
of something that you know. At the end of the day,
it was for me and that's what I have, and
I'm like, I'm happy I created it, but I don't
feel like sometimes it's necessary for to be out there.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Maybe next album, huh right, next album.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
Joe Jonas here has his music to you know, as
his therapy and in his cathartic moments.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
What do we have? I've got nothing. You've got Gandhi
has our artwork.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yes, that's great.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
What do you have?

Speaker 5 (05:16):
I feel like when I'm pissed off, I put music
on it and just like dance to it.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
But what do you Okay? So that's how you get
it out? I know you. This is why I'm fed up.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
Man. I need something other than eating, you know, and
for a walk with your dogs alone. That alone probably
about reading.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
I like to read, horn drinking. It's all good.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Otherwise of therapy, little hooker hookers and blow it's okay,
I'm all good.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Now that's the name of your hit song.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
I should show more gratitude for these things. Anyway. So
you've been out on the road and continue to be
on the road with your.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Brother pretty much are doing shows on the weekends, but
after what we just did, it feels like a walk
in the park. To be honest. We'd played the Calgary
Stampede last weekend and wild, well, didn't your debut work
it out at that show? I did, yeah, which is
funny because on paper you're like, this is gonna be sick.
You get to the stage and the stage is like
pretty barren, so you're like, all right, which I found

(06:10):
myself wanting to jump in the audience. But luckily, the
crowd is all drinking all day because it's a Stampede,
and they're all in cowboy hats and cowboy boots and
they're having a blast. So I was like, this is
the perfect audience for a performance like this, and it was.
It's always a little nerve wrecking playing something new, you know.
I feel like there's that that moment where you're on

(06:31):
stage and you realize I really hope you get the idea.
You're like, this is great, I really want to performance.
You get up there and they don't know this. They
happen to know a more lyrics and expected from just
like even TikTok. You know, you you sample some of
the song and there they learn it, which is kind
of crazy, but was a rodeo. It's a technically a stampede,
not a rodeo. I don't know the difference, but the difference.

(06:51):
So there's like one hundred thousand people that show up
for this all most of Canada goes and it's like
a week long thing, a lot of different performers. We
had a lot of chicken wings and beer. It was great.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
So the album Music for People who Believe in Love
is coming out when October nineteenth. Okay, right, And so
going back to something you said earlier about the song
that will never be released and your guys said, hey,
in a year from now, I've.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Got a couple of those.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yes, Okay.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
There's the whole point when someone writes an album and
produces an album that's really about your life where it
was at that moment in time, and when it's all
released and said and done, you're a new person. Maybe
you've moved on a really good point. This one came
about pretty fast, though it.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Did come pretty fast. I mean, I feel like it's
interesting to say that I feel like part of this
body of work. I was listening back to I played
it short a friend yesterday, the guy that we created
What a Man Got to Do, actually the Brothers. I
was doing a song with him yesterday and I played
in the whole album and he was like, Oh wow,
it's really interesting because I feel like the genre wise,

(07:53):
it's kind of like all over the place, but it's cohesive.
And I was like, that's perfect. This exactly what I want.
I feel like in the place of my life, I
wasn't sure like who I was. I was quite like
on a journey. At one point, I was like, maybe
I'll just go live in the desert. Maybe I'll just
I don't know. I went on a road trip and
I was just finding myself listening to a lot of
like country Western music, and so there's a lot of
different kind of types of music that you're gonna hear
on the body of work. And I feel like it's

(08:14):
important for I guess listeners of any artists, you go
like this is where they were at. They might be
now six months removed, two years removed from when they
release it, but you almost are able to put on
your thinking cap and put them into the hot seat
of like this is where I was emotionally personally, it
was confusing and I was trying to figure out who
I am and kind of getting to know myself again,

(08:35):
and here I am. So it's it's exciting. And also
I think probably my favorite thing, and this is more
features on this project than I think any any Brothers
or solo stuff we've done. I think there's about seven
or eight features on this album, which is wild. I
reached out to a lot of friends and just said, hey, like,
I'm a fan and I would love to send you

(08:55):
a song if you're interested. So I can't wait for
people to see and hear who's on this.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Gonna hold that information back until the release of the album.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
I get intro every time you do an interview because
I say something too early. But I don't mind. I
think I think it's exciting. I mean, there's there's some
that have been already kind of rumored because you how
easy it is.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
I was rumored it was rumored.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
See, I just want to say, the biggest artists in
the world, so people get the album, Beyonce start that.
I think the there's a Brazilian artist, Louisa Songs. I'm
a big fandom. Okay, you may or may not hear
on this album. Okay, that'd be funny. If we don't, I.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Can keep just see. I could do this all day.
You can play this a stupid game all day.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
We start saying like comedians, magicians, Carot Talk performs, Gordon ramsay,
it's awesome.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Is it hard to let go of a song?

Speaker 5 (09:47):
Like once you record it and it's done and you
do the collab or you do whatever, and then you've
listened back and you're like, yeah, I think it's ready.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
It's ready for release. It's a great question. We we
say this a lot. People have been like, you've made
this in like two weeks, and I was like, well,
I had the studio for two weeks, but probably similar
to a film or TV show, you edit until the
last second. Yeah, And I found that I'm happy to
kind of walk away. I mean, I feel like I
don't want to overthink it too. I can like release

(10:15):
it and feel comfortable. Now. The producers might say something differently,
but I feel like, once it's ready, it's ready.

Speaker 4 (10:22):
So I know you said that it is definitely therapy
for you.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:25):
Is it therapy performing it a year down the road
or is it more like trauma lived again, that's a great.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Question as well. I had a conversation with an amazing
artist recently. I won't say names because I don't want
to put them on blest, but it's a great story.
They were mentioning a song that they kind of at
some point in their career, they felt it was difficult
to perform. They're just like, I don't feel attached to
the song anymore. I perform it every night. It's everyone's
favorite song, but I feel like I've grown as an artist,
which arguably most people do, and especially for me and

(10:54):
my brothers. We play songs that we wrote when we
were like fifteen years old, and we're saying things in
the song that we're like, oh, like we're talking about
We're talking about like things that don't even really exist anymore,
like AOL chat. Like there's things on in jonahs of
the songs that are just you know, you age out of.
And I think, what we what we've grown, What I've

(11:16):
grown to learn from that experience. This artist, one of
their favorite artists, looked at them and said, oh, this
song is not yours anymore. You have to you have
to realize that that's theirs, and they deserve the audience
deserves to have it in their favorite fashion, because a
lot of times I've gotten up there and changed songs
to sound a little bit like with the times of

(11:40):
the sound that's out there. It could be like updated,
or I'll do an electric electro version of the song.
And then you find you like the audience is sitting
there and I've gone to concerts where I'm like, just
play the song. I want to hear my song. And
so if you're able to kind of remind yourself and
take yourself out of that, at least for me, that
helped a lot playing some of these old Jonas songs
that I kind of rolled my eyes and went like,
all right, there we go. Now I'm like, I appreciate

(12:01):
it so much more because I see it's like, you
know what, that's their song, that's not mine anymore, and
I've got to give that song respect for them.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Of course.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
Is a song is called work it Out. It's out today.
We're going to play it for you in just a
few seconds. How was Greece?

Speaker 1 (12:13):
Oh my god, is my first time? That was amazing?
It is an incredible place. So much fish man. Now,
although aquaman doesn't eat.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Fish, I that.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Would not be right, that would be right. And I
eat enough fish to be coming up. That's not I
don't think I saw him eating fish.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
I loved it. It's so beautiful and so welcoming. We
we stayed. I stayed for like two weeks and I
had the best time. There's a big hotel opening out there,
and greet people party so hard and it's so fun,
I know.

Speaker 5 (12:51):
And they're also gorgeous out there.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
There are very pretty people. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
I love like we were in Meekins several years ago.
And of course you wake up at noon, you go
to the beach, you get home and you eat, and
you get home, you take a disco and app and
then you go out for dinner at eleven or twelve.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
I went to dinner. I was like, I couldn't hear
I couldn't hear anything. It was so loud. The music
is so loud.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
It's awesome.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
It was great. It's literally like.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Did you dance till the sun came up?

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Of course I did. Hair flip.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
It's nice, but you needed to get away. We need
these getaways.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
And even if you can't go to Greece, you can
do a weekend up the road with your friends at
their cabin or something just you gotta get away. Do
you find inspiration on a beach in grease eating fish
or is that your turn off? You don't want to
think about writing a song or where you're going.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
I agree with what you said. How it can be anywhere.
I mean it can be down to the Jersey Shore
if that's for you. I honestly for me, as like
somebody that needs that, loves to perform, loves to create,
I have to like go and find inspiration as well.
I feel like it's so important.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
And so the next album is about fish.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
Nice albums off fish.

Speaker 4 (13:55):
Yeah, no, boy, these are important things. Yeah, knocking with
you said something earlier out looking out of the crowd.
Was it called Canada Stampede? It's called Calgary Stampede.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
Okay, most of Canada was there and.

Speaker 4 (14:07):
Looking at the crowd and thinking maybe I should CrowdSurf.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
Do you CrowdSurf? That was terrifying. I've attempted it. Well,
that's the time. I think our audience was a little
young to when I was thinking about it them, I
was like, I know, this is the smartest idea, but
DNC days, Yeah, there was plenty of jumping in the
audience and getting wild, and now it's kind of fun
to I feel like there was a time when we
were performing, like during I guess COVID days, and it

(14:32):
felt like like, all right, you can't really there was
a reason you couldn't get in the audience. Now I'm like,
screw that. I want to be out there. I want
to be as close as I can. And so it's
always quite funny. I can always see my security look
at me and he's like he's like readyly about to
like like go for a run. He's like, are we
doing it? Are we doing it? But if there's an opportunity,
I mean, I feel like it's always so fun to
get closer to the audience as best as possible them

(14:56):
on me.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
So your backstage about to go out there announcing you
your first song, if it's the Brothers versus Dnce versus Solo,
are those three different show jonases that are about to
jump out on that stage or or there?

Speaker 2 (15:13):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, I understand what you're saying. I do feel like
there's maybe not persona is not the right word, but energy, Yeah,
different energies. I mean, yeah, like I think with DNC,
it's like we we lay it all out there, and
it's like, it's always so funny. Every time we look
at a setlist, it'll be like Cake by the Ocean
and then like this really soft, beautiful song, and I'm like,

(15:36):
I am so out of breath. So usually I'm like, like,
right after after out of breath. But to your point, yeah,
I feel like there is different energies, and especially with
this new album that I'm releasing, like there's a lot
of emotion attached to this, so it will be a
bit not somber. It's fun, there's a lot of Even
the first single it's it's it's an energetic tune, but
there are there's a lot of heart to it. So

(15:57):
I do have to put on a different thinking cap
or it's like putting on a character. And I enjoyed that.
I mean, grew up doing theater and I understand what
it's like to go to concerts and you want to
feel not only entertained, but like, how can you look
at a body of work and say, Okay, we want
to present this in the best way possible. So it's
been a lot of fun ideas about how to bring

(16:17):
this to life. And you know, take it on the road.
Maybe it would be fun.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
There we have it.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
We got to play the song. Of course, give me
the album release date again, October nineteenth. That's music for
people who believe in love. But today July nineteenth, Friday,
July nineteenth.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yes, we make it easy for me. I'm so badhood
dates that they just say nineteen to everything and I'm good.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Oh they're other saying that the date's wrong.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
See you said it.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Wait October eighteenth. Boy, thank god you're here.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
Wow late, there's still plenty of time changing it before
till eighteen October eighteenth.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
But today, Friday, July nineteenth, we gave you the first cut.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
Of course, work it out crazy.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Are you already writing your new album?

Speaker 1 (17:01):
It's it's pretty much done. No, yeah, we got like
thirteen songs. I mean no, no, no, not this new album,
the next album follow up? Yeah, yeah, one after that. Yes,
actually yes, really I'm working on more. And then I
was in this writing for a brother's album yesterday. So
just like, keep it going. I feel like at this place,
this point in our career with the guy, it's so

(17:23):
supportive and I'm so like I was on the phone
with Nick yesterday. It was really funny. He's like, hey,
I heard the podcast. Are you talking about that. I'm like, oh, yeah, were.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
You upset about what I said? He's like, no, no, no, no,
I thought.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
It was great. So I think it's so different as
adults were looking out for each other, but also like
we want to support. Like he's he's working on stuff constantly.
I'm working on stuff. Nick Heavin is two, and it's
it's nice to just keep the train moving. I mean,
there's there's some really exciting stuff we're doing for the
brothers and this project for solo stuff. I just I
don't think it's at this place in the music industry.

(17:53):
You just keep going. You don't have to like slow
down or take big breaks. So if you're inspired going
the studio, as.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
They say, don't start running because it'll catch up to you.
Keep going nice.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
That's scary, but I like it.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
It is frightening.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
We'll leave on that note. We'll leave a let down
our note. Thanks Elvis, Joe Jonas, this is work it out.
Thanks for coming in, Joe.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
You get someone's motive be griddled.

Speaker 5 (18:16):
Mois