joan on finally releasing their eclectic debut album Superglue: "We feel really confident in who we are now"

US pop duo joan - aka Alan Thomas and Steven Rutherford - have been working towards the release of their debut album for a long time.

Since their first emergence in 2017, joan have constantly evolved, although each single and EP, thought they diverge in exciting new directions, stays true to the band's core; heady emotion steadied with luxuriant, big pop production. 

Superglue, then, is the ultimate culmination of joan's efforts so far. A wide reaching and eclectic LP brining in seemingly disparate parts of electronica, synth-pop, indie-rock and indie-pop, the album sets out to answer perhaps the biggest questions out there; why are we here? What really matters? What does it all mean?

With the swooning, emotional title track closing out proceedings, they may have answered their own question - all that matters is that you find and surround yourself with the people who love you.

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Hi boys! As far as pop bands go, you've been together for a long time - five, going on six years. That's a very long time to be waiting for a debut album, but i think we can all agree it was worth the wait. My question is - what took you so long?

Alan: That's a great question! Right off the bat. I love that. I'll say this, from day one we've been very single-driven, and the singles then kind of turned into EPs. I think for a while we were fighting the old guard idea that you need to release an album. You know what I mean? The economy of pop moves so fast now. Is anyone gonna pay attention if we drop 10, 12 songs in a row? Or could we just hit people, one at a time?

Steven: I think we also just took our time discovering what our sound was. We wanted to make sure that when we did make a debut album, whatever that looked like, we would have a solid fan base [to issue it to]. We've always been really quick moving, sound-wise from project to project. We've always liked it that way. We feel really confident in who we are now, who joan is and what our sound actually is. It feels very joan. 

I want to zone in on the joan sound because, while I do agree it feels very you, when you started in 2017, this pure synth pop sound was very much against the grain. But as we know, pop music is cyclical - how do you keep on top of the changing tides? Or do you not pay any attention to them at all?

Alan: It's probably a little bit of both. We do like to buck the system.

Steven: You'll probably never hear a trap joan song. Nothing against it, but that's just not where we land. 

Alan: For me personally, whenever I write a song and send it to [Steven], I'm always thinking about organic, real sounds and how we can bring them into the fold. Superglue, the whole album, nearly every song has drums that were recorded on a real drum kit. We really tried to record like a band; real guitars, real bass and we tried to blend it in with the electronic and synth elements. 

Steven: We're trying to fit into the box where it's accessible for everyone, but we're still outside the box a little bit, you know?

One of my favourite songs on the record is Simple

Steven: Hey, me too. That's one of my favourites. 

Taste. It sounds - and I can give no greater compliment than this - like a Kelly Clarkson pop-rock song produced by Max Martin in 2005

Alan: Thanks! I would say it's for sure Avril Lavinge - Complicated vibes. [We really wanted to emulate] that kind of Third Eye Blind, pop punk era of American music. Well, I guess Avril is Canadian...

One thing I really love about the album as a whole is that you had these really broad elements of pop music - 80s synth, pop rock - but still feels so personable. How do you rein all these disparate parts in?

Alan: Thanks! I think there was a moment [making the album] where we knew this was feeling and sounding very different. 

Steven: I think that's why it took us so long to actually make a debut album, we've gone through so many types of songs musically. I think fans and people who know who joan is, they're not surprised if they hear a pop song next. to something like Loner, which is pretty heavy for us. 

Alan: It was cool to let that weight off and just make whatever we want. And it all feels like it flows together really well still! We were intentional with that. Song by song, we gave each track its best shot. Coldplay are one of my favourite bands of all time. What makes Coldplay sound similar from Parachutes to Mylo Xyloto or Ghost Stories or any other new stuff? It's Chris Martin's voice. It's the melodic sensibilities. It's the storytelling. No matter what the genre they could come out with a hip-hop album. And it would still sound like Coldplay.

It's funny you bring up Coldplay, because the closing track, Superglue, reminds me a lot of Viva La Vida

Alan: First of all, you just nailed that on the head. So great job.

Steven: Yeah, you're pretty good at this. Is this your job?

Alan: We originally wrote Superglue in Nashville, we were working on it alongside a few other songs, and we kept coming back to it. We came home and kept coming back [to it]. It showed itself to be something that needed to be heard. The more we wrote the record, the more it just summed up everything we were trying to say. Tracklisting wise, we started with Life, Death and Everything In Between, and Superglue seemed to kind of be the answer.

To the questions that you were asking yourselves?

Alan: Yeah, in a way we didn't really need an answer. It's our answer, though. That's why we went with Superglue as the album title. it just kind of showed itself to be the meaning of the whole thing.

Steven: I think to like, just to add, add to that, like, we hope we tried to write the song in a way that would be accessible to anyone to be able to fill in the blank of who that person is for them. Like for us, it's our daughters and our wives.

Alan: When I have an existential crisis it's like I can look in their eyes and it gives me the comfort that I need. If there's nothing else, I'm here for you. This is why I'm here. This is my life, and I can accept that. I love that. That's beautiful. And so our hope for the album is that everyone finds that whether that's family, friendship, the partner, whatever that is. We want that for everybody. It's definitely my favourite song we've ever written. It's hard for me to listen to without like tearing up which is saying something.

Steven: Alan is stone cold. It takes a lot for him to tear up.

Alan: I am a cold, cold hearted man.

Superglue is out now.