Pop band DNCE debuts first album, SWAAY EP


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After parting ways with his brothers Kevin and Nick and coming back from his 2011 solo album Fastlife, Joe Jonas is back in the music industry with a new sound and crew. His new band DNCE features Jonas as frontman, drummer Jack Lawless, guitarist JinJoo Lee and keyboardist/bassist Cole Whittle. The group encompasses a James Brown-esque vibe with its 1970s soul and funk sound in their first single, “Cake by the Ocean,” which was released on iTunes Sept. 18. The rest of DNCE’s album, SWAAY EP, is set to be released this Friday.

Jonas describes the band’s sound as a “silky, swaggering piece of groove-heavy pop built on disco-jangly riffs but saturated with plenty of pure emotion and undeniable soul.” The Los Angeles-based artists came together this past summer as “the next best thing for when you’re too drunk to spell ‘dance.’” Using Earth, Wind & Fire as inspiration for their R&B rhythm, DNCE strives to make their music the life of the party, mixing different beats to create a unified sound that transcends any club to make the audience feel like one, similar to the four different personas maintained in the band.

Known for being the former lead guitarist for Jordin Sparks, Lee starred as the opening act for the Jonas Brothers’ world tour in 2009. She arose as a self-taught prodigy who played for her older siblings’ band, POS and even performed with Jonas during his 2011 Fastlife tour. Lee also performed alongside musicians Charli XCX and CeeLo Green through which she learned to contribute her unique sound to a larger collection of talent.

Lawless, another ex-tourmate of Jonas, developed such an infatuation with playing drums that he withdrew from college and substituted for the Jonas Brothers’ drummer who quit during their 2006 tour. Later, Lawless was promoted to the band’s full-time drummer.

Unlike the other two, Whittle got his start separate from the Jonas Brothers as he and his roommate from the Berklee College of Music founded a band, Semi Precious Weapons. Whittle’s band turned from an underground party band to Lady Gaga’s special guest for her 2009 to 2011 Monster Ball tour. Before forming DNCE, Lee, Lawless and Whittle’s talents all landed them huge gigs with established artists.

As for the former Jonas Brother, Joe is said to have been formulating this group project for the last five to six years, but needed “time to hit the reset button and figure out what [he] wanted to do next.” After the Jonas Brothers broke up in 2013, he gravitated toward DJing as he performed under the pseudonym “DJ Danger” from nightclubs in Las Vegas to Lollapalooza in Chicago last year. Two years after he publicly launched his career, he transitioned from electronic dance music to a disco-inspired, soul sensation that emerged from “Cake by the Ocean” and will likely surface in the remaining tracks of the EP.

Jonas reveals that the inspiration behind “Cake by the Ocean” was from a realization that “his Swedish collaborators Mattman & Robin had misspoken the name of a tropical cocktail — what they were really after was Sex on the Beach.” Despite the miscommunication, this single’s infectious beats convey a message that promotes “the shedding of self-consciousness,” as Jonas put it. SWAAY EP aims to push its listeners past their comfort zone. The music captivates the audience with the fluidity of its pop, disco and soul components, almost as relaxing as the actual tropical cocktail.