It’s safe to say that as of 2016, this is most definitely the internet’s world and we’re just existing in it. Gone are the days where teenagers would suffer the desperation and angst associated with the dreaded dial-up tone – now, these kids are launching massive careers by posting videos of themselves singing, dancing, performing online. Amassing a fan base most musicians who grew up in the pre-social media age wouldn’t be able to fathom is becoming easier and easier with the reach of YouTube and Vine especially, something American duo Jack & Jack can more than attest to.
The 19 year old Nebraska natives, now living and working in LA, broke out through the success of Vine circa 2013, posting six second videos as a teen comedy duo. Within a short period of time, they’d cultivated a 25,000 strong group of followers and as their brand grew, so did the attention from fans all around the world (the boys’ Vine account now sits way over the five million follower mark).
For Jack Johnson and Jack Gilinsky, their love for comedy and growing experience as entertainers eventually turned to music and once moving to LA, the duo began working with the likes of Max Martin, Shawn Mendes and Savan Kotecha on what would eventually result in their debut EP, Calibraska. The album, released in July, landed the #1 spot on the iTunes Albums Chart within hours of its release, even besting Taylor Swift’s 1989 at the time.
Currently in Australia for a run of shows and fan events down the east coast with fellow US group R5, Jack & Jack are about to see just how well their music has been lapped up by their Australian fans.
“For people to be making music in general, it’s a great time right now.” Johnson says. “Right now, you don’t even need a major record label to make a hit or start a viral trend, you know? All it takes is the internet in today’s age. The creation of music is shifting and it’s way more open-ended; you can mix genres and you can mix producers and you can cross these paths that people never thought could be crossed and come up with this new stuff that you don’t need the label’s approval for it anymore. You can just throw it out there on your own and garner attention by yourself, just with the resources on the internet. It’s a great time for music, because people are just at an all-time creativity high and people are just finding new sounds every day.”
“Top 40 pop songs aren’t even necessarily just strict pop songs anymore,” he continues, commenting on the recent embrace of Justin Bieber by a wider demographic of music fan in 2015. “They don’t have the typical Max Martin, Dr. Luke structure that you had to have for a pop song five years ago. Justin for example, he’s bringing EDM influences into pop music and he’s bringing some trap/hip-hop influences into his pop music. It’s really cool; I think the reason pop music is becoming more ‘popular’ so to speak with the popular crowd and not just with young girls, which is kind of what it was five years ago, it’s because of the crossing of genres. There’s not really any boundaries, it’s cool. Popular music is actually really cool nowadays, as opposed to what I was listening to five or ten years ago.”
On how the move from their Omaha hometown to an overwhelming Los Angeles environment has changing his own personal music influences or creative ideas, Johnson has been taking every opportunity he’s given to learn from the industry and further flourish musical skills behind the scenes as well as on stages around the globe.
“So many of the trends start in Los Angeles, that’s what I’ve noticed.” he says. “I’ll be hearing music out in LA the day it’s released by these artists and then I’ll be going back to Omaha a month later and they still don’t know the song there; it takes a minute to hit these other markets. All the musical creation happens in Los Angeles for the most part; the radio songs are all getting made there and it’s where the majority of the musical artists are. I think I’ve figured out a lot of new influences, just based off working with people and working with people who might not even be household names. People who are just so musically talented, but stay behind the scenes.”
“For me personally, I’m really trying to get into producing. I’ve been producing a lot lately, I play the piano quite a bit and I’ve figured out now how to make electronic drums behind the beat, changing sounds and how to use different programs hooked up with the keyboard and stuff. It’s really been awesome learning from behind the scenes mentors and I’d say a lot of those people are my influences now, as opposed to just music artists. Before making music, all I knew were the radio names and the big rappers and the big pop singers, that’s all really anybody knows unless they’re actually really indulging themselves in the world of music.”
This Australian tour is bringing Jack & Jack to venues like the Big Top at Luna Park in Sydney and the Palais in Melbourne, no doubt going to be packed with girls screaming to get a piece of their attention. It’s a hysteria that the boys have had to get used to over the past few years, and get used to it quickly, as their profile as only continued to surge. Johnson remains incredibly humble and chill about it all however, grateful to have his best friend by his side to experience it all with.
“Honestly, I don’t even know where Jack and I would be without having each other’s backs.” he admits. “We always keep each other in check and we always keep each other in line. If one of us is slacking off or if one of us is doing something stupid, we’ll tell the other person. It’s nice to have someone there that will check you and someone who will always have your back, as opposed to a lot of these solo stars, who really get caught up and really have nobody to guide them. There’s no one to say, ‘Hey, don’t do that,’ or ‘Hey, change that,’ – we’re just glad to have each other because we always keep each other in line.”
“It [touring] puts things into scale,” he says. “When I see 2.7 or whatever million followers on my Twitter, I can’t even really think about that number, you know? When I go to these shows and I start thinking, ‘Okay – there are a thousand girls at this show and a thousand girls at this show…’. I think, ‘I just did fifty shows this last year and I probably saw 100,000 or 200,000 faces’. It still pales in comparison to the amount of people on my Twitter is. It puts it in perspective. It’s really cool having fans from the internet who will come out to see you, even if it’s not 100% of them who come out to see you, it’s still cool having enough people to put on a show [for] and enough people to [justify] being about to travel to these places without it being a huge hit to the bank. It’s awesome, honestly, it’s a super blessed opportunity that Jack and I have.”
They’ve only been in the country for a few days but already, Jack & Jack have been swarmed with fans who’ve been able to link up with them in Sydney. Still being so young, the opportunity to travel around the world in general is something Johnson still sounds bewildered by.
“The biggest thing with Jack and I, the biggest passion we have, is meeting new fans and new faces and people who we’ve never been familiarised with yet.” he says. “It’s awesome diving into these new cultures and these new countries; we’ve been on the road through Europe and South America over the last few months and it’s been such a blessing to be able to go from country to country, in places I’ve never thought I would travel to and meet all these fans who support me from all around the world.”
“With Australia specifically, we’ve been seeing tweets from Australians to have us come down here since the whole Vine thing started; we’re so blessed to be one of the first of our friends, who have made it big on social media, to come down here. We’re really the first of our group to come down here, out of the Vine celebrities, it’s really cool to finally get down here and get to meet these Australian fans face to face.”
“Jack and I just really bonded over music this last year,” Johnson says of his dynamic with Gilinsky having changed since music became the main priority. “That’s really transitioned into our main passion. For some reason, it’s just taken a stronghold, it’s what we really love doing right now. We’ll still be making the comedy content of course, but if you’ve been keeping up with our socials, we’ve been doing less of that and more of music. We’re trying to take our music more seriously, because that’s where the passions lay at this point.”
“Regardless, we’ve always had the same amazing team chemistry, whether it be in comedy or music; I think we’re just going through phases of what we like. Those are definitely our two most favourite things to do – entertain people through music and comedy, making people laugh. I’m sure we’ll be back in our comedy phase in a few years, I think we’ll probably go back and forth. Right now, music is a new thing to us; doing music professionally and coming from Nebraska, it was never an opportunity we had. Now that we have these studios and these producers to work with and all these resources living in Los Angeles, it’s really opened our eyes to the whole music world.”
Still not signed with a major label, Jack & Jack are touring and releasing music through an independent distribution deal with DistroKid. The fact they’re able to be in the position they are isn’t lost on the boys, as Johnson comments,
“To be able to do this without the help of a major label or a label at all, is really testament to just how much influence the internet does have and how much of a fan base you actually can get from the internet. I mean, five years ago, there weren’t independent artists who could be doing this, travelling the world [to this extent] because of their independent music. You needed someone’s help to get it out there, but now everything has changed. We’re blessed to be living in this time, it’d be tough to do it otherwise.”
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Jack & Jack will be performing alongside R5, DJ Ryland and At Sunset at the following Australian venues:
January 17th | Luna Park Big Top, SYDNEY
January 19th | Palais Theatre, MELBOURNE
January 20th | Eatons Hill Hotel, BRISBANE
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