AJR are a multi-platinum trio of brothers who started busking in NYC in 2005, and have gone on to release 10 records/EPs (mostly independently, with only 1 major label release), rack up 8+ platinum singles (some multi) and 1 platinum record, nominations for Billboard, iHeartRadio, and American Music Awards, and tours selling out places such as Madison Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl. We talk with Jack and Ryan about vulnerability as strength, being able to laugh at yourself, failing quickly and moving on, staying fresh and agile creatively, connecting on a human granular level, surviving the comment section, and a whole lot more.
AJR are a multi-platinum trio of brothers who started busking in NYC in 2005, and have gone on to release 10 records/EPs (mostly independently, with only 1 major label release), rack up 8+ platinum singles (some multi) and 1 platinum record, nominations for Billboard, iHeartRadio, and American Music Awards, and tours selling out places such as Madison Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl. We talk with Jack and Ryan about vulnerability as strength, being able to laugh at yourself, failing quickly and moving on, staying fresh and agile creatively, connecting on a human granular level, surviving the comment section, and a whole lot more.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
[00:00:00] Hey, and welcome to this week's episode of the Other 22 Hours podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss,
Michaela: and I'm your other host, Michaela Anne. And we are on episode 124, and this week we're featuring our conversation with AJR.
Aaron: Yeah, a JR is a band of brothers, Jack and Ryan, who we speak to here, and then also Adam, who was not in on this conversation, but is as you can imagine, an integral part of the band.
They have been making music together. Essentially their entire lives. They started busking in New York City where they were born and raised, in 2005, and then started releasing recorded music in 2012. They have been independent pretty much this entire time, except for a record they put out last year via Republic.
And since then they have gone on. They have [00:01:00] multi-platinum singles, billions of streams. The current tour they're on has 40 sold out shows including. Two nights at Madison Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl. They've been nominated for tons of awards, such as like Billboard, American Music, iHeartRadio,
Michaela: they've hit the top.
I mean, it's funny because they even said, we're not as big as Ed Shear. And I'm like, but you still are like. Y'all are up there.
Aaron: That's, that's, that's a machine. Yeah.
Michaela: Yeah. And we, talk about that what it's like to have your dreams come true, reach those top destinations, like selling out Madison Square Garden and then I.
Honestly feeling like, wait, how come I don't feel like all my problems are solved? Jack and Ryan were both really generous with their honesty, and I mean, if you listen to their music you obviously know that about them. They talk about focusing on fans on a human to human granular level, no matter how big.
Their audience gets, they talk creatively about failing quickly and often and being able to move on from [00:02:00] that. and really. Not being too precious or taking yourself too seriously. That kind of feels like a through line of this, of just really living out loud, being who you are unabashedly and how that then translates into the creative work that you make.
Aaron: Yeah. A lot of talk about ego and working past it and not being beholden to it, which if you've heard an episode of this before, I love those kind of conversations. Mm-hmm. As with other episodes we touch on some things that come as direct suggestions from our Patreons. They get advanced notice of our guests and they get the deep, intense moral satisfaction of financially supporting the production of this show.
In the only, means we make available. So if you would like to go deeper, if you would like to know who our guests are gonna be ahead of time or if you would like to just help us continue to produce this show. There is a link to our Patreon below in our show notes,
Michaela: and if you're a visual person, this episode and all of our episodes are available on YouTube.
And without further ado, here is our conversation with Jack and [00:03:00] Ryan of a JR.
Aaron: Nice to meet you guys.
Jack: you as well.
Michaela: we started this podcast to bring to light the conversations that happen When people start talking about what it's really like to maintain a lifelong career based on your art,
how
Aaron: we all stay sane
and like
keep making music and stay creative when all of a sudden, our livelihood is sitting on that.
And it's not just like hanging out in the basement, making music with friends,
even if it is,
Michaela: And
Ryan: talk about that.
Michaela: yeah, and this does feel very, aligned with. Your new music and kind of the emotional transparency, correct me if I'm wrong, that you guys put in your songs and kind of, sharing what, real life is like and that it's not just, oh my God, you guys are selling at Madison Square Garden.
Life must be nothing but perfect for you, right?
Ryan: Definitely not, no. think well, 'cause you mentioned the transparency in music. I think there are some artists where they probably have trouble having a conversation being fully emotionally vulnerable in real life and then music is sort of their outlet to be [00:04:00] able to say the things that they can't say in real life.
Michaela: Mm-hmm. Think for us those two things are very in tandem. I think when you have a conversation with us, even in real life, a lot of our friends are like, whoa, I didn't want to get that deep, that quick all the time.
Jack: Okay.
Ryan: and I think it's sort of just a lifestyle to where your heart on your sleeve, I think it just carries over into the music.
it actually becomes kind of addictive when you start to get more and more honest in your music. And I think that's what we found in our sound in a JR sound is little by little With each album we got more and more embarrassing. then when we get to play it live and hear all these people sort of agree.
With, okay, you admitted that you still think about this kid that you idolized in high school and you called him out by name. We have a song called Joe. You admitted that that's a really embarrassing thing, but we agree we have a Joe as well. Once you get that kind of real time feedback, you're like, how much more can I wear on my sleeve to see if people have this in common?
Michaela: I, I love that. I mean, That's the type of [00:05:00] person and also musician that I am as well. in my experience over the years is that sometimes I've gotten feedback from people of like. Maybe you shouldn't share so much
Aaron: people like on the inside?
Yeah, like people on the industry side or other musicians. Yeah, or like audience members have some
Michaela: mystique. Yeah. Not from audience members. Audience members often will be like, and I'm a very like small artist, so I'm very like in tiny rooms with the people I'm performing for. So we have like the personal exchange afterwards.
But I'm curious if you guys, you know, coming up, because you also started busking, right? You guys are from New York City and got your start from like playing at Central Park and the subways. Is that correct?
Jack: that's right. Yeah.
Michaela: Did you ever butt up against that of anybody ever telling you like, maybe you should like, have more mystique or be cooler in this other way?
Jack: it's a great question. And I think the answer is probably no or if we did not for very long. I think when you
Michaela: Hmm.
Jack: like street performing, I mean compared to right now, I [00:06:00] think it's a little bit a thing of the past, I guess, feeling like you want to try to get to the artist and you can't, you know, that kind of thing.
so I guess we started when it was that time, but starting out street performing, you're like right there with the people. You're immediately not cool, right? Like you've started off being like. I'm down here. there's businessmen on the phone that you have to make, like you, you know, so you're
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Jack: cool.
You're really trying to get to the people more than they're trying to get to you. And I think we've never really been those kind of guys that are like, Hey, come over here. Lemme tell you something. Or, you know, like that. That's just not who we are. And we were really trying to like, figure out the kind of band that we were for many, many years.
And we couldn't quite figure it out. We were like this Broadway kind of influence group and we tried hip hop and this, and then I think none of that really felt right. And then when we started wearing our emotions on our sleeve think something kind of clicked into place. And we started making the best music we had ever made.
And I think the people that would've said made changes. Were like, wait a sec, the music's finally good. Now I'm not, I don't wanna change anything.
Michaela: [00:07:00] so as three brothers how have you guys had to navigate the different. Personalities through that. And has it been really cohesive of just kind of being on the same page and obviously being brought up by your parents I'm trying to pace myself this is exciting for me of the type of conversation we're already jumping into, and I'm like, how did your parents raise you?
Jack: yeah. Yeah.
Ryan: too deep, too
Michaela: Yeah. Um, I think by nature being brothers it again kind of echoes what we do for the band. You figure out, oh, this person's best at this and I'm gonna respect this person when it, comes to this.
Ryan: with the songwriting, me and Jack do the songwriting, I think it's very much when it comes to melody, that's where I'm fully gonna be beholden to Jack.
If we're fighting over like, I think this melody's catchy over this melody, I'm just gonna trust Jack. I just have enough data now to prove wow, he's been right about
And then when it comes to, I would say emotion, he's probably gonna trust me. If I'm going, this choice of words is gonna make [00:08:00] somebody cry, verse not cry.
It's just the kind of thing, he just trusts me at this point. I feel like that's probably any good company you kind of delegate and figure out who's good at what as opposed to egos start getting in the way. when we've done other writing sessions, 'cause we've written for other artists and I would probably say it's not really for us.
We like it for a little while and now I think we're at a point where like, it's probably not our favorite thing in the world. Maybe we'll get back to it at some point. But I think ego's come into play a lot in those sessions, and I think that's Well, we're not so excited about the like, don't forget my idea.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: Pitched that line a little while ago. No. Why is nobody listening to my idea? I think when it comes to me and Jack writing, we're just like totally honest with each other. We just immediately go, I'm feeling nothing from what you just said. Let's fail quickly and move on. And I think that's like the most efficient way probably to write at least for us.
Aaron: love that idea of like failing quickly. Like so many people are afraid of failure, but like at least for me, I learn more by failing than I do by like only getting green lights. You know what I mean? It's like, cool, [00:09:00] that doesn't work. Great. That gives me a lot more info of like, find where the walls are and there's this whole well of things right here that do work, let's play there for a little
bit.
Ryan: a lot of the songs on the ep, took years and years to write The reason is we got into the headspace of like, perfection. We need to send all of our friends and our manager in our inner circle a perfect song.
Michaela: mm-hmm.
Ryan: Then we're like working for this song on like, three years.
And at a certain point with a lot of these songs on the ep, we were just like, let's just write something bad. Like Let's just write something that we're half excited about and send it to our manager, send it to our friends, and remove ego, cause. It, can feel kind of embarrassing when you're like, Hey Martin, what do you think of this song?
And Martin's like, Hey, it's not one of your best. And that like literally happened. But
he doesn't know anything about music, but he just has these opinions. He said something, he was like, I feel like your songs normally have like a line that I remember.
And this one doesn't have that. That's like a very layman way to speak. Right. But,
It's not like he pitched a line, but it told us. [00:10:00] Okay, so the melody's good, but the actual lyric is what's not good. Then we're able to write the next draft of the song in, I don't know, five days. Whereas the first draft took a year.
So a
Michaela: Yeah.
Ryan: that it's failing quickly. Send it to people you trust. Open yourself up to criticism and listening to absolutely anybody
Aaron: absolutely. I mean, I think there can only be gold that comes from that, something somebody said to me was done is better than perfect. And I was like, oh, that was like a massive light bulb that went off in my head because like for me, like so often you can get caught behind perfection.
They're like, nothing actually gets made. And then, before you know it, it's been years and you're like, I have nothing to show for this. Whereas if you're just like, cool, fine. Like finish it, move on, get it out there, you have a draft you know, you have a, a ball of clay, you can start carving away.
Michaela: I also think what sounds really beautiful about your writing partnership is you know, not every family or friendship or creative partnership has this, but it sounds like you guys have the individual confidence and comfort and then the trust in [00:11:00] each other that you're able to like sprinkle ideas.
I'm like trying to think of a metaphor as songwriters, when I think of like every single line I put out, has an anchor to it, then I'm so much more upset if someone is like, that one wasn't that great, and I'm like, no, but I'm weighed down by this idea and you're telling me it's not good.
versus if you're just peppering ideas,
Jack: Yeah.
Michaela: it's like, okay, that didn't work. That didn't work. I don't have this like full emotional attachment that. How someone receives it is going to inform me how I feel about myself because I got rejected or affirmed by this one line. And I feel like that is a very common problem for a lot of people.
maybe not great songwriters. Maybe that is what makes a great songwriter of like being able to just be like, okay, that didn't work. Like you said, even the, directness of I'm feeling nothing from the line, you just said, let's move on. Mm-hmm.
Jack: Yeah, Yeah. I mean, There are some moments where we, have to like grieve things Ryan. There's some moments where I'm like, day or two down the road on a [00:12:00] song and sometimes it happens where I'm just. in my brain, I know something is wrong and my brain is going, this is not fixable.
You have to say something like, this is over. Like, We have to just scrap this and then I'll say it and then Ryan will have a 20 minute grieving period um, of like, be quiet, you are a hundred percent right, but let me grieve this for a second. Silence. So there's that also. But also I think like you said it's, been really like beautiful to have this dynamic.
Also we've really allowed ourselves to like laugh at ourselves too
Michaela: Mm.
Jack: Like, three days later, how on earth did we ever suggest that That's like the dumbest string of words we've ever put together in our life. And it kind of
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Jack: More fun when you're able to like, not keep yourself up here, but I'm the best songwriter ever.
How could I suggest that and just realistically take a look at yourself?
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah.
Mikayla, do you balance, peppering in ideas and being unattached, gotta throw out everything with, I want to throw out things that actually make me feel something. Right. I'm still a songwriter that has some level of skill. I'm not just a regular person throwing stuff at the wall.
How do you balance, not [00:13:00] getting offended, I guess, when you were like, but I just told my truth and Jack told me he didn't feel anything.
Michaela: honestly just time and experience has helped that at this point in my life, I've been writing songs for a long time and I've been actively working on building my relationship to my why and trying to like detach from results or if people like it or not.
So I feel like it's been an intentional process and also a completely unintentional process that I think has just happened over, time and writing with others. I did have a long period of time where I would be too nervous to even say ideas in a co-write that I'd be like filtering.
that's the other thing, observing other writers that I respect and getting to write with other people and seeing how they emotionally handled the right of, they wouldn't get gummed up if I was like, I don't know, or I don't think so, and that they would just quickly move on, or not even quickly, but like really ruminate on something, [00:14:00] but would be pretty detached.
That helped inform me as well as so we have two kids our daughter is four and our youngest is eight months old, and my time has just completely changed and so therefore my emotional connection to being able to create is not as heavy. there's like this beautiful healthy detachment where at the same time, my meaning in my words feels that much deeper because of the experiences I've had at becoming a mother, if this makes any sense.
Ryan: Yeah. Um, Realizing, oh, I'm doing this because I like to do it, not because I have to do it, and
Michaela: mm-hmm.
Ryan: die if I don't write today.
Michaela: and also knowing, okay, if this line that I, feel very attached to doesn't work in this song, I can save it it can live in another place, which I've experienced that over and over of okay, why do I feel so stuck on this line? Why am I like, no, but what about this line?
It's not working [00:15:00] here. that's not, it's death.
Ryan: Oh It,
Jack: Yeah.
Michaela: be meant elsewhere.
Ryan: that has happened to us constantly. We have a song called a Dog song on our new ep and the chorus of it is can we Pause right here, right now while everyone I love is still in my house? And that's kind of the, concept of like, can I just freeze the time right now?
That concept came I don't know, six months before for a totally different song. basically the point of that other song was gonna be, can we Freeze Time like this? And me and Jack both felt. there's something relatable about this, but it's not attached to anything tactile that I can picture.
I'm not sure anybody in regular life just goes, can I stay like this? Can I pause like this? And so we ended up throwing away that other song, but we knew there was something relatable. We kept it. And then six months later we realized, oh, okay, we're writing this song called The Dog Song. It's from the perspective of our dog.
It's from our dog's point of view, kind of watching our life. And [00:16:00] we kind of remembered in that moment, oh, we have this leftover idea. That's exactly how a dog feels, because they live moment to moment. Can we just pause this? you know, E, everything is great right now. Can we just pause? Here's our way to be able to sneak this relatable thing in.
But now it's rooted in something real, which is how our dog is viewing us. Just totally relate it to what you're saying.
Jack: Yeah.
Aaron: I love that you had mentioned, earlier like, you have trust in Jack, you know, and Jack has trust in you when you bring things to the table. what I hear you saying here is like, I think this kind of approach and viewpoint on everything, you need to have trust that you're going to write another song.
all of us feel as writers, like, am I ever gonna write a song again? Am I ever gonna write a good song again? Like, I don't know, maybe not, you know, you kind of have to trust, like, I'm gonna stash this idea away because this idea is good and it's worthy of like you said, like the rest of the body to this moment.
And I trust that that will come eventually.
Ryan: Oh yeah. I think that every single time we write an album, we go, how'd we write our last album? Were we different people? [00:17:00] I think Bob Dylan
Aaron: Totally.
Ryan: like he listens to, rolling Stone or whatever, and it's like, who wrote that? I could never get back into that frame of mind. And I think what we found the answer is don't try to get back into that frame of mind.
Cause repeating yourself is sort of the death of creativity anyway. Write exactly what you're feeling in the moment, even if it's totally different from anything you've made before. I feel like we've been learning that lesson, at least with our bound more recently. Like we're doing less and less sort of big party box that a JR used to make.
Don't feel guilt about that because I'm just in a different mindset than I was when I was 19. Writing weak and burn the house down, all these like party bops and that's okay too. Like
Michaela: mm-hmm.
Ryan: so disingenuous to just sort of keep going back to that same well and it causes so much frustration And, sort of self-doubt in the process.
Aaron: For sure. I think it inevitably like gums up the piping of creativity because all of a sudden you're like stepping into this character that is not [00:18:00] you. You know? And like the way I like to look at it is Don't try to like rewrite what you've written, but try to go back to like the same space, you know, the same feeling, the same like, try to catch the same lightning of inspiration, you know, when you were younger and you're writing these party bops, like that was, what you were living, that's what you felt you were being genuine in that moment, you know? So it's like, how do you get back to that same feeling of writing what you know and being genuine in that moment,
Michaela: but that same feeling for what lighting you up now in life?
Aaron: Right. The same spark, The destination is gonna be different,
Michaela: Yeah,
Ryan: I think it's very much finding your POV and I
Aaron: Yeah.
Ryan: for musicians. I think that goes for comedians to like, what's your view into the world? And I think you're totally right. That's been the lesson. I think a lot of times a JR we write songs from an alien's perspective of like, Hey, did you ever notice how weird the world is?
Like this this thing that we do every day? You ever notice how weird that is? And I think that's been sort of the consistent POV and then plug in whatever's going on in our life right now. We're able to kind [00:19:00] of, right from that perspective.
Aaron: I want to take a little turn on this idea of like, writing from your perspective where you are now. Like, you had mentioned when we were talking about playing on the street, playing in the subway ing to like, show up and grab those businessmen that are like on the phone, get them to, to stop for a second and, listen, can you see a line from there to where you are now and in the decisions that you make? creatively is there similarities?
Is it different? Is there something that, like, was there a kind of like growing pains into being like, we're doing this now that is not, so much stop you in the, in the train.
Jack: I think it was probably the best thing we could have done to start our career. I think it really taught us a healthy amount of confidence to have when it comes to performing, when it comes to songwriting, it taught us that no matter what, no matter how good you are, you can't just assume people will show up.
You
Michaela: Mm.
Jack: to try and even if you are great and you have a big hit song, that doesn't even necessarily mean you have everyone, you can be confident, but you just can't be too confident. It kind of taught us how to like, straddle [00:20:00] that line, 'cause it's kind of going back to that perfection.
You'll never be perfect, you'll never get every single person. So we had to start at the most bleak, like a little depressing like spot in order to learn that lesson very quick. But yeah, I think it just taught us how to have a very healthy mindset when it comes to performing. And songwriting, like when we are performing I think it's very easy to get caught up in these people bought tickets.
They're coming to see us, they love us, so we're set. And I think we've never had that mindset before. I think we've always had the mindset of we can do more We can do better than last time. Not everyone's in yet. How can we get these people's attention? And I think
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Jack: us when comes to being creative.
Michaela: Have you found as your audiences have grown and like grown to a pretty immense level, I know you have Hollywood Bowl coming up and did two nights at Madison Square Garden. has there been any emotional, creative work that's had to be done to kind of adjust to. Awareness of audience size and expectations, but also now of [00:21:00] being a full-fledged business that employs people and there's so many other people dependent on you guys creating.
Ryan: got such a good feeling playing those smaller venues in the beginning. 'cause we felt like everyone in the room was tied together. We were all sort like one organism. And I think a lot of the stuff we do on stage, we want to keep surprising people. We throw in like kind of magic illusions and shadows coming to life and like all these kind of like weird gags that are interwove throughout the show.
One because we love doing it and because it's the art that we love.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: Two it feels really good to be connected to a crowd. It's like, church. It's like we're all surprised at the same time. We're all crying at the same time or laughing at the same time. And so it's definitely been a interesting challenge 'cause every tour we do at least so far has just been like bigger and bigger venues.
It's like, how do we get everybody on the same page? And I think we've designed the show, to do that the way we [00:22:00] lay out effects or like, we like to start the show with some kind of like comedy moment like maybe something goes wrong and then there's kind of a joke involved.
Or maybe like Jack roasts me on stage as the first bit of banter so that we can establish, maybe we're gonna roast you guys at some point, or make fun of something we saw, but it's all in good fun and it's all safe and we're all on the same page. So like little things like that
Michaela: Like an icebreaker.
Ryan: an
Jack: Yeah.
Ryan: And can take MSG 20,000 people and make it feel like 200 people again.
Aaron: Yeah. That's something I love about live music as an artistic medium, it takes both the audience and the performer on the same level. You know, I've, I've said it a bunch of times on the show, but like, if you have a great band and a horrible audience, the show's not great. You know?
And if you have a great audience and a horrible band show's not great, it really takes like both people and being there together and like. I always like to use the word like levitation when it comes to like a good show. whether I'm in the audience in the show is incredible, or being on stage and having an incredible [00:23:00] show.
It feels like this kind of weightlessness and it flows and it's like this whole energy that I don't really know that exists in other art forms.
Jack: I totally agree with you. there is a moment I think and it's like unspoken where Ryan and I are on the stage and we can look at each other and we just know, wait, this show is going really,
Aaron: Here
Jack: I can't even put it into words. You feel like it's just off by itself.
I feel like we get that sometimes when we're writing as
Michaela: Mm.
Jack: feel like there's a moment when it's like, we're struggling, we're struggling, and then we've hit a line and almost the song just takes off on itself and you feel like you're just kind of flying and you can step away and just let the song be good and happen by itself.
I feel like those are connected a little bit. The show kind of just goes off and you know, you're set you have it.
Michaela: I love that.
Michaela: we had a guest on here one time who said after a performance that someone came up to him and said, you really held up your side of the ritual.
Ryan: Hmm.
Michaela: And that was so poignant of like, oh yeah, this thing where we engage in, as musicians, I always think about we have all these different layers of, ways that [00:24:00] we engage with our creativity, with the writing, with the recording, with the arranging a live show, with planning a live show, and then the actual live show, you know, it's all under one umbrella, but they're all kind of different aspects.
And require different emotional parts of ourselves. And thinking of live performance as a ritual that is engaged With two sides is I think a really beautiful thing. And also thinking about a venue the size of Madison Square Garden, that ritual can still be experienced when there's this really intentional way of connecting to however many thousands of people are
in there,
Ryan: Yeah,
Michaela: in the,
Ryan: think it. Very much is a ritual. I think, we love Enco. I
Michaela: mm-hmm.
Ryan: A lot of artists have turned on Encore a little bit. 'cause
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: Like it's an exercise in narcissism and it's performative and everybody knows I'm coming back. And for us it's like, yeah, that's fun.
Like Everybody knows, okay, we're leaving. It is like being a kid again. And like
Michaela: Yeah.
Ryan: just a magic trick and like, you [00:25:00] know how he does it, but you're like pretending like there's like a connection there and
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: Back. That very much feels like ritual that everybody's in on. There's an unspoken agreement there.
Aaron: for sure. It's 20,000 person peekaboo. Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jack: Yeah.
Michaela: we're, clearly in baby world over here.
Jack: Yeah,
Michaela: I mean, but you, you know, you're
Aaron: going away and people are like, where'd they go? Like, oh, I'm back.
Jack: totally.
Ryan: here. Yeah.
Michaela: so I'm also curious 'cause you guys, you both studied film, is that correct?
Jack: For a short while. Yes. Until we left school,
Michaela: Okay.
Jack: we did.
Michaela: Yeah. And then your brother Adam also has higher levels of education, is that correct? He has a PhD in international human rights law.
Jack: That is correct.
Michaela: Okay. Wow. So, yeah, so my question is just how these other, creative endeavors, other creative interests other just like general interests, and I wanna say other general interests to the point that you pursue education. It's not like a, [00:26:00] lighthearted I'm interested in reading the newspaper, whatever, you know, so these deeper interests that you all have pursued at different periods in your life.
if you're conscious of it at all, how they play out in this endeavor that you guys have together, how it maybe contributes or helps balance if you've thought about that at all. Okay.
Jack: I'll speak for Ryan and I in our kind of love for film. I think there's two sides. I think there's. escape and the like application of it. I think we went to school for a little bit. We left to go tour, then we came back for another semester and took like a bunch more film courses.
And that was for two reasons. It was one because we just genuinely loved watching movies and analyzing and hearing other perspectives. but then also too, because there was a real application in terms of our music, We would be stuck on a line or on a song and we would feel like we hit writer's block.
We would go to class, we would watch a movie we've never seen before. We would go back and we would have it, we would go, wait, the director kind of approached it from this angle, or wait, this, do you hear this monologue? [00:27:00] He's talking about this callback to this thing. And then we would have the song.
And so that's really helped us a big mantra for us is like when you're uninspired. Change your medium. If you're having trouble writing, go read a book. Go watch a movie, get away from music. So that really helped us when it came to film also for the live show too anything like with crazy effects or cool shots or climax to the low emotional moment, back to the climax, we've all put that into the show as well.
Aaron: Yeah, I was just gonna say I definitely see the connection there between. Film and what Ryan was describing about stage show and, the productions there. I also view writing and, especially like production and recording in a very cinematic kind of way. Thinking about landscape, thinking about camera angle and perspective and, feel, and,
there's a lot of overlap.
Ryan: even if a lot of it is subconscious, I think you can really transport the listener to a world if you use the right sounds. We like to sample a lot of, weird stuff just in the music. Like we sampled a elephant like a, in [00:28:00] one
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: not really for the gimmick of it, but just subconsciously I'm listening to it and I'm like, I'm suddenly in the jungle and things are unhinged, and that's the chaotic feeling I want out of this song. like horses galloping kind of aligned with the drums, jump the boom
our song, DJs crying for help.
And it literally, to me feels like now I'm picturing moving forward, moving forward, which is very much what the song is about.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: if you treat it like a it can do a lot of subconscious work.
Michaela: Yeah. songs are the ones that transport you, right? Mm-hmm. Your eyes, you feel like you are in a movie. Those are the songs that you keep coming back to, that you save. And a great movie obviously does that easily, but if we can do that in a song. It's such a win for us.
Aaron: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, makes it tangible like those little things like, I love maybe it's from years in New York City, but you know, taking like a street scape and putting it behind a section, you might not actually hear what's going on, but it gives this feel, this connectedness.
Like you said, a very subliminal thing, and it's cool how. You can kind of, subliminally channel [00:29:00] a listener two places and,
Ryan: if nothing else, it like puts you into a room, like when I hear the Early Beach Boys stuff like. in the room with them. I hear that they all did this at the same time. and I'm transported there, right?
I think some of that probably has been lost by, everything's recorded all over the country, all over the world in very isolated dead vocal booths. technically better and studio cleaner, but like, I'm not transported anywhere. So I think that putting in street
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: sounds over here, even if it's subtle, it like you into that location.
Aaron: again, subliminally like it, it feels real. You know, It feels like, oh, I'm listening to this band. I'm hearing all of these people together. They are in a space, you know, of course you can use reverbs and all those other studio tricks, but like, there's all these other things, that aren't textbook like perfect or proper recording methods.
Jack: Yeah. like Zeppelin would record acoustic guitars, like outside, you know. and so if you could isolate those, there's birds in there and all of this stuff, but like, it feels awesome. It feels great.
Ryan: Totally
Michaela: Yeah. [00:30:00] can you guys talk a little bit about your song, but Goodbye and the story behind it if you feel comfortable.
Ryan: Totally. the big goodbye took five years to make. We found this auctioneer sample first, and that was at this point, over five years ago. And it's this barbershop quartet singing this auctioneer like, how much uh, will you gimme five? Gimme 35. we slowed it down and put this kind of like, beat under it.
And all we had was that loop for so many years. We had no idea how what song could come after this magical loop. we tried a bunch of different songs. We tried like a more chromatic creepy kind of version of it. We tried a more badass kind of version of it, a really pop version of it.
And everything felt like we were repeating old a JR It felt like here's something a JR would do. We were like doing a cover or an impression of our old music. It felt very uninspiring. But we knew those first 10 seconds, we just knew it was [00:31:00] magical and whatever the rest of the song was needed to.
Either be surprising or, sort of as magical in a different way. And so then we got the track going and we added strings and these horns, and it felt very wistful nostalgic. Like you're flying through the sky. We had all these like, kind of images. We knew, okay, now we have a magical track.
Then it was like two years of trying to find the right concept to go with that
Jack: Huh?
Ryan: track
Michaela: Oh my God.
Ryan: and
Michaela: I love that.
Ryan: we wrote like a million versions right, Jack?
Jack: I mean, that is such a tough thing to run into when you know something is, it's so much fun, honestly, when you know something doesn't work and you get to throw it away and start over. It's a great feeling. Like it sucks that you've worked for a while on it. But when you have that thing that's like, but this is good and I know it's gonna work, it's even more frustrating ' cause you have to keep listening to it.
And then it just sounds like noise
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Jack: to you.
But we did, and we pushed through it which has been the case for a lot of songs, and we know that if you put enough time in, it'll just arrive. And [00:32:00] it did this song concept about having mixed feelings about your dreams coming true.
Like you finally are starting to make it in whatever you have or medium or life goal you have. And you go off and start to do it. But then there's that feeling of, wait, hold on I'm, leaving my hometown that I loved. I'm leaving everyone behind. They're all gonna go off and get married and have kids and be in this.
World and I'm gonna be separate from them. we thought that was a really relatable idea and something that we were really feeling, so we kind of took all that stuff and combined it.
Michaela: Can you talk about how you relate to that story in your own life of being touring musicians and the commitment and the sacrifice that it takes to. To, achieve on the, level of success that you guys have.
Ryan: Yeah. The song kind of takes place I don't know, seven years ago like, 'cause one of the lines is I wrote a song about being weak. And our Song week came out probably more like eight years ago. And that moment of leaving New York for the first time, like that was the moment that we wrote about.
But I think we couldn't possibly have written this song eight years ago when we were [00:33:00] going through it. I think we needed to write it from our hindsight at this point. Cause I think we've just learned a lot of lessons in the last few years. It's A very weird and amazing thing to accomplish your dream to play.
MSG was like, the goal to do an arena tour was the goal of my life. And then we got back home and I was like, okay, I accomplished the goal of my life. What the hell all my problems are and solved in my head. Like, I still have all the,
Michaela: I'm still fucked up in the same ways that I was before I played the arena tour. Wait a second. A lot of the friends that I felt like I was leaving behind and going to live, my dreams are farther along and they're like, whether it's they're married or they have kids now, or even just psychologically they're happier than I am.
Ryan: What did I get wrong here?
Ryan: that's where it came from. There's a line tell me why, why my town feels like home for the first time in years. Why do I need to be known? They fucking know me here. And that's probably my favorite line in the song. 'cause it's like why was this [00:34:00] need for, I don't even wanna say fame 'cause that's like gross to say, but this need to be seen by a quantity of people in order to feel love and be known.
Where'd that come from? Like, It was so obvious to me up until we played the arena tour where suddenly I had this shift of mentality where I was like. my little group of friends already knew me. What was I doing? And so I kind of wanted to write from that perspective, but put that back in time, eight years as if I was feeling that as I was leaving.
Michaela: I felt the exact same thing after
Mm-hmm.
Jack: It's, a scary feeling of, we often write about feelings that are so unresolved in our life too.
And it's the kind of thing that feels like it'll never be resolved. And that's the kind of stuff that we're like really attracted to as songwriters. as sad as it is, I'll probably be feeling this forever because. I want to be doing this forever. I want to try to strive for my dream and greatness forever.
And I also want to a part of the friend group that gets married and has kids and can kind of stay in this comfortable place.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Jack: [00:35:00] Able to figure that out. there's like a fear there, but it, that's kind of what we're attracted to as songwriter.
Michaela: I think I'm particularly drawn to this type of conversation and like the endless conversations around achievement maybe because of like growing up in American culture, I feel like there's so much emphasis on you can be whatever you wanna be. Like reach for the stars, like all of that stuff.
And I feel like I. I've just continued to learn, especially in the music world and in the age of metrics and social media and streaming numbers and like we think we can so easily quantify our own and other people's success. Just how false that idea is. That's the key to happiness, but then how hard it is for so many of us to truly live that, to know that. So I think that's why I'm always like leaning in. We had Mary Chapin carpenter on here who, you know, had massive heights of success in the nineties, what is it?
quadruple platinum and like 18 Grammy [00:36:00] nominations, you know, and we were talking about like, all of that outside success, reaching all of your dreams, doesn't solve your problems, doesn't make happy.
It's like, no, there's, she's like, there's still things in life that I haven't, received. But I think, the key to me is what you said, Ryan, of like, I was thinking that that was gonna make me feel loved
Ryan: Yeah.
Michaela: and. at the risk of sounding like super cheesy. I think my underlying purpose in life is wanting to understand like how do we feel loved I feel like I'm gonna quote an old country song of looking for love in all the wrong places from my favorite movie, urban Cowboy. but yeah, that kind of realization like, it doesn't mean don't do that. It doesn't mean like don't seek out these experiences and try to achieve and, build something, but how to build the internal like embodied knowledge that that isn't what is going to make us feel whole
Ryan: Yeah.
Michaela: and loved to be seen by so [00:37:00] many.
Jack: yeah, I was just gonna say, we talk about this sometimes, and you talked about streaming numbers, that's just a great example of it's very easy to get caught up in your head of is how many people love me and this is how big I am and how successful I am. It's this many million people.
And again we talk about that and we're so excited that our songs have reached that many people. But again, we still have that feeling of it's a number on a page, and why am I not feeling blah, blah, blah. And I think we realize our absolute happiest is when we kind of let go of how many people like a song and how many people don't, and do we love it, period.
And I feel like we've gotten to that place at a certain age. Like we have one song, we've talked about this called The Trick which was on our album Okay. Orchestra. And it was and away the worst received song on the album. Lowest amount of streams you can just tell people kind of skipped it.
But while Ryan and I were making it, we had such a blast. And then when we put it out, even though the streams weren't there and people never talked about it [00:38:00] we just don't regret a thing. 'cause we really love listening to it and we love remembering that. And I think it was a really important lesson for us just in this entire journey of, on one second.
pause here and realize the happiness that we're feeling. Even though this has nothing to do with in front of MSG or 700 million streams, are we really happy right now? Is that like, let's capture that feeling. Okay. It must be, do the work that you wanna do, do the craft that you want to do.
Just sit in that. And I think that that's a really good moment for us, a great learning moment.
Ryan: I totally agree that you, yourself, need to love it. I also think there's something to be said for like, if you do have fans appreciating them on a granular one-on-one level. I think. Sometimes when you're on stage for a huge crowd, it just looks like a big sea of people.
And that's cool for like 10 seconds when you first come out and go, this many people came and then something happens in your brain and you get desensitized to it and it looks like a sea of [00:39:00] lights. And you stop feeling anything. And I think something we've learned as the shows have gotten bigger is look at individual people.
Look at this mom and this teenage daughter that are connecting and singing your lyric right now. And it snaps you right back into
Jack: Yeah.
Ryan: you're doing this, which is to connect individual people. And I think that probably there's an answer in terms of social media that's on that same level. It's not like social media's evil.
I even find myself, we just put out the big goodbye music video. And I find myself looking at comments and I look at one like amazing comment that's like, this song means so much to me because I just left my hometown for med school and, sobbing right now. And I just said goodbye to my mom and, and I'm really feeling something.
And then something in all of our brains is like next, next, next, next, next, next, next. And it becomes about quantity so fast. And I think there's a parable there of looking at one fan at a time of just like really appreciating that one girl's comment and then put your fucking phone away and go [00:40:00] live life and maybe come back and then just read like one or two more comments and really take them in
Jack: Right.
Ryan: viewing it as
Jack: Yeah, you're turning those comments into the sea of people. It's like, I'm like watching like the Uh. of people go, go, go, go, go, go. You know?
Ryan: Yes.
Aaron: I'm interested in to flip the camera around on that idea of turn the comments into a sea of people in that it's no secret that like the internet is a barrier, to like, I think a lot of people's best intentions.
And so especially dealing with like a banner, an artist that has a following in a presence as large as yours. I'm sure there are a lot of people that toss out things that they wouldn't say to you guys in person on, like a negative end or don't realize it's very easy for them to forget that there are human beings on the other side of that, how do you guys navigate that? Is that what you just skip past, or, you know, since you said you do read comments, so it's like, they're not seeing you as Jack and Ryan actually reading these comments. You know, they see it's like, oh, this is an internet page. I'm gonna take my grievance out on [00:41:00] my car on this comment section, or whatever it is.
Jack: I think it depends on the comment. Like What kind of comment is it? Is it like these three clowns should quit music forever? Or
Michaela: Yeah.
Jack: uh, if it's that, it's like, that's whatever, that's noise. I think we really pay attention to constructive criticism within comments.
Like,
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Jack: this one. Is
this album wasn't as good as the last one. I'm really interested in that.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Jack: Really write that off and go, oh, that person doesn't know he is talking about, I really want to know more. And I know everyone has their different opinion, but sometimes they'll go into detail and I'll actually be like that's a really interesting take.
I might not agree with it, I don't know how do you feel about that? Re.
Ryan: I think stuff only hurts when some truth to it, like in real
Michaela: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Ryan: something about us, pisses people off in real life in the band, like in high school, everybody just loved to make fun of us, it's just the cards we were dealt with and were ourselves and were unabashedly ourselves.
And maybe that's part of it. But it's so funny to just see it follow us around for life that among a group, a JR is just like a really fun [00:42:00] thing to make fun of. that doesn't hurt because often the thing that they're making fun of is what I said in the beginning like, how we like to write from an aliens perspective about human nature.
Like I've seen that as a criticism a million times. They don't understand how us regular humans live. Yeah. That's like what I, love about our music.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: or the Broadway ish stuff or the theatrical stuff. so I mixed our album, the Click, which was our second album,
I saw a review that said there's like no low end in the album, like no bass.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: I listened to it and that one really hurt because I knew they were right.
Michaela: Yeah.
Ryan: listened back, I was like, shit, the week has so much less low end than it could have if we got it mixed professionally. And
Aaron: Yeah.
Ryan: we always get everything mixed professionally. But like that's an example of a comment that actually hurt 'cause there was some truth to it.
Michaela: Yeah. Yeah.
Aaron: that's so true. when that comment, whether it's, you know, in person or on the internet, like bounces off that same comment that you've maybe made to yourself or not acknowledged in yourself, you're like, ah, yeah. That, there. Yeah.
Okay.
Michaela: what is [00:43:00] your guys' age difference between the three of you?
Jack: I am 28 and then, right. you're 31.
Ryan: Yeah. And then Adam's three and a half we're each three and a half years older than each other.
Michaela: Okay. So you guys weren't, in school like all at the same time. Or a couple times in high school or,
Ryan: Yeah. I guess.
for
Michaela: yeah.
Jack: Yeah.
Michaela: what you were saying about just for whatever reason people like to take digs at you. I, don't like that, but I love your response to it of just like, that's not our problem.
That's their problem. And I, was just curious like, I think sometimes that's so much harder to deal with when you're on your own. Like, I definitely got shit. I think when you, are yourself and put yourself out there and you perform, it invites people to attack you for different reasons.
I definitely dealt with that in high school of I was the star of musicals and then that pissed people off. someone would yell in, in the hallway that Mikayla couldn't sing. I'm like okay. That deeply hurt me though.
Ryan: Hmm.
Jack: Yeah.
Michaela: And I wonder just having the camaraderie of your brothers, of just being like [00:44:00] whatever, that built some fortitude that has then driven and helped all of this. Become possible for you to not reach heights of success in the music industry, but be able to create and make songs that feel so authentically you guys.
Jack: it's really interesting. I think we've developed a situation where we are confident at the right times to help the other person.
we have a song called Betty on the new ep, and we wrote a version of it before the version that out there now.
That's totally different. And we wrote it and after we made it, I think we knew it wasn't that great. And then Martin, the guy who we talked about, kind of like reaffirmed my feelings about it. I sent it
Michaela: Mm.
Jack: he's like a great test. He was like, eh, it's not so good. And I was so angry at him, even though I knew he was right.
It's kinda like we were just talking about and I was in like such a bad place. And then Ryan came in and he had this level of confidence that really kind of got me back. And then it's totally vice versa. I think sometimes if, when it comes to a bad [00:45:00] comment or people making fun of us, whoever I'm seeing it really clearly and Ryan is letting it get to him, and I'm in a place where I can talk some confidence into him.
I don't think we're ever. Upset together, honestly, we're
Michaela: That's amazing.
Jack: mean of everyone. That's so mean of everyone. I think developed this perfect dynamic and I don't know how it got developed. I think naturally we see the other person there and we kind of like rise to the occasion.
We're like, Nope, I'm seeing it the right way. Let me help you out.
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Jack: I think you would be a lot more difficult doing this by herself. It's worked out really well for us, having someone there.
Michaela: I love that.
Aaron: Yeah. Taking it from like, oh, this is a me thing to, this is a we thing. I can imagine you you know, disperse the, pain and the work
Michaela: yeah.
Ryan: just like by nature of our music, a lot of our songs what we try to do could be done really badly. even like a dog song, a song from the perspective of your dog that could be written as like the worst corniest song
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: that's just pointing out a lot of things about your dog.
And what's the point of even writing that? And I think in retrospect it's kind of easy [00:46:00] to look back and listen to some of the criticism and be like, yeah, what were we thinking? What a corny idea. Or like, we sampled SpongeBob on our first single.
Like, That is also so easy to look back and like shit on yourself in retrospect. But it takes the balance of the two of us going, no, we said our truth. That's actually the thing that we like about us. Alright, let's get our confidence back and go on that path.
Michaela: Yeah. That's awesome.
Aaron: I love that.
Michaela: we wanna be mindful of time and we'll wrap up. But we always say that our audience is other creatives or musicians out there who might feel, more alone in this path in life.
so I wanna just touch on the fact. You guys are selling as much as you are and you are completely independent. Is that true?
Jack: Yeah,
Ryan: we did a one album thing with Republic last year, but now we're back to fully independent. Yeah.
Michaela: And does that feel like an empowered place and just kind of the freedom that comes with being independent?
Jack: It's all we've known, honestly. We did do that one album, but you know, we've been doing this, I guess 20 years since we started the [00:47:00] band,
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Jack: 19 of those years has been independent.
Ryan: I hate giving advice, like never signed to a label. Like That's not our advice
Michaela: Yep.
Ryan: our specific case. We grew up not knowing anybody in the industry. we didn't have money to be able to like pay for music videos or whatever. So just out of necessity, we needed to learn all these skills ourself.
And I think that developed this cohesive style of when you see an A JR music video, you know, it's a JR or an album cover or music or whatever or social media even. And I think personally thrive best doing everything in-house, feeling like the auteurs of our art, we have a very direct connection to the fans.
No one's getting in the way, whether creatively or marketing wise. I think we probably could be a bigger band, if we had taken the, I guess, traditional major label route at some point and plugged into more of a machine. But I don't think I would like our band as much. And I think that's probably the lesson.
Like We [00:48:00] could be a bigger band, of course. Like we could be Ed Sheer in size. We're not, I don't think we ever will be. I think our music sounds too much in a certain lane. And I think that that's okay to sort of recognize that about yourself. Try to be as big as you can be for your specific style.
Michaela: I love that.
Aaron: Mikayla mentioned that we like to kind of ask one final question of every guest, just to, get people's takes. And we usually make it a, choose your own adventure. But you kind of just touched on one of the questions that we ask. So I'm just gonna give you guys one option.
I'd love to hear from each of you, and it's something that somebody has said to you along the way that still resonates with you, that still like, fills your tank, keeps you inspired.
Jack: Chris Martin told me that he listens to our music with his son.
Aaron: Rad.
Jack: I don't know if that's what you're looking for. You're looking for advice, but that definitely sticks with me. That was the coolest moment of my, of my,
Aaron: Yeah. that would keep some gas in my tank for sure. Yeah.
Ryan: They make fun of our music together.
Jack: They're the ones leaving the comments, I
Aaron: I was gonna say they have like some burner accounts that they leave.
Ryan: um. when we played our first [00:49:00] show basically ever it was a room that could have fit 2000 people and we announced it in New Jersey and we showed up and six people came in this cavernous room and we felt like, do we really have to do this show? This is gonna be a nightmare. And our manager said, before we went on, he was like, these six people are gonna be the most important fans you'll ever have.
Cater to them, serve them, give them everything that they came for. And we did. And were now like 11 years later, those are still our six biggest fans.
that's probably a microcosm of what we've been talking about, like treat people on a human granular level.
Jack: I'll echo that. Totally. I think that's something that we think about and I think that changed the course of performing and writing for us for our entire lives. it's kind of goes back to what I said about street performing. It's, you can't reach that level of I'm too good for you now, and everything I do is perfect.
you still have to treat audiences like there's six people there and put on the greatest show. You can,
Aaron: man. I love that. Jack and Ryan, thank you guys for taking time this morning to sit and chat with us
Ryan: That was so fun.
Michaela: yeah, [00:50:00] yeah, you. guys.
Aaron: yeah. Thank
Michaela: you. Tell Chris we said hello as well.
Aaron: Yeah,
Jack: Will do. Yeah. Gonna take some out.
Aaron: for sure.
Ryan:
Jack: Thanks guys.
Ryan: All.