Arts & Life, Music

Newly renamed JR JR band reincarnates

The band JR JR are straight from the underground.

Having come a long way from playing in a basement studio in Michigan back in 2009, duo Josh Epstein and Daniel Zott recently released a self-titled album, their third in four years.

When the pair met in Detroit and started collaborating, it was never their intention to release their music until their work received positive reactions from friends.

The band’s original name, Dale Earnhardt JR JR, was chosen because it imparted zero expectations of what their music would sound like. Having the band’s name similar to that of a NASCAR driver only led to some confusion. Despite the NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt giving the band his blessing to keep their name, the duo decided to cut back to simply JR JR in July just in time for their recent album release.

The Daily 49er caught up with singer, multi-instrumentalist and half of JR JR, Josh Epstein.

Has the band’s origin from Detroit had any influence on your music?

Yes, like if you’re in Detroit the whole population is kind of spread out so you don’t have like this whole music scene coming up around the same time and being all super competitive. So I think that you kind of find your own sound and we were able to find our own sound because we were able to be on our own.

Do you feel the new name JR JR still gives the same expectation-free factor like your original name?

It’s actually kind of insane the name Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr almost started to become a bigger story than it was expected and I think that shortening the name kind of gave us more freedom in general.

Now on your third album, how would you say your music has evolved throughout the albums?

I think that it’s more focused now; we are very picky and clear about the sounds. Before I felt like we kind of threw a lot of stuff in and now we toss stuff in but we edit it a little more. It’s a cleaner version of our ideas. It’s probably a little bit simpler but it sounds more sophisticated because of the simplicity.

Why was the single song release of “Gone” so special to the band?

There came a moment when we were writing this album where we were talking about what we really wanted to make. Like “are you making a record because it’s what you’ve always done or because it’s your job,” or “are you making a record because you have something to say.” As you are a professional musician for a longer time these are the type of things you start to think about. And sitting down talking about those things helped us write the song but I think it’s all a retrospective of having a positive outlook.

How would you describe the songwriting process that went into the making of the album?

This time around I wrote a lot here in L.A and [Zott] wrote a lot in his house in Detroit. And we would get together for a few weeks to start recording. Whether it was in L.A or Detroit we just got together and recorded. Every song is different but this time it was even more different working from different sides of the country. It was kind of neat to have space and appreciate more of one another, but I don’t know if I’d like to make another album like that either.

Looking back to your first concert, how do you remember it?

I’m always nervous. I mean not like super nervous but we just always want the audience to have a good time. It’s just like throwing a party, worrying about everyone enjoying themselves. It’s got be a different experience, like there [are] things you just do naturally when you’re performing but there’s got to be different moments.

JR JR is currently on their American Fall tour and celebrating their most recent album release. Pre-sale tickets and more can be found on their website www.jrjrmusic.com

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published.

Daily 49er newsletter

Instagram