Interview with JOAN
Can you introduce yourselves and tell me where you are from?
Alan: Hey this is Alan Thomas.
Stephen: And my name is Stephen Rutherford.
Alan: We are the band JOAN, and we’re from Little Rock, Arkansas, a small city in a big state.
How did that area influence your music?
Stephen: It probably influenced us in an interesting way. We both grew up listening to what our parents listened to, with a harder rock background. I also had more of a background with artists like Prince, along with whatever was on my mom and dad’s radio, like country music. JOAN isn’t really any of those things, though. Maybe because we grew up surrounded by things like Creed and Kid Rock, what everyone was listening to, I knew I didn’t want to do that. In a way, it informed us about what not to do. That’s not to say Arkansas is a bad place or anything, but it definitely shaped our direction.
Alan: I think if there was any influence from where we grew up, it came from the fact that no one really came to Little Rock. There was no option to see specific groups or artists that you liked, there was almost like this painted mystery and like the allure of artists and you just couldn't access them. Because of that, I think the influence on us was wanting to make music that felt iconic or hard to reach in the same way, music that could feel accessible to people in places like that.
Stephen: When we first started, and honestly, even now, we’d hear a lot of press saying things like, “When I first heard you, I thought you were from London, LA, New York, or one of those big places.” Never in a million years did they imagine we were from Little Rock, Arkansas. I think that says a lot and probably paints the picture: we don’t sound like we’re from there.
Stephen: When we first started—and honestly, even now—we’d hear a lot of press saying things like, “When I first heard you, I thought you were from London, LA, New York, or one of those big places.” Never in a million years did they imagine we were from Little Rock, Arkansas. I think that says a lot and probably paints the picture: we don’t sound like we’re from there.
So you just released heartbodymindsoul, can you tell me a little bit about how this song came to life?
Alan: Yeah, it’s called heartbodymindsoul. We’ve been lucky enough to tour in Asia, and every time we’re there, especially in Thailand, they have these crazy cheap massages. We’ll play a festival, and then the next show won’t be for a few days, so we just stay in the area. We usually end up getting two or three massages, either at the hotel or somewhere nearby. One time, though, we accidentally got a couples massage. We just showed up together, and they put us in the same room. While we were there, they had this audio playing over the speakers, and it kept saying “body, mind, soul” or something like that. I remember thinking, “That’s sick,” and that’s where the idea for the song started.
Stephen: Yeah, there are a lot of tags like that, especially around there. I don’t know if it’s a translation thing or something, but “body, mind, soul” is such a commonly matched phrase in spa treatments. We were like, “Oh yeah, that could be a song.” It just felt right, like, “Great, let’s write that.” There’s something almost weird about the idea of letting go of your body, mind, and soul during a spa treatment with a stranger. But then we thought, “What if we flipped that and turned it into a love song?”
How do you translate your recorded songs to the stage? Are there any challenges you need to overcome?
Stephen: We are currently working on a song that has a sax in it, so that will be fun.
Alan: heartbodymindsoul is actually a good example. There are no real drums, and there are no real instruments in the recording. And on stage, we are all playing real instruments so it’s like “Okay, how do we make this song feel like drum and bass music.”
Stephen: Translating that to the stage was interesting but what's so sick is that it feels like a nod to the song, but also it feels so different in a great way, with such a big feel to it. This one specifically translated really well.
Alan: I think any song for the most part feels better live.
Your sound has evolved since your earlier releases, have there been times when you had completely different visions for a song, and if so, how did you navigate that?
Stephen: I don’t think so. I think we’re both pretty good about being open-ended and giving time to an idea. So if there’s a specific lyric or sound, we’ll spend an hour or two changing something to see if it works. By the end, we can usually feel if it does. A big part of it is not saying no and just seeing how it feels.
Alan: There are times when we question things. Like, he’ll send me a sound, and I’ll think, “Oh, that’s interesting. I wouldn’t have gone there in my head.” But if I have any instinct of “I don’t know”, I fight it. I’ll be like, “Nope, leave it in. Let’s see how it feels after a few hours.” Even if I’m not sure about a sound, whether I think it’s cool or not, it’s just something unique, a little off-center. Nine times out of ten, those ideas stay because we end up falling in love with them. It’s like, “Yes, that’s it,” and it becomes a signature, a stamp on the song. So yeah, I think we have a pretty good relationship when it comes to that.
How do you find the balance between creating music that’s personal while still resonating with your audience?
Stephen: I think, for us, even with songs that don’t start off feeling personal, the ticket is whether they end up hitting an emotion for us lyrically. If it really resonates and feels like it hits home, that’s a huge win. Even if it starts with just some random phrase that doesn’t have anything personal to do with us, if it ends up feeling like it hits us in the heart, then hopefully that means it will hit everyone the same way, too.
Alan: I agree. I don’t think I have anything to add, but even if a lyric is too personal to us, like something someone might not have experienced, we still have the melody and the music. We try to shape everything in a way that people can feel it. We’re always chasing timelessness, so we aim for songs and ideas that we’ll still be proud of 15 years from now, and that won’t feel locked into a specific time or era. Instead, it’s about creating a song that’s just great.
What direction do you see your music heading in the future? Do you have any plans for an upcoming album or EP, and if so, how does this new single fit into it so far?
Alan: We’re working on a lot of music right now. This isn’t just a fluff answer, there’s just no grand plan yet. It will probably become our next album, but right now, we’re just releasing songs. It kind of goes back to how we started. Our first EP, Portra, wasn’t really planned. It wasn’t like we sat down and said, "This is it." We just released a song here and there, and eventually, a theme emerged and it was time to release an EP. But with superglue, our debut album, we were very methodical about it, writing and planning it to be a collection. Now, we’re kind of falling back in love with how we started, where we just put songs out, and things fall into place. We probably already have the songs for album two, but some of them could get swapped out, or just released as singles. So yeah, there’s a lot more music coming, a lot more shows, and more of everything. Honestly, I’m just as curious as you are.
This is your second day on tour with Misterwives, what are you most excited about this run?
Stephen: It's so interesting to not be headlining because we’ve done both, support and headline. We were supporting for so long, from 2017 to 2020. Then COVID hit... you’ve heard of that, right? We started headlining before COVID hit, and we didn’t have to cancel any shows, but it was right on the edge. Like, we were in Seattle when the first case was reported. But anyway, we started building our own headline shows, and then we kind of said, “Unless the right support comes along, we’re not sure it makes sense to do that.” But then bands like [Misterwives] ask you to come out and you see how awesome they are, great people, great music, and they’re playing bigger rooms than we’ve played yet. It’s just a natural building block for us.
I think one of the big things I’m looking forward to is playing not just small, dirty clubs, but proper rooms. We’ve played plenty of those, but it’s like a taste of what’s to come for us. One day, I want to look at a 1500 capacity room and think, “Yeah, this totally makes sense for us,” instead of the 500 or 800 capacity rooms we’re used to. So I’m really looking forward to the growth that comes from this tour and all the new fans we’ll meet. We’re at the merch table every night after our set, connecting with people, selling our merch, and just being as personable as we can.
Let me recap for you: one, I love playing bigger, nicer venues, not dirty, little, stinky venues. Two, I love connecting with our new fans and selling new things. And also, I mean, boys gotta eat. I didn't have three.
Alan: Oh, I got three. Okay, playing big venues, making huge, big sales, and playing big-time bangers with my buddies.
Stephen: I just want to say thank you for listening to us. Anyway, this is Stephen
Alan: This is Alan Benjamin Thomas, and we're signing off over and out!