As the release of their forthcoming album inches closer, joan prepares to unveil the most authentic and confident representation of themselves as artists to date with this won’t last forever. The alt-pop duo, consisting of Alan Benjamin Thomas and Steven Rutherford, has continued to set themselves apart with their heartfelt lyricism, infectious hooks and genre-bending production.
The new album stands as proof of their unwavering commitment to their creative chemistry and evolution as artists. With singles like “heartbodymindsoul,” “lucid dreaming” and “alibi” showcasing even a small glimpse of this won’t last forever’s charm, it’s no secret that joan has found themselves unafraid and excited as they enter their most self-assured era yet.
Melodic Magazine sat down with the duo before the release of this won’t last forever to talk about the theme behind the album, their self-sufficient creative process, and love of smaller, more intimate live shows.
Your new album this won’t last forever arrives on September 25th via Photo Finish Records. Congratulations! What emotions are we feeling as it gets closer to the release?
Alan: Elation. Excitement.
Steven: Beauty and elegance. Impatience. A little bit of anxiety.
Alan: We’re excited.
Steven: Yeah, very excited.
What was the inspiration behind the album’s title and how does that tie into the album’s overall theme and even the cover art?
Steven: The title came out of a poem I wrote probably a year and a half ago now. It was this thing I was processing where it was like, even on my best days for some reason, I just felt this cloud looming over my head. It was like something bad is coming and I couldn’t shake it and I couldn’t get rid of that thought. I wrote a poem to process and think through it and this won’t last forever came out of that. It showed itself to be a potent phrase for us and it was applicable in a lot of different ways. Good days, bad days like “this won’t last forever.”
It can mean a lot of different things and it was a good framework for us to write songs to. So, that started the album writing cycle. It was like, “alright, we have this concept” and we wrote top down from there and used that as a thing to cling onto.
The artwork came from when we were working on “face” and “lucid dreaming.” Working through those songs, this idea of a glowing orb of a person seemed really perfect for those songs. We really liked the idea, of whether it was a lost love or someone that was physically gone. We liked the idea of making the visual where you couldn’t really tell and it could mean different things for different people. So that’s where the artwork came from, it was like a visual representation of this won’t last forever.
In terms of the album’s creative process, what were some highlights and challenges in terms of the production, songwriting and anything else that you guys put into making this record?
Alan: Well, we produced it all ourselves. That’s been in our MO and our process for a while now so that comes with its own challenges. I feel like a lot of artists that write their own stuff but then have someone to do the production, to a certain extent there’s a little bit of passing it off to the next person to chip away at it. And for us we are that next step, too.
We, especially on this album, wrote and produced as we went. As we wrote a song, Steven and I sat at each [of our desks] and we’re just tossing ideas. He’ll do like a drum thing and toss it over to me and I’ll throw it in the session. Then I’ll look over and he’s got Dropbox paper up and he’s crafting a chorus lyric idea. Then he’s like “check this out” and I’ll sing that and we’re just all-hands-on-deck for each process. That was for every song, so it took a year and a half to knock it all out. It was a nice, slow, methodical process. We just have our thing that we do and it’s second nature at this point.
Why was it important for you guys to be responsible for the production on this album?
Steven: I don’t trust anyone else. Honestly not that we don’t trust anybody else but we don’t trust anyone else as much as we trust ourselves, which feels good to be there in that stage of our music-making career.
We did that for a lot of our years, where we would get the song as far as we could, we would send it off to somebody and then we’d kinda have to wait on somebody else’s timeline. It was important to us to be on our own timeline and to be our own boss, where it was like if the song doesn’t get finished that’s because it’s our fault. That’s a driver for us and we like the buck stopping at us and having that creative and timeline control with it.
Alan: I remember working on a song with a co-producer and I was letting them tune the vocals for this particular song. We got it back and I was just like, “this doesn’t sound good. It’s not up to our standard.” That’s not everybody and it may have been an off day, but I just remember logging in my head that day even down to the editing timing a guitar or lining up drums or little tedious things.
While it’s annoying to have to do those things, versus it just being perfect or someone else doing it for you, I’d rather have the painstaking editing and production process be in our hands. We know at the end of the day it’s up to us and we can only blame ourselves if it’s not perfect and we both happen to be perfectionists at most of the things that we do.
Your debut record, superglue, came out in 2023. What are some key differences between that album and this won’t last forever?
Steven: I see them as very, very different albums. superglue I would say is almost all organic instrument-driven. I see superglue as an acoustic guitar and piano. I see this won’t last forever as a Juno or a prophet or something like synths. superglue I see as the color blue — light and airy — and this won’t last forever I see as black and red.
I think this won’t last forever is darker and a little bit more mature [while] superglue is questioning the world and thinking through that and also being open-ended and in the clouds a little bit. They’re very different to me.
Alan: Both existential though.
Steven: Yeah, for sure. That’s our running thing. It’s an existential vibe all the way through but still pop music, which I like.
How do you think you guys have evolved artistically since your debut and how do you think that reflects into this won’t last forever?
Alan: I feel like we’re both the most confident we’ve ever been in our skillset and gifting. I would call it like gifting. I think every human being has something to offer, whether it seems small or large, and I think for both of us we’ve found and honed in on the things that we are naturally good at. We also have pushed ourselves in certain areas to get better and I think our confidence has really grown over the last two years to where we just have our little system now and it works.
I’m not saying “hit accuracy” but within the accuracy of having a really good product at the end, we’re gonna be really proud of what we put out. We’ve got really good internal filters of what’s not good enough and I trust us in that, both for our stuff and stuff for other people. I feel like we’ve grown a lot in that area of our taste and our brains and the confidence in our work has really grown over the last couple years.
I also read that you guys recently built your own studio at home in Little Rock, Arkansas. How does being at home and surrounded by the place that you grew up in influence you as artists?
Steven: Arkansas in general is really beautiful. Little Rock is like a gem of a city because nobody knows about it. Nobody here really does music, which we’ve gotten in trouble for saying that before, but there’s not people doing commercial music or full time. It’s nice that this is just another job here. It doesn’t have any sheen to it and it’s grounding in a way where we treat our job like we’re clocking in. We just find ourselves very thankful for the job that we’re doing.
As far as the actual music part of it, having a studio has been a huge game-changer for us. Our workflow is really tight right now and we can throw stuff back and forth in different rooms. I can be recording drums while Alan’s finishing a song or I can be out there doing vocals while Alan’s doing vocals in here. All of a sudden our workload can double almost. There’s never a lull. There’s some gear always moving. It’s very efficient and very cool and that alone is super inspiring to us. We’ve been at our limit of what we are able to do for several years now and then we got in here and it feels limitless. It feels like we can just run free which is awesome.
Well congrats on that! Now to get a little bit more into the album, what would you say is your favorite song on this won’t last forever and why?
Steven: Mine changes, but “this won’t last forever.” I love that song. I think it’s the perfect intro to an album. I think it’s very cinematic. It feels like it’s made for a movie. You can almost envision the movie while you’re listening to it. I just think that’s a really special, cool thing.
“space” is a really good song. Lyrically, I think space is subtle. Maybe most people will listen to “space” and just be like “oh it’s a love song,” but I think if you dig into it, it just feels really cool to be like “I’m not just in love with you, I’m in love with the space around you, what you bring to the room and the energy that you are.” It feels really sweet and I just love that thought.
When it comes to the singles, how do you guys determine which songs to release ahead of the album that you think start painting the picture and also help build that anticipation for both your fans and people who are discovering you for the first time?
Steven: Honestly, we treated this campaign a lot different than we did for the superglue campaign that we did. The whole album was done and turned in before we even released any music off that album. That was fun and cool but for [this won’t last forever] we knew going into it that we wanted to release music as we were writing the album and finishing the album.
So I think by the time the album’s out, we’ll have eight songs out. It’s crazy because a year ago now in September we released “heartbodymindsoul” and that was like the only song we had done completely for the album. We knew it was going to be on the album and we knew a few other songs that were gonna be on it. So while we were working on the album and figuring out what we wanted the album to look like, we wanted people to be in on the journey. That helped inform the decision of single by single a lot.
We knew “heartbodymindsoul” was one and then we felt strongly about “eyes” so we did that one next. Then we felt really strongly about “magic.” It was in real time where we went with the songs we knew would be on the album and that we felt strongly about. So it wasn’t really like “this is a single,” it was more like “we want this song out.” It had less pressure on it and it was cool. It was cool to see which ones people liked and liked more than others.
You recently wrapped up a tour supporting Bloc Party alongside a string of some headline dates. What has become your favorite thing about touring and getting to perform your music live?
Alan: The Close Friends Tour we did, just four shows, were probably my favorite shows we’ve ever done. They were the smallest shows we’ve ever done. Well, some of the smallest shows we’ve ever done very intentionally. No production, no opener, no support, just us for two hours.
We didn’t market it like this but internally we were like it’s like getting a VIP experience with the band but for the price of a normal ticket. It was two hours, three sets, [including] a full set, a Q&A in the middle of the show with the audience, a little acoustic couple songs and then another full set at the end. Then we met everyone who wanted to meet us. It ended up being a three- or four-hour thing, but I was absolutely just demolished after it. Every night my voice was gone, but there was something really special.
We’ve had the luxury of playing the Bloc Party tour. We played Forest Hills Stadium, a massive venue like 10,000-seater or something crazy, but we’ve played the Sticky’s Chicken Finger Shack and we’ve done the whole gamut. I understand when I hear some of my favorite artists like Brandon Flowers with The Killers or even bigger like an Ed Sheeran or someone going “yeah I’ve played arenas, I’ve played this, I’ve been on top of the world, but nothing beats playing in a pub with a bunch of people who really care about your music.” That was very true for us. We’ve never played an arena but the closest thing we’ve gotten to it is a stadium. Though that wasn’t our show, we’re still playing in front of a good bit of people and that was so cool and such a unique thing to experience in this life.
I would take the show at Whitewater Tavern in Little Rock, Arkansas, over that every single day with 250 people just packed out, sold-out, sweaty and gross. Everyone there was hanging on every moment and there’s something really special about that. I would love to do that all the time if we could figure it out. I mean, you want to grow and play the big shows, I get all that, but I don’t know if anything will beat that for me.
Yeah, the intimacy of smaller shows is just unmatched.
Alan: The pressure’s off. I felt the most natural “front guy” that I’ve ever felt. I just felt totally in my element, not nervous at all. If I messed up, I was like who cares? There was no pressure on it. We’re not syncing computers to lighting and video behind us. It’s just like no, everyone’s there for the show, the music and nothing else.
When people leave a joan show, what do you hope they take away from the experience?
Steven: Honestly, I just hope that when you’re at a joan show it feels like you are safe and cool to be who you are and whatever that looks like. If you’re escaping or you just want to be part of a collective of people listening to music, I always hope it feels like we are part of the room. We’re part of the thing that’s happening in the room and it doesn’t feel like a band playing above you or to a bunch of people above you. Our goal is always to be part of the crowd and that’s always the thing with us. Our best shows are the shows that we feel like we were part of it and not the ones doing it.
Anything else you want to share about the album or anything coming up?
Alan: It’s really good, we really love it and you’ll love it too. You should listen to the whole thing top to bottom.
joan will release this won’t last forever on September 25th via Photo Finish Records. Pre-save for the new album is available here.
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