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From Hanson, The Bellamy Brothers, The Everly Brothers, The Righteous Brothers to rock bands like The Doobie Brothers, The Brothers Four, The McCoys, The Carpenters, the list of bands made up of family members is exhaustive. Verus Ferreira looks at the latest addition to the pop bandwagon is The Jonas Brothers!
The Jonas Brothers, who were nominated for Best New Artist at the recently concluded 51st Grammy Awards, are an American boy band from Wyckoff, New Jersey, consisting of three brothers: Kevin Jonas (November 5, 1987), Joe Jonas (August 15, 1989), and Nick Jonas (September 16, 1992).
Music always played a major part in the brothers’ lives while growing up in New Jersey. Their parents are both musicians, so gathering around the piano for a sing-along was an essential part of regular family bonding, yet each brother found his own musical calling in a different way.
The oldest, Kevin, who plays guitar and sings backing vocals, was homesick one day when he found a guitar and a Teach Yourself Guitar book lying around the house. He spent the next few days learning how to play the basic chords. Joe first dreamed of becoming a comedian and wanted to audition for comedy shows. But his musical side got the better of him! Nicholas, who shares lead vocals with Joe, began singing as soon as he could talk. From the time he was two years old, he would wake up in the morning and start singing all the time. Nicholas took an interest in song writing, even co-writing a Christmas song in 2002 with his father. Several years later, his soulful voice wowed executives at Daylight/Columbia Records to warrant a solo album.
Nicholas began to write original material with help from his two brothers. The siblings’ songs impressed the President of Columbia, who ultimately signed the trio in 2005. With the passage of time, they found themselves spending more and more time down in their basement, writing songs and practising together as a band.
The boys gained their popularity from the children’s television network, Disney Channel. The Jonas Brothers’ full-length debut, It’s About Time was finally released in August 2006. The album peaked at No. 91 on the Billboard charts and earned the siblings a modest audience, particularly among fans of Radio Disney. However, trouble came their way when they were dropped from Columbia’s roster in early 2007.
But the trio bounced back by signing with Hollywood Records, a Disney-owned label that helped the group exponentially expand its fan base. They recorded a single, Year 3000, for the movie Meet the Robinsons which was released in March 2007.
Their self-titled second effort arrived in August 2007, supported by a number of appearances on Disney Channel’s various programmes. The band also toured in support of the record, selling out shows coast to coast including a stop at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, which was the fastest sold-out show in the venue’s history. The reality television show Jonas Brothers: Living the Dream documented the band’s life on the road, and the band’s TV presence was furthered along by Camp Rock, a 2008 Disney Channel television movie that featured the brothers and up-and-coming star Demi Lovato. The movie was watched by 8.9 million viewers and launched the Jonas Brothers’ next single, Burnin’ Up, which helped whet demand for the release of A Little Bit Longer in 2008.
In 2008, the Brothers won an American Music Award (AMA) for Breakthrough Artist and received a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. They were also featured on the cover of the July 2008 issue of Rolling Stone magazine.
The brothers donate a portion of their earnings to their charity ’Change for the Children Foundation’. The band stated that: “We started the ’Change for the Children Foundation’ to support programmes that motivate and inspire children to face adversity with confidence, determination and a will to succeed. And we think the best people to help children are their peers -- kids helping other kids who are a little less fortunate.”
Inspiration for the group’s songs comes directly from the boys’ personal experiences, from the highs and lows of dating to being on the road, to having been given the opportunity to follow their dreams at such a young age. The songs of The Jonas Brothers celebrate the joy of living and encourage people to feel good.
One of the more personal tracks on the new record is the first single, Mandy about a girl whom their mother, a sign language teacher, taught to sign so that she could pursue her dream of working with the hearing impaired. Nicholas, Joe and Kevin each formed a special friendship with Mandy.
For now, the brothers are relishing the experience of having other people hear their music ’live’ and making new fans one city at a time. Joe says, “We’ve known for a while how it felt to be on stage, but we never knew how it would feel to have people love music that we’ve written and which we both play and sing. It’s very gratifying when fans come up to us after shows and tell us how much they relate to our songs.”
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