Steven Rutherford and Alan Benjamin Thomas spoke to The Knockturnal about band dynamics, their experiences on tour and the next chapter of their joint creative vision.
Steven Rutherford and Alan Benjamin Thomas have a knack for articulately traversing the planes of love and longing through their music. The longtime friends turned bandmates from Little Rock, Arkansas formed joan in 2017 and first situated themselves within the realm of pop through their 2018 EP portra and its preceding singles. Their 2023 debut album release, superglue, found resonance through its warm and upbeat production style. When followed up by extended album release superglue(d), which features stripped-back, mellow acoustic counterparts of album hits like the frenetic “nervous” and pop-punk adjacent “loner,” joan established their artistic voice as iconic, yet altogether wide-ranging. Their most recent single, “heartbodymindsoul,” was released on Sept. 17.
The Knockturnal spoke with Thomas and Rutherford between their release of “heartbodymindsoul” and departing for their tour supporting Misterwives about their new single, new studio and upcoming musical trajectory.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Knockturnal: You guys have just returned from touring with The Maine in Australia — what was that like?
Alan Benjamin Thomas: It was so fun. Australia has been a really interesting market for us, and I think it is for a lot of bands, where it kind of feels isolated — not from the world, but it feels like its music market is its own little ecosystem. We’ve been really fortunate to have some cool success there, even at our size, and also in Asia. So it was really cool to get to go for the first time and tour and meet new fans. And the guys in The Maine were so, so sweet. We were saying the other day that it was almost like a twilight zone — it felt kind of like we were in New York, when in Sydney. It has some New York vibes. Overall, it was a really great tour, and we’re really thankful to have gone.
The Knockturnal: It must have been cool to connect with your fanbase for the first time down there in person.
Steven Rutherford: It’s always wild when you’ve seen names on Instagram for years and years, then all of a sudden, you meet them in person. You’re like, “Oh, you’re the face to that name we’ve been seeing on comments and DMs all these years!” It’s really, really sweet.
Thomas: People would come up and introduce themselves as their Instagram handle, and now I know exactly who they are. It was awesome.
The Knockturnal: You don’t have much of a break on the books, as you’re headed back to go on tour with Misterwives on Oct. 7th. You’ve also got a solo date down for Brooklyn Paramount on the 31st. What are you guys up to in this short interim between tours?
Thomas: I’m not gonna lie to you, I’m currently at home. We were in a studio basically all week, and we’re finishing a single and music video, and we have three days to do both…
Rutherford: We’ve had zero breaks.
Thomas: We both have kids, so when we’re home, we try to be really present. At the same time, you’ve got a million things going on. Luckily, we had the Australia tour as kind of a primer for this full U.S. run. We’re rehearsed. So it’s just trying to soak up some time at home for the next five days or so.
The Knockturnal: Having played together in Joan since 2017 and released an album and several EPs, you’ve got a tried-and-true dynamic going. How do you feel that this rapport you guys share manifests while you’re performing live?
Thomas: Behind behind the curtain, we’re best friends, and our families are really close. [Rutherford] lives one street over. Even from day one when we met, the first thing I think we both realized was that our friendship is really easy. We both kind of just gel, really. It’s natural. Live, I think we both feel pretty comfortable and in control, because I know he’s holding down when he needs to hold down. He knows that I’m holding down. We try to push each other and encourage each other in the things that we can improve on.
Rutherford: Yeah. It’s like letting everybody in on what we’ve already been doing, which is nice. And I think what’s cool is that there’s not really egos between us or anything. We’re on the same team. We want to present ourselves as a duo, in music and as a band on stage. I think we’ve both been in bands growing up, and it’s evident in a lot of bands that the lead singer is the main thing … It’s always been a duo mentality. It’s us taking on the world, rather than Alan being the lead singer and me in the background. So it’s cool that we’re besties in real life. We take that to the stage, too.
The Knockturnal: You’ve mentioned that joan’s initial conception came with ease both because of your friendship and the proximity you’ve had to each other in Arkansas, working back and forth between home studios. Earlier in the year, you renovated a new studio. What has it been like working in that space in the time since?
Thomas: It’s been, honestly, a godsend. We both are thankful that we had the time and an extra bedroom in the house. We used some band funds to furnish it and make it feel like its own little oasis. It was our studio, but still, you have in the back of your mind — my bedroom is like, right there, you know? The degree of separation, the proverbial “grabbing your suitcase and going to work” thing is so real. Last fall, we had some friends that were selling their house, and they knew we were looking for a spot. It was kind of the perfect layout, perfect price. We just bit the bullet and did it. I have not looked back and regretted a single aspect. It’s so nice to go and have a nine-to-five mentality. I get to focus, and then I get to go home. I have a piano there, and that’s it. I don’t have any gear there. It’s all the studio, which has been helpful to unplug.
Rutherford: We renovated it and designed it in a way that makes it an inspiring place to go and be in. We came home from Australia and walked into the studio where it felt like home, and it felt so good to be there. Both of us are always excited and ready to go in and get to work.
The Knockturnal: You’ve noted in the past that the 2020 pandemic specifically was a time when you were able to hone your production skills and create music more intensely. Having released music in the years since, is there anything that has surprised you — in terms of craft or the music industry, or otherwise — about being musicians and producers in 2024?
Thomas: Back in the day when we started in 2017 and through 2020, maybe right around when we released our cloudy EP, we would take songs 75, 80 percent of the way. Then we would have a producer and mixer come help us polish. Since the pandemic and that cloudy EP era, we buckled down and decided that we’re gonna be the finishers. It’s a learning curve, and there were some tweaks to our mentality and our workflow we needed to make. The studio has definitely helped, just to have the space and the time and all that. I wouldn’t say it’s a surprise necessarily, but I think I’m most proud of how we’ve become both a band and also a really strong production and writing team. I always knew we were that, or that we could be that. I think now that we’ve kind of figured out production, it feels like we’re just together in our house of minds. We don’t necessarily need to reach outside to anyone else to achieve what we need to sonically. Sometimes, if we know our friend Jake’s a great guitar player and that he’s gonna play [a part] better, I know I can toss it to him. But overall, we’re able to kind of be self-reliant. In today’s attention economy and actual financial economy, the more we can do internally, the less overhead there is, and the less we have to worry about. It’s like we’re completely and wholly responsible for our craft, which comes with its own pressure. But at the end of the day, if something doesn’t hit, it’s on us if we don’t knock it out, you know? It’s like a carpenter making a piece of furniture— he could have help and extra hands, but it’s really fulfilling if he gets to shape every board and finish it, then step back and look and be like, “Oh, okay, I made that.”
Rutherford: I am surprised that there isn’t as much of a timeline on things as I thought there was. Our song, “so good,” came to mind. It was a normal release stream-wise. But like a year after, one of the guys in BTS, Jungkook, posted about it. Since then, it’s been growing and growing. It’s funny how with whatever you plan as an artist, and whatever you think might happen with a release, it never goes according to plan. And it could be two years from now that some song that we released in 2019 could be the biggest song on Earth. It’s just crazy how there’s no time frame for anything. It’s all just up in the air, which is kind of nice and exciting. Who knows what’ll happen, ever? We have to just keep putting music out.
The Knockturnal: Your new single, “heartbodymindsoul,” came out on Sept. 17. Seeing as this is your first release since the extended cut of album superglue last year, how do you think “heartbodymindsoul” meshes with your prior body of work? Are there any ideas that it hearkens back to or revisits, or does the single serve as a departure?
Rutherford: I definitely think it’s more of a departure than a continuation, especially from superglue. I think our general mindset on superglue was very much to let the band and real instruments drive the sonic world of it, and “heartbodymindsoul” is so not that. It’s pretty far from that album, especially. When we got the studio, we had probably five straight months where we were like: “Let’s just not have any agenda. Let’s not have any project specifics that we’re going for. Let’s just throw stuff at the wall, see if we like any of it.” And “heartbodymindsoul” was one of the first songs that came out of that. I remember, we literally wrote the first verse and chorus in a day, and pretty much all of the final elements that end up on the final mix were there. It felt really cool and different. A lot of the time, that’s kind of the thing that gets you excited about working on music again — something that’s different than what we’ve done before. And it ended up being a really cool song, in my opinion.
The Knockturnal: The music video for “heartbodymindsoul” premiered on Sept. 18. You’ve mentioned in the past taking musical and songwriting inspiration from groups like Dashboard Confessional and Thursday, but what sources do you look to when seeking visual inspiration for your videos?
Rutherford: For that music video, all I had was the idea of me dancing. The rest of the idea was Alan’s. He thought of the whole thing, which is really great.
Thomas: That’s rare, though. I’ve just now begun feeling confident when speaking on individual stuff. I usually let Steven handle all that, because he’s really good at it. But sometimes, I come up with little gems here and there.
Rutherford: A lot of the time, we’re trying to mesh obscure, cinematic references. How can we make a two minute song feel like its own little world? A lot of what we do is so DIY, and we shot the video with our friend Edward, who does a lot of our video stuff. We’ll take references from sci-fi movies or whatever, and basically being like: “How do we make that cinematic reference work with what we’re doing, and is there a way to make it happen?” A lot of it is limiting yourself and trying to figure out kind of where and how [the references] can fit in your world. I really like how this one came out. Alan is the dictator making me dance [in the music video].
Thomas: Yeah, we use some sick new AI to make me a dictator.
Rutherford: I had to take like 20 to 25 different pictures of Alan to train an AI character, and to be able to make different AI [images] with Alan in it. It took almost a whole day to train this AI. I had to do so many different prompts to keep training it to where it would be more specific to what we wanted, and more accurate. There were hundreds of different images that we went through, literally just for one image of Alan.
Thomas: We took some of the ones that we didn’t use and now have them hanging around the studio. I’m like this ethereal landlord, looming over the property, supervising any production.
The Knockturnal: How do you hope “heartbodymindsoul” shapes the trajectory of your music going forward? Are there any new stories you hope to tell?
Thomas: I definitely think it signifies an evolution of our sound. We’ve been concerned about it, but we don’t care as much about genre. I think everything we do fits under the pop moniker, probably. But if a song felt instinctively like it needed to go more drum and bass, electronic pop, then, great. Let’s go there. We have a song called “magic” that we worked on, and it’s got more of an organic rock sound. What would you say, Steve?
Rutherford: Yeah, a darker rock kind of feel.
Thomas: I think we’ve always gone song-by-song, rather than thinking of an umbrella of sound with superglue. I think it’s a net positive, the way we did it. It’s just different things, but it’s all different shades of the same color. It’s joan. It’s us. We always use Coldplay as an example: It’s Chris Martin’s voice every single time. It doesn’t matter if they’re singing “Paradise” with Jay-Z or singing “Yellow.” It’s still uniquely Coldplay. I think for us, it’s the same thing. I think they’re just markers on how we write, subconscious little things that we do like, how every band has signature sounds. And I think for “heartbodymindsoul,” we’re playing maybe a little more melancholy than we normally would, a little darker bent, and just kind of taking it song by song. We want it to feel cohesive, but also, if a song needs to just freaking be an acoustic guitar, then it’s gonna be an acoustic guitar, you know? It just feels more free. No one’s telling us what to do. There are no rules. And we’re always going to try to write catchy, memorable, timeless music. Our goal is always timelessness. To write a song that in 30 years I can listen back to, where it feels like it could have been written yesterday, or in 10 years.
