INTERVIEW: JR JR
By: Modesty Sanchez
JR JR just released a new EP, ripe with relevant politically-charged messages and lighthearted, upbeat instrumentals perfect dancing while in quarantine. I was lucky enough to chat with one half of the duo, Josh Epstein, about the EP, the band’s future, and why they’re the perfect “pandemic band”– after a robust discussion about our current political state, of course.
First off, how is quarantine going for you so far?
For the first two weeks I felt like I was shot out of a cannon and super pumped about quarantine because I was like, “This is cool to not go to something I don’t want to go to and pretty much write music all the time.” And then it started to catch up with me; I don’t get to collaborate with people in the same room and cancelling the tour sucked. Now I’m confused and I wish we could trust people in the federal government to tell us the truth.
Has it provided a chance for you and Daniel [the other half of JR JR] to get creative and come up with some new stuff or are you taking it easy since you just released a new EP, and also it's a pandemic?
We were already gradually transitioning to being a bicoastal band. We started in Detroit, but about five years ago I started going back and forth between there and L.A. until I finally settled down here. Now, I’m in L.A., and when there’s not a pandemic we try to come together every three months. In the meantime, we send each other song lyrics and ideas for future content. So we were kind of prepared for working remotely during a pandemic, but we couldn’t have been remote without 10 years of working together and becoming familiar with each other’s creative process. During quarantine, I also have time to do other stuff like getting back into painting so in terms of creative production, I’m staying busy.
“We have to try and amplify younger people’s messages and embrace their enthusiasm and energy”
Your lead single from the EP, "Good Old Days" is simultaneously encouraging to the younger generation and their political aspirations and somewhat foreboding to MAGAs and the D.C. establishment. I feel like this is a particularly apt message to send, especially now during the pandemic when the government's ineptitudes are even more apparent. Basically, my question for you is what did you hope to ultimately achieve with this song and has the message changed from the time you wrote it to now when the political landscape has altered so drastically?
Ideally, what I would hope could happen and I hope the song had something to do with this is setting a maximum age limit for presidency. We have a minimum age limit for presidency so why can’t we apply a maximum age? We have people in government that will never have to live with the decisions they’re making, so we have to impose maximum age limits and that was the message of the song. We have to try and amplify younger people’s messages and embrace their enthusiasm and energy as opposed to allowing ourselves to be governed by these people. Also our cognitive abilities and abilities to change our mind are affected when we turn 65. I think to determine the maximum age is to find median age of life expectancy and subtract the same number that is the minimum from the median age.
The second single, "The Way I Do," is a love song about the unforeseen difficulties of a relationship, as well as the all-consuming nature of love. Why did you choose to follow the politically charged "Good Old Days" with a love song like "The Way I Do?"
At the end of last year, we put out a double album that was really heavy because it was partly written in November 2016. So we put out “Good Old Days,” which sends a hopeful message, but we still wanted to release something lighter. We’re consciously trying to make something a little more fun and that you can move to, so “Good Old Days” felt like a good song to lead with because it felt more relevant than when we first wrote it, which rarely happens, and then we wanted something lighter with “The Way I Do.” This is the first EP we created just us two.
The EP as a whole has a fairly upbeat sound and I feel like it gives off a pretty hopeful and somewhat romantic vibe, with a lot of references to dancing like in "This Side of Paradise" and "Cops." What was the overall message you wanted to convey with this romantic imagery and just the EP itself?
So, this was the first EP we created just us two since It’s A Corporate World. In between that album and this EP, we’ve been so lucky to collaborate with other artists and producers, but this was the first time in a while it was just us two. We wanted to revisit stuff that didn’t make it to other albums so going back to them was kind of illuminating, this was actually good, and we realized we were really hard on ourselves. Because it was just us two actively discussing what the EP was going to be we loosened our expectations. When we were making It’s A Corporate World, we didn’t really know each other’s creative process, but with this EP we obviously had a much better sense of how to work together creatively. A lot of our career we’ve avoided writing a love song because it’s so easy to make it cheesy, but like I said we kind of loosened the restraints on ourselves, and allowed ourselves to write it.
You guys have been making music for a few years now. How would you describe the evolution of the band's lyrics and sound?
We’re both committed to the craft and I think we consider ourselves more as craftsmen than the romantic notion of what an artist would be. We’re constantly trying to push ourselves, so it’s like we have an extra layer of criticism between ourselves. Also, working together, there’s another person checking your ideas, so you know when one is spot-on, or just a bit too much. Both of our skill sets are complementary and overlap: some of my weaknesses are his strengths, and vice verse so that makes it easier to work with each other, and evolve over time.
Finally, what is one artist you guys would love to collaborate with in the future?
HAIM lives a couple houses down from me, and I just think we have very complementary sounds and would work well together. I’d also love to work with Lizzo, I think musically we could fit with her, she has such a melodic voice. I’d also love to collaborate with James Blake and SZA.