Sunday, July 5, 2009

Jonas Brothers Stadium of Fire

 

On the Fourth of July, Joe Jonas said he and his brothers look forward to doing what a lot of families do. They want to spend time with their family and friends. Eat some barbecue. Play some softball.
Oh, and just one more thing: Perform in front of a stadium of screaming fans.

That’s just one of the things The Salt Lake Tribune learned in the past few months during two conference-call interviews with other media.

Since 2005, The Jonas Brothers — 21-year-old Kevin, 19-year-old Joe and 16-year-old Nick — have become the biggest boy band in the world, having sold more than 8 million records. They’ll spend this holiday headlining Saturday’s Stadium of Fire concert at Brigham Young University’s LaVell

The trio’s Provo concert is part of a world tour promoting their latest CD, “Lines, Vines and Trying Times,” which was released on June 30 and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart.

In press calls, the three young men talked about their holiday memories, as well as their influences as they continue on a musical journey that took them from a small New Jersey township to their current chart-topping status as the biggest-selling band in the world right now. (Sorry, U2.)

On Fourth of July memories

Joe: We have one big memory when we first started touring. We were actually in –where were we, in Tennessee?

Nick: We were in Memphis.

Joe: We spent the whole day walking around, having barbecue. Just one of those memories that you kind of never forget.

Kevin: We actually started the Burnin’ Up Tour, last year, on the Fourth of July. So we’ve had some really great, amazing memories for July every year.

Joe: And then the year before that we were in Penn State, actually. And then the year before that we were in Memphis, Tenn. So we’ve been able to spend it in the coolest placeand have the coolest days there. But this year, I think, will be the coolest. It’s going to be awesome. We’re very excited.

On the Stadium of Fire

Joe: We’re definitely looking forward to, you know, seeing all the fans. The Stadium of Fire show’s going to be unbelievable. And we’re so honored to be a part of it. And I think for all of us, we’re looking forward to being able to be with all our friends that we tour with, our band, our crew, on July Fourth. It’s always a lot of fun. We might even try to play a softball game or grab a little bit of barbecue somewhere. We’ll see what happens. But we’re definitely looking forward to being with the fans and being able to play the show.

Nick: I have a goal to become president one day. So we’re big fans of America. But, seriously, when we were younger we were a part of the parade in our town, Wyckoff, N.J., where we’d get on the float and decorate it all up with the American flag. It’s cool to have those good small-town memories.

On priorities

Joe: I think we definitely maintain a sense of normalcy throughout this whole thing. Family is very important to us, and making sure the family comes first [is] the sole focus of everything we do. I think for us our faith comes first and it always has. And it’s a big part of everything we do.

Kevin: We are, you know, not perfect. We live every day, day-to-day, and we do the best to make our mom proud.

Nick: For us, it’s also about the family base. We’ve made that rule No. 1 from Day 1, making sure that the family comes first and we focus on that.

On the tour setup

Kevin: The stage is built in a way that it’s going from 140 feet from point A to point B all the way across the arena. So there’s not just one row of 20 seats that are in the front row. They are over the entire bottom half of the arena, plus the upper deck is essentially a front-row ticket. This new tour has been influenced by ['The Jonas Brothers: 3D Concert Experience'] movie in many ways. One being that we were able to watch our show and see what we liked and didn’t like in the way we performed.

Nick: We wanted to find a way to provide a bigger and better show for our fans and this was one of the ways we had to do so. … There are more front-row seats now, and there’s more of a real genuine connection with each and every person in the arena.

On the new album and its influences

Nick: We have a lot of different influences on this new record: people like Neil Diamond’s band and one out of the U.K. called The Zutons. There’s a lot of different sounds that have come together to make our band sound. And I think, for us, it’s about taking gradual steps and just doing one album at a time, trying to infuse new sounds and new ideas. During the Grammy season we had the honor of being able to perform one of Neil Diamond’s songs, “Forever in Blue Jeans.” And we were sitting in the audience watching people play all of his songs and really realizing how amazing his career has been and being inspired by his band and all that’s he’s done and it’s amazing. Also, I think we can all agree that the new Kings of Leon record is fantastic.

Joe: I wouldn’t say it’s a big jump, but it definitely is a progression in our music and a growth for us. It feels just like a good growth in our music and it has a lot of more horns in the record and a lot more strings. Also, there’s more to the music rather than just a typical kind of relationship song[s].

Nick: The songs that are new on the new album are all things that we’ve really gone through, you know, personal experiences. That’s where we get all of our inspiration from. But also we’ve been working on trying to use metaphors, in a way, to kind of mask a literal thing that happened to us. I think that, personally, Elvis Costello is excellent at doing that.

Kevin: We are always trying to grow our music libraries and learn as much as we can on this musical journey that we’re on.

Source:Salt Lake Tribune

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