Jonas Brothers on Reuniting, Marriages and Drinking as Therapy (Extended Interview)

Jonas Brothers are back. Oh, my gosh, how exciting. Happiness begins. I want to say it was almost 10 years ago to the day that you guys... Really? We planned it all. ...on our show, yeah. Specifically to come back here 10 years later. Yeah, that's what it was all about, the whole thing. No, I wish. I mean, this is, I mean, a lot has happened since then. I mean, yeah, I mean, you broke up. You went solo careers. Kevin, you had two kids. I know. It's insane. I mean, a lot. The best thing ever. They are. Yeah. It changed. It's the greatest thing. I mean, do they know who Dad is? Do you know who... They definitely don't know who these guys are. They definitely don't know who that guy is. Do you guys know who these guys are? No. I mean, Nick... Dude, you're in a real bad dream right now. Oh, gosh. What would you... Anime characters, I think. What would you say to yourself, Nick, if you had to talk to yourself back then? What would you say to yourself? I would tell myself to find some scissors and cut that out. I think it's a good look, man. Also to, like, go in the sun. We're extremely pale. Yeah, you look very, yeah. That was during the twilight phase, so we're trying to fit in. Is it twilight? And, Joe, can we even discuss this? Yeah. I could put somebody's eye out with that hair right there. Yeah. What was that inspired by? Flat irons, mostly. Actually, there's a band, Tokyo Hotel, from Germany, that I love, and we met them recently again, but I kind of just thought the lead singer had a lot of hair, and his hair was so straight and spiky, and I was trying to emulate that. I'm not sure why, but... You did it. You emulated it. You absolutely nailed it. Thank you. I'm so happy. I love the new album. Congrats on the great reviews. Thank you. All the singles have been fantastic so far. Happiness Begins. Very kind of personal album, as well. I mean, some of the songs on here, you wrote, Kevin, come back. Yeah, well, we wrote it together, but that song specifically, I think, meant a lot to me. I think from the... To the fans, but as well, from traveling for the first time in a long time, away from my family and the girls, that was a big deal, obviously. How old are your girls? They're five and two. So they don't know you as a Jonas Brother? They do now, but it was, you know, touch and go there for a minute. They didn't really know who that was and all of that stuff, but they got to come to their first show the other day, which was amazing. Oh, really? Yeah. I have a very cute clip of your daughter, you talking to your daughter... Oh, yeah. ...about you being... Anyway, here's Kevin's five-year-old daughter being very excited that her dad is a Jonas Brother. Take a look at this. I'm Alina, and this is my dad. Should I say it? Mm-hmm. Yeah, you can say it. This is one of the Jonas Brothers. What? It's so awesome, and it's, um... She did tell her entire school that, you know, the Jonas Brothers were coming back before the Jonas Brothers were. Oh, yeah. She spoiled everything? We were trying to keep it a secret for basically a year. We're making this documentary, we're making the album, and we're like, we got this on lock. No one's gonna tell. Kevin comes home and says, Guys, Alina told her whole class. She told the whole school, and it's out. Luckily, those five-year-olds are tight-lipped. Yeah, they kept the secret for us. You gave me a little inside scoop, and I was like, all right, I'm just gonna cross my fingers. Oh, I did. I know, but I appreciate that. It could have been better. I told him that we were coming back. He told the four of us we were gonna release an album together. Wow! I never got the phone call. He told me a little scoop. I told him that the bands came back. That's a little scoop. It's a big scoop. Yeah, he trusted me. I forgot about that. But I also, I mean, you got married. I mean... Yes. Is it pressure writing songs about your wives? No, it's the best. I mean, we, um... I think we looked a long time for the kind of inspiration that we now have, whether it's kids, or, you know, wives and fans. You know, this, also this journey we went on together over the course of a year and a half, two years of making the film, coming back together. It's all in there. But, you know, it's the best thing in the world to be able to write a love letter to your wife in a musical form. And same with you. Yeah. It's incredible. Yeah. And you, I mean, Sophie, we love her as well. But yeah, you just... You said to me that you got married to her just so you could find Game of Thrones spoilers. Exactly. Yeah, and that's good for you. That's it. Good move. That's such a good move. Now I'm just trying to figure out, like, if I could write a song for the next season and she'll tell me. Oh. Oops. Spoiler alert right there, guys. Uh... Wait. Wait, what? He's joking. It's okay. Yeah, he's just joking. Guys, uh... My heart stopped. Everyone in the room was like, wait a second. Everyone's loving the new record, but this is pretty funny. There's one person out there that is not a fan of this. Who? Someone's getting apparently text messages. Oh, yeah. So to explain what's happening right now, this is your fault? I guess. It's all your fault. So basically, I changed my number maybe seven, eight months ago. Some people got my number. They were calling me all the time. So finally, I just changed it, but I forgot to text a few people. So when the album came out, my brothers and I were on group text together, but it was the old number. So a few people that I had forgotten to text the new number to. So this is me and this person somewhere in the world is getting text messages congratulating them on a new album from probably a lot of numbers. A lot of people. And the last one that we saw in one of these group texts was really hostile. So you should probably show up. This is the last one here. It says, uh, congrats, dudes. Album is sick. Excited to watch you go. This person says, stop texting this number. You have the wrong number. If you continue to text this number, I'm going to give it to the police. Like... So I just... I love the idea that there's someone in the country so mad that lots of people are trolling them that they have a new album out. Yeah. I would love to see how that conversation would go with the police. People are out here congratulating me. Can you believe what's happening in this world? Uh, congrats on that documentary, by the way, as well. I did not know about that, and it's fantastic. I, uh... I loved it, and I just didn't really know as much of the history as I thought about you guys. Was that why you wanted to make one? Yeah, that was one of the reasons. I think, you know, the whole idea initially was just a documentary, and then from there, it kind of evolved to wanting to do this again, and it's all there in the doc, but it also shows, you know, our childhood, our upbringing, you know, both in church and then into performing together and all that, and it's a pretty in-depth look and, you know, has been just phenomenal to see people writing and messaging us just about, you know, connecting family again, and that was the intention, really, more than anything, was just to try to create something that hopefully, you know, a brother or sister calls their family and says, listen, you know, it's been a while, but I love you, and we can get through this, you know, and it was kind of our story. Yeah. Well, you also see how much you live together, and, I mean, you're doing all these malls in New Jersey and, like, all this stuff, and you go, oh, George Bush didn't just come out and just do arenas. No. We'd be at a mall at, like, 7 a.m., and there's this thing called Mall Walkers that you go to the mall and you do laps around the mall, and it's, like, I guess mostly when it's, like, snowing outside and it's pretty difficult to go for your morning walk, and we're performing at 7 a.m. in a mall where these people are covering their, you know, covering their ears or, like, booing. It's, like, that's how we got started. And at one point, you weren't going to be named Jonas Brothers, right? No, there were some other names before. Yeah, we had a few. Actually, Jonas Brothers came up because on our first show ever, Joe just got on stage and said, we're the Jonas Brothers. But before that, it was Sons of Jonas. J3. J3, which was never right. Run, Jonas, run. Jonas, Jonas, Jonas. Oh! Jonas, Jonas, Jonas is not bad. I like that one. Jimmy Jonas. No, that was... Oh, man, I got so excited. Oh, my gosh. I didn't make the cut. There's one scene in the documentary. It's you guys playing a drinking game. Yes. And basically, through that drinking game, you kind of... It's almost like therapy. Almost. Our version. It kind of is. Tequila-infused therapy. You were kind of asking each other, like, yeah, why did the band break up and... Oh, this is the heaviest clip in the whole doc. Yeah. Isn't that weird that it's this game? The one that you chose to show. Yeah, exactly. Well, I loved it because I think it is really personal and you go, wow, that was like... It was fascinating. The whole thing is fascinating. If you weren't a fan of the Jonas Brothers before, watch this documentary and you'll be like, wow. I really... Hats off to you guys. I want to show everyone a clip from the documentary. Here's Nick, Joe, and Kevin in Chasing Happiness. Take a look at this. This game I played a few days ago. It's fun because it's questions we either have to answer ourselves or it might be directed towards everybody else. The more we drink, the more the questions are going to be answered, so... Ready? One, two, three. Boom. It's on Nick. Bullet. Biggest regret in regards to the brothers, season two of Jonas. It's a big regret. We shouldn't have done that. It really stunted our growth, you know? I feel like it was just a bad move. Yeah. Like it was just not the time and... Literally, we couldn't evolve because of it. Is that the same thing? Yeah. And that's real. Very real. It gets more intense from there in that particular scene. But that was a real moment for all of us. We sat and watched an early cut and it was a choice to make with the director and the other producers of the movie to say, do we want to tell the fluff story of our life and journey and what brought us back or get into the heavy stuff and lay it out? And, you know, specifically with that clip, Disney was a great chapter in our lives but it, at a certain point, did make things hard to grow up, you know? And when you're shaving your face twice a day because they say you can't have a 5 o'clock shadow or playing with 15-year-olds. You're 10 years old. Exactly. Forever. It gets tough. But I'm glad we made this movie and hopefully it brings people together. It's fantastic. It's great. The Jonas Brothers, everybody. Their Happiness Begins is out now. And the documentary Chasing Happiness is on Amazon Prime Video. The Jonas Brothers Chasing Happiness is on Amazon Prime Video.