joan is made up of Alan Benjamin Thomas and Steven Rutherford. The two first met playing a show together while in different projects and became fast friends. Their debut EP, portra, was released in 2019 and has been streamed well over 40 million times. After spending much of the year on the road supporting Bloc Party, The Aces, Flor, MisterWives, COIN and Jeremy Zucker, joan went into 2020 with a headlining tour playing sold out crowds across the country. We had the chance to get to know them better so check it out.
What impacts your creative process? Has this process changed for you since your previous work?
When we started joan, we wanted to treat writing songs as work. So when we’re not touring or anything, we go to the studio and show up for work from 9-5 every day. We work best that way because it makes us prioritize our time and it forces us to find inspiration instead of waiting around for inspiration to find us. That’s been our approach all along!
For someone who’s never listened to your music before, how would you describe your music/sound to them?
It’s like music from the past and from the future. Our aim is to write songs that are timeless - songs that make you think you could have heard them in 1992 or 2025 and it still affects you all the same.
What song(s) are you currently playing on repeat?
Dua Lipa’s new album over and over and over again. The band Sure Sure is also always on the list for us. Also, it’s not a song but I (Alan) obsessively listen to Conan O’Brien’s podcast.
In your opinion, what’s the most interesting thing about you that people may not know?
Steven: I don’t know about the most interesting thing, but here are a few: I was the mascot at my high school, I play Fortnite a ton in my free time and I have a Marketing degree.
Alan: I like to build things (I’ve built a bunch of my wife and I’s furniture)! I went to school for drums and got my degree in music with a percussion emphasis. I know every word to ‘Regulate’ by Warren G ft. Nate Dogg.
Lighting round! Describe each of the following in one word: Who you are, what you value the most, and what you’d be if you were a food item.
What can we look forward to from you next?
We’ve spent the last three years releasing songs slowly and figuring out what our sound is as songwriters/duo/band. We’ve found our sound and we’re ready to release songs a lot faster than we have been. Our fans and hopefully new fans will get the chance to listen to a lot more songs from us this year.
Check out joan’s new video for ‘Magnetic’ right here.
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