Disney`s Emo Heartthrobs

R&R
Disney’s Emo Heartthrobs
robb d. cohen/retna (jonas brothers); Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images (Haggard and nelson)
Meet the Jonas
Brothers, teen
sibling superstars
By Nicole Frehsée
J
ust after dawn on a friday in November, thousands
of girls have descended on
Times Square. Some are screaming, some are crying. The fire
department is on its way. “It
was out of control,” recalls
Jonas Brothers guitarist Kevin
Jonas, 20, who, with his brothers Joe, 18, and Nick, 15, had just
played Good Morning America.
“Girls pushed in the barricades,
knocked over the cops and surrounded the car. They were
pounding on the windows!”
The Disney-signed siblings
– think Hanson but with darker
hair, tighter pants and a hooky
emo-pop sound – are only going to
get more famous: They wrapped
their opening gig on Miley Cyrus’
Hannah Montana tour in January, and they recently signed a
two-year, multimillion-dollar
touring deal with Live Nation.
(Their trek launches January 31st
Bro-ing down Joe, Nick and Kevin Jonas (from left) onstage in 2007
in Tucson, Arizona.) The Jerseyraised trio has a platinum album
and another disc due in July; a
spy-themed Disney TV series and
a Disney musical movie are in the
pipeline. “I’ve been doing this
for thirty-five years, and I can’t
remember seeing anything like
them,” says Live Nation’s Bruce
Kapp. “I saw them open for Miley
in San Jose, and it was pandemonium. It was like the Beatles.”
It a l most d idn’t happen.
Dropped from Columbia in late
2006, the brothers were left with
a poor-selling album and very unrock-star touring experiences –
anti-drug shows played to apathetic high schoolers. “It would
be, like, 8 a.m., the curtain would
go up, and we’d yell, ‘You guys
ready to rock?’ ” says Kevin.
Their manager, Johnny Wright
(who helped launch the careers
23
of Britney and ’NSync), decided
Disney’s Holly wood Records
might be a better home for the
threesome. Weeks later, they were
cutting their second album in Los
Angeles with Rooney producer
John Fields. They’ve re-teamed
with Fields for their third disc,
which they’re recording partly on
their tour bus. “You’ll hear a lot
of Elvis Costello influences,” says
Nick. “And I wrote a song about
my diabetes that has a Johnny
Cash-type influence.”
Most of their songs are about
crushes and heartbreak, but the
boys, who wear purity rings, say
they don’t have sex. And not just
because their dad, a Pentecostal
minister, accompanies them on
the road. “Our parents raised us
to be good guys,” says Joe, who’s
been home-schooled with his
brothers. And they don’t kiss and
tell – Nick wouldn’t cop to dating
Cyrus, a rumor sparked when she
kissed his cheek onstage. “We’re
not trying to be anything we’re
not,” says Kevin. “We’re just making music we love. And I think our
fans are gonna grow up with us.”
Obituary
Haggard and
Nelson, 1969
Ken Nelson
1911-2008
Country-music producer
and talent scout Ken Nelson,
96, died of natural causes
on January 6th at his home
in Somis, California. Nelson
helped launch the careers
of Merle Haggard and Buck
Owens during his twenty-five
years as head of country
A&R at Capitol Records.
He was also an architect of
the “Bakersfield sound” – a
twangy, hard-edged antidote
to the slick country coming
out of Nashville in the Sixties.
His partnership with Haggard,
whom he brought to Capitol
in 1965, yielded more than
three dozen Number One hits.
“Ken Nelson allowed me to
be myself,” says Haggard. “He
was good to me.” n.f.