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Joe Jonas: My Life As a Jonas Brother

By Joe Jonas

Joe
Jonas, photographed by Andreas Laszlo Konrath.

As told to Jennifer Vineyard.

To some extent, I was used to growing up in public. I was a pastors kid,

so eyes were always on me, even then. I sat in the first pew of the church,
and I had to wear a suit every Sunday, because my parents wanted me to be
this role model that I didnt always want to be. I preferred going to punkrock shows in small venues in New Jersey, where we grew up, wearing my
jean jacket and all my band pins. Thats how I fell in love with music, how I
became obsessed with it. Id stand there, watching the singer running
around the stage, owning the crowd. I didnt even notice whatever else was
happening onstage. All I could see was the singer.
But I had certain obligations at that age. If I ever didnt want to go to church
on Sunday, or when I was trying to figure out what religion I wanted to be,
or trying to understand spirituality, I would always have to deal with
knowing that people were looking up to me. We eventually left our church,
Assembly of God, when I was 14. A scandal had erupted involving stolen
money, and it caused a big rift in the church. After that the concept of
church really upset me for a long time. I mean, I believe in God, and thats a
personal relationship that I have, but Im not religious in any way.
I went to school until about seventh grade, before my parents decided to
homeschool us. I sucked at math. Was pretty good with science, and I was
great at music class. Big surprise. Music was always in the house. Our dad
could play just about anything, and we started picking up instruments
ourselves. When Nick was 7, he began singing everywherein the house, in
the hair salon even, which is where he was discovered.
We never really had an idea of making music together, but years later when
Nick was working on his debut album, Nicholas Jonas, Kevin and I
genuinely wanted to write with him. So we wrote a song together in the
living room called Please Be Mine, which we thought would just be for
Nick. But when our dad heard us, he said we should play it for David
Massey, who was A&R-ing Nicks project at the time. He had signed a lot of
brother bandsOasis, Good Charlotteand when we went in and sang the
song for him, he told us he wanted to sign us as a group.
We werent put together by some Svengali but were definitely thrown into
it. Especially Nick, who was only 12 (I was 15 and Kevin was 17), and he had
to make all these big decisions about whether he wanted to be in a band or
work solo or work with his brothers. Luckily, he was cool with working with
us.
It took about two years before we released our first record, Its About
Time, in 2006. We were working on it for so long, and our dad had to drive
us to the recording studio in the city every day. Ill never forget our first
concert: We were named J3and we hated the name. It felt like something
a boy band would be called. I remember turning to my brothers before that

show and saying, Do you want our name to be J3 for the rest of our lives?
When we got onstage, I was the one to announce to the crowd, Hey, were
the Jonas Brothers. Nice and simple.
For a few years, my two brothers, our father, our backup band, and I drove
around in a van from city to city, playing any venue that would have us
schools, churches, bat mitzvahswhile our mother stayed at home to take
care of our youngest brother, Frankie. Those early touring years were
rough. We opened up for the Veronicas, who had a club crowd, and we had
to prove to those crowds that we could really play. Show them that were
real musicians. It was always a struggle because every single night we were
walking into hate. Sometimes people flipped us off, threw water bottles at
us.
Everything completely changed when Disney entered the picture. They were
geared toward a younger market, and we had a younger audience, so we
started doing some Disney concerts, Disney Christmas concerts, and Disney
roller-coaster openings. Then we made a music video for a cover song that
we initially didnt want to do because we hadnt written it, called Year
3000, exclusively for Disney, which led them to start playing the song on
Radio Disney and the video on the Disney Channel. Before we knew it, our
fan base had exploded.
We went from an opening act to headliners, first in half-theaters, then full
theaters, then half-arenas to full arenas, all within a span of around six
weeks. Playing the Texas state fair in 2007 was a turning point. There were
40,000 people, and we needed to get a helicopter in order to make it to the
show because the traffic was so bad. I remember sitting in that helicopter,
flying over all those cars, and thinking, This is really happening.
Disney is great at creating fame. Theyve done it with so many pop stars and
young actors, from Hilary Duff to the High School Musical crew. Miley
Cyrus played an already-famous pop star on a Disney show, Hannah
Montana, and as we were starting to blow up, we got a boost by playing
ourselves, as her favorite band on her own show. That was definitely our
first major love shown by Disney, and I think it might have been a trial to
see whether they should give us a show of our own, and they did. We got a
sitcom called Jonas in which we played characters named Kevin, Joe, and
Nick Lucas, members of an already-famous band.
But the thing about the show was that some of the writing on it was terrible.
It just ended up being some weird slapstick humor that only a 10-year-old
would laugh at. They took out the kissing scene that Nick had. I had to
shave every day because they wanted me to pretend like I was 16 when I was
20 (when the show was done, I cut my hair off and grew as much of a beard
as I could). We went along with it at the time, because we thought Disney

was our only real shot, and we were terrified that it could all be taken away
from us at any moment.
Being a part of a company like that comes with certain expectations. Not
overtly, but there was a subtle vibe. We were working with Disney in 2007
when the Vanessa Hudgens nude-photo scandal happened. We heard that
she had to be in the Disney offices for a whole day because they were trying
to figure out how to keep her on lockdown. Wed hear execs talking about it,
and they would tell us that they were so proud of us for not making the
same mistakes, which made us feel like we couldnt ever mess up. We didnt
want to disappoint anyoneour parents, our fans, our employersso we
put incredible pressure on ourselves, the kind of pressure that no teenager
should be under.
We were just kids. Thats the reality. We were frightened little kids. So you
got all this responsibility thats foisted upon you and youre expected to be
perfect. I went through media training, and I hated it. Theyd teach you how
to change the subject, whenever you were asked an uncomfortable question,
by saying something like, Oh, that reminds me of my dog! I have a great
story about my dog! Playing dumb is the best way of getting out of
anything. We also had a strategy for who would take which kinds of
questions. If it was a serious question, Nick would answer it. If it was
lighthearted, Kevin would. Nick and I took questions related to our music
and explaining what certain songs meant. We even did a Good
Housekeeping story with our mom where we were wearing these horrible
pastels. It makes me cringe just to think about it.

Jonas
with fans in London at the premiere of Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience in 2009.

Disney made us more famous than we ever knew we could be. During
concerts, when wed want to play a new song or have an intimate moment,
the screaming could be so overwhelming that wed have to tell the crowd to
calm down and enjoy the moment. It could get scary, too: We did a meetand-greet in Spain, and like 100,000 people showed up and we ended up
being chased through a shopping mall. It felt like a zombie apocalypse.
There were the moments when Id walk into my hotel room only to find a
girl I didnt know standing there. For the record, we didnt have the
traditional rock-and-roll experience. We were kids working with Disney, so
finding a girl in our hotel room didnt feel like an open invitation. This isnt
1986, and Im not in a hair-metal band. It felt like a problem we had to solve
without it getting us into trouble. There was this time in South America
where a hotel staff member snuck his kid into my room. I dont know what
they were hoping would happen, but security showed her out.
People like to imagine what it would be like on a tour bus, and theyd ask us,
It must just be a party all the time! And definitely whenever we were oncamera, we were perceived as smiling and happy and upbeat, but there were
times when all I wanted to do was lie in bed.
The hard thing about dealing with out-of-control fans is that you dont want
to be the bad guy and you dont want to disappoint them, but sometimes
that ends up happening. There used to be this group of fans who liked to
camp outside our apartments in New York, and about a year ago, one of

them asked us for a photo in the morning, and I said hi to him, and later
that night, he was outside a restaurant that we had gone to with some
friends. That was not cool. It felt like he was following us. So we all got in
the car and he runs up, yelling through the window, Can I get your picture?
Please please please? I said, Look, man, Im usually nice to you about this,
but were just having a night to ourselves, and if you can respect that, Id
really appreciate it. He started bawling and ran off to his friends. Two days
later, its in the tabloids that I was rude to a fan and made him cry and
laughed in his face. Its funny, because I greet a ton of fans, but the one I
said no to ended up making news.
The topic that dominated news coverage of us for a long time was the whole
promise-ring thing. We couldnt escape it. It started when I was really
youngI must have been 10 or 11. Theres a program people do in some
churches called True Love Waits, where you wait for marriage to have sex.
Kevin and I decided to joinNick tried it later. Fast-forward a few years,
weve started playing music and were working with Disney and we have
these rings.
I remember this interview with this guy whose entire agenda was to focus
on the rings. He kept pushing the subject, and when we insisted that we
didnt want to talk about it, he told us, I can write whatever I want, which
terrified us. Thats the thing: We didnt know any better, and we just wanted
to make people happy. Now I know that I dont have to answer any
questions I dont want to. Like, why do you even care about my 15-year-old
brothers sex life?
But back then, we explained that we had made these promises to ourselves
when we were younger. A few months later, it comes out that were in some
cult and that were these little staged Mickey Mouse kids. People were
coming up to us, saying, Thank you so much, Im waiting because you guys
are, too! And we just thought, No! Thats not what were about.
Because of our age, because of Disney, because of those rings, there were so
many things throughout our career that we had to sugarcoat. If a lyric was
slightly sexual, someone at the record company would tell us we had to
change it. It could be the most innocent reference, like Im alone in a room
with you, and it would have to go. It felt like we couldnt be creative, so we
stopped listening to them and just started handing shit in.
We decided to take the rings off a few years ago. I lost my virginity when I
was 20. I did other stuff before then, but I was sexually active at 20. Im
glad I waited for the right person, because you look back and you go, That
girl was batshit crazy. Im glad I didnt go there.

The
brothers in 2008.

What was that couple that was pretty famous from The Hills? Heidi and
Spencer? I didnt want to become Heidi and Spencer, so I kept relationships
quiet. I lived in a bubble of just me, my brothers, my band, and the people I
went on tour with. Thats how I ended up dating a lot of people in the
business, because you relate to them, youre on the same schedule, and
honestly, it was exciting. In the back of my mind, it felt special to date
someone who was also famous. But I wanted to keep things quiet out of
respect for my fans, because we had a large female audience, and I didnt
want to rub my relationships in their faces. Some of the girls I dated just
didnt get that.
I genuinely dont have any resentment against any of my exes. So Im not
going to disparage anyone I was in a relationship withonly I might put it
in my music a little bit, and hint at it, and tease it here and there, just
enough for the fans and the people who really know the story. But Im not
going to openly say, Yeah, actually, this person is a bitch, and she did this
to me. I dont feel the need to do that to sell records.
But I did date a lot. I used to sneak out and hook up with this one girl in her
car, and some rumor came out along the lines of: Teen pop star seen in the
back of a car, in a parking lot, hooking up, and the write-up was kind of
explicit. I kept thinking, Oh my God, theres going to be video, theres going
to be photos. The girl was also in the business, and we thought we were

screwed because we were both working with Disney. It would have been the
worst thing we could think of happening to us. But nothing ever came out!
One relationship that meant a lot to fans was the one I had with Demi
Lovato, who Ive known for years. We had been friends forever, we were
both Disney kids, and because we played a couple in the Camp Rock Disney
Channel specialsand fans liked seeing us togetherwe eventually dated
for a month. I really got to know her and got to see the ins and outs of what
she was struggling with, like drug abuse. I felt like I needed to take care of
her, but at the same time I was living a lie, because I wasnt happy but felt
like I had to stay in it for her, because she needed help. I couldnt express
any of that, of course, because I had a brand to protect.
It was an insane situation to be in. Things kept building up, and Demi
ended up punching a girl in the face on a plane, because she thought the girl
was blaming her for something. Everybody gasped, and the girl just started
bleeding. Thats when her team and her family told her, You need to go
into rehab. I remember being in South America, and fans immediately
jumped to the conclusion that we kicked her off the 2010 tour, and they just
hated on us for it.
Being a part of the Disney thing for so long will make you not want to be
this perfect little puppet forever. Eventually, I hit a limit and
thought, Screw all this, Im just going to show people who I am. I think
that happened to a lot of us. Disney kids are spunky in some way, and I
think thats why Disney hires them. Look, he jumped up on the table!
Five, six, ten years later, theyre like, Oh! What do we do? Come on, guys.
You did this to yourselves.
The first time I smoked weed was with Demi and Miley. I must have been 17
or 18. They kept saying, Try it! Try it! so I gave it a shot, and it was all
right. I dont even smoke weed that often anymore. I was caught drinking
when I was 16 or 17, and I thought the world was going to collapse. But I
was in another country, and it was legal there. My 21st birthday, I fell down
a flight of stairs. I was unconscious that time, and my whole team was
scared to death that somebody was going to get a picture. Now I appreciate
wine or a vodka-soda at the end of the day every once in a while.
When I was 20, I started dating Ashley Greene, and she was my first serious
relationship. We were together for almost a year. I was living out in L.A. by
myself, and at the end of the day, long distance didnt work. Its incredibly
difficult. I did a cover story with Details acknowledging the relationship,
and the day after it was on newsstands, we announced our breakup. That
was just coincidence, but its funny how that always happens, right? After
Ashley, I took two or three years to just be single. I was hooking up and
having fun. Now Im with someone I really care about. We get each other.

And, yes, Ive dated fans. I cant say that Ive never put a foot in that world;
there were times when I definitely took advantage of the opportunities I
had. I remember I invited a fan to a movie, and we just made out the entire
time. I dont even remember what the movie was about. I must have been 16
or so. Afterward, I was kind of freaking out, because I thought shed go
public and the whole world would find out. Luckily, she never did, I think
because she assumed thered be another meet-up down the road.

Joe performing at the 2007 American Music Awards.

There were days when I wanted to give up sometimes. When it all felt too
overwhelming and exhausting. But my brothers helped me get through a
lot. I mean, weve only canceled two or three shows in our entire career.
There were times when we definitely performed while sick because there
was so much riding on it. All wed have to do when one of us wasnt feeling
well was say, I need you to take this chorus. There was never even a
question. It was always: Okay, I got you.
It made us closer, being in this strange juggernaut together. Im the middle
child, so Ive always been the bridge. I can relate to both really well. Nick
and I are athletic, we bond over sports. Kevin and I were always close, but
we dont see each other as much since he got married. We were just three
brothers facing all this insanity together. Whenever any one of us got too
cocky, wed remind each other that this shit wasnt handed to us, wed
remind each other of all the people who hated on us from the beginning,

who didnt believe we were any good. We used that as motivation to get us
going and keep us going.
Given all that, performing with two other people, especially if theyre your
brothers, can be difficult. We all brought different ideas to the table when
we wrote music together, and they didnt always coincideone person
wants to write a happy song, one person wants to write a sad song, and I
might just want to write a song about taking a walk down the beach. So in
2010, around the time that Nick was doing his side project, Nick Jonas &
the Administration, I decided to take some time on my own to experiment
and go in a new direction. And it happened organically. I was creating
music, which turned into recording music on my own, which turned into
thinking about what it would feel like to perform those songs onstage.
One of my biggest career disappointments happened a few years ago, when
I made a solo album that never saw the light of day. I recorded more than a
dozen songs with a guy named Robert Schwartzman, whos the lead singer
of Rooney, and the album was kind of Hall & Oatesy. Had a Freddie
Mercury vibe (hes one of my biggest influences). I handed the songs in, and
Hollywood Records was like, This doesnt work. They said the songs were
too weird and sounded like demos. The record company wanted me to use a
team of Disney hit-makersthe people who wrote with Selena Gomez and
Miley a couple of years ago. But it felt so fake to me. I called my manager
and said, I really want to slam my head into a wall right now.
We reached out to some of the biggest producers in the business, Rob Knox
and Danja, for the solo album that actually got released, called Fastlife.
There was a track with Lil Wayne on which he said the word bitch, and
when I heard the album was going to have a parental-advisory label because
of it, half of me was thinking, Sweet! People are going to think Im a badass. The other half thought, Thats going to alienate a lot of fans in Middle
America. Im not saying thats the sole reason why the album ultimately
didnt do as well as my previous records had. But I think there were a lot of
cooks in the kitchen, and I think it was rushed, and I couldnt speak up
because I was scared to. They wanted me to be this Justin Timberlake clone.
Even one of the heads of Hollywood Records said, Hes the new Justin
Timberlake!
After that, it was back to being with the Jonas Brothers, the boy band. Im
not offended that everyone would think we were a boy band; I like some
boy-band music. Even yesterday, somebody said, You still dance, right?
and I said, I never did that. But I can see why people saw us that way. We
largely had a teen audience, and weve been on teen-pop magazines where
youd have to cuddle puppies. We wanted to be perceived as a cool band,
one that plays its own instruments and writes its own songs, but a lot of

people didnt notice that. Radio stations would be like, Whoa! Really? you
brought guitars? Why? All I could think was, Youre kidding, right?
The Jonas Brothers breakup was going on for a lot longer than a lot of
people thought. We hit a place where we just werent jelling on the same
things, and we didnt want to become a band that was worried about the
fact that people didnt understand how cool we were. The whole situation
was breaking us up as a family, and we ultimately felt like we were holding
each other back. I wanted to go sexier with a video, for example, and Kevin
wasnt comfortable with that, for his reasons. I mean, hes married, and I
get that. Nick also had a louder voice than me and Kevin when it came to
music and major decisionshe took a leadership role in the band, which got
to us after a while.
Things came to a head when we had a meeting where we thought we were
going to talk about how to release our new music and it ended up shifting
into this huge fight. That was the first time we were really honest with one
another about a lot of stuff we werent happy with. The fight got loud. I was
screaming. When Nick presented the idea of closing a chapter and moving
on, I freaked out. I didnt know whether to pick up and leave or just punch
something, because I was furious. Id spent so long working with my
brothers on this band, and in my mind, it felt like we were just giving up. It
didnt make sense to me.
But once I started peeling back the layers, I understood. There were a lot of
dysfunctional things going on. The music was getting stale, too, because
wed write it and record it and then it would sit around for a long time. After
that meeting, we took a night to think about things, met again, and nothing
was resolved, so we decided to take a week and think about it. Then we
canceled the tour. It would have been really tough for me to go on a lasthurrah tour. I didnt care about the money; I just wanted to figure out the
right, healthy way for us to be good as a family.
We appeared on Good Morning America to talk about the breakup, because
we thought that would be the professional way of explaining it and
expressing our love to the fansI think they felt they were owed an
explanation. Some of them were mad that this was happening, but at the
end of the day, were trying to take care of ourselves as family. And thats
fine. And that should be fine.
Now that Im 24 and have control of my life, Im going back to the drawing
board. Ive been through a shit-ton of stuff, but Im genuinely excited
because now I can go back to the studio with those people who I used to
work with. I dont have to rely on anyone elses opinion, whether good or
bad, and hear them say, No, no, you cant go write with them. Thats too
weird for us. Because weird works. Look at Lorde.