There are some things you don’t expect Joe Jonas to say -- things like the lyrics to “Love Slayer,” for instance.
Maybe you’ve already heard that track; YouTube clips of the electro-pop jam have been circulating since the middle Jonas Brother debuted it live at a showcase in Chicago this summer. (The song’s expected to turn up on his solo debut, Fast Life -- a club-geared work-in-progress that’s due to arrive in September.) And the tune is all about “that one girl who, I guess, is the bad girl. You know, that everyone at one point might want to be with or is attracted to,” the 21-year-old cheerily explains during a July promotional trip through Toronto.
So how does a young man -- one recently known as one of the world’s foremost purity-ring aficionados -- react to such a brazen hussy?
“Most likely I’ll be on my worst behaviour,” he sneers on the chorus. “She’ll keep you up all night, but I’m ready to stay up.”
Sexxxy innuendo? A new wardrobe of distressed designer denim and leather jackets? Solo Joe Jonas seems to be out to play the good boy gone bad.
Sure, those “Love Slayer” come-ons don’t approach the same levels of coming-of-age scandal as 99.9 per cent of what other former Mouse Housers have had hacked off their iPhones. But “shock” can be a relative term -- and shock is what Jonas says he’s out to do with a track like that one.
“That’s kind of my idea for the record,” says the singer, bright-eyed -- a member of his staff keeping close watch over the polite conversation. “I kind of like to shock people sometimes because I feel like -- I feel they have expectations of what I’m supposed to sound like.”
And those expectations would be?
“I figure just pop music. Just very standard pop music,” he says. “I’m going from Disney to a more mature record, and having that experience, I think a lot of people might think, OK, this record might be a little bit -- bubblegum pop.”
Certainly, you could call his past output with the Jonas Brothers as much. After forming the group with younger brother Nick (now busy with his own blues-rock solo project, Nick Jonas and the Administration) and older brother Kevin, the trio released four albums, was nominated for a Grammy, inspired their own Disney TV series (JONAS L.A.’s final season wrapped last year), starred in two Disney Channel Camp Rock movies -- to say nothing for the merchandising, Tiger Beat pin-ups and smutty teen slash fiction that have unabatedly followed in their wake.
The Jonas Brothers have been on temporary hiatus since last year, however -- though Jonas suggests he and his brothers will return again. And when he was initially faced with all that newfound me-time, Jonas says he opted to go into the studio.
“At the beginning of last year, I was working on a project with a totally different sound to it,” he says. “It was a very Michael Buble-esque record, and as the time progressed I just started writing on my own and realized I could go on a route that was the kind of music I’d been listening to, which was a lot of stuff that DJs are doing these days, or some of my favourite artists -- kind of that urban dance music.”
Jonas lists off his faves, some of the the more bold-faced names of the indie-pop sphere: Temper Trap, Foster the People, Chromeo.
Justin Timberlake, however, would seem to be the more obvious influence -- at least going off the few Fast Life songs previewed to music and media types the day before this interview. And that’s not just because of the career (and wardrobe) similarities. The title track -- albeit as heard over the din of partygoers restraining themselves from busting a Moonwalk -- is a slice of dance-pop that would seem to owe much to Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds (2006).
Fast Life’s production team -- frequent Timbaland collaborator Danja and Rob Knox -- have both worked with Timberlake (Danja on that aforementioned JT disc; Knox is a member of production group The Y’s with Timberlake). But whatever the sum of Fast Life’s parts proves to be, Jonas is clear that this album is all about him – and the experience of growing up pop.
“I feel like it’s a little bit of an older record, a coming of age record, and it talks about real stuff that I’ve been going through and hopefully an older audience will be into it,” he says.
“I wrote songs about girls -- a relationship with a girl who doesn’t speak the same language as you,” he says of a “Latin feel” album track called “Body Language.” The title song, he says, “was inspired by L.A., just the busy city, running around, having fun. New York: I think that was where more of the romantic songs [were written], just the kind of slower songs. It all started out there, New York can be a romantic city.
“On my own, I could really just speak about everything: from good to bad relationships, to the fans, to travelling -- my perspective of what life was about,” says Jonas of the experience making the album, his first without his brothers/bandmates’ input.
Jonas describes the music on Fast Life as “honest” and “therapeutic” a few times -- though he draws a distinction between being honest and over-sharing. “Obviously, people are going to say ‘Who’s that song about, or what’s he trying to say in this song?’” (“Obviously," one could presume, because Jonas’ love life makes headlines…and has also inspired, should you care to believe it, songs by one of his similarly young and famous exes.)
The songs on Fast Life won’t name names, as confessional as they are, he says. “Some songs, some people name names and it’s the best song in the world. In my mind, I try to be the kind of artist who doesn’t name names because it gives the audience a way to really relate to the song,” Jonas says. “I wanted people to say, ‘I’ve been in that situation and I gotcha.'
“It’s just fun,” says Jonas of the album, “just a lot of fun.”
Source
