INTERVIEW

FOR ALT-POP DUO JOAN, CHANGE ISN’T JUST INEVITABLE — it’s essential. With every release, the Little Rock-based band, made up of longtime friends Steven Rutherford and Alan Benjamin Thomas, continues to refine and reimagine their sound. Their newest EP, body language, is no exception. Acting as both a creative milestone and a preview of what’s to come, the project showcases Joan’s most introspective, emotionally raw work to date—setting the tone for their upcoming full-length album this won’t last forever, due this fall.

Their breakout 2018 EP portra introduced listeners to a glistening world of retro-tinged pop, while 2023’s superglue built on that momentum with warm production and heartfelt lyricism that cemented the duo’s signature sound. But with body language, Joan is pulling back the curtain, leaning into vulnerability and expanding their music in new territories.

Body language is a natural evolution of where Joan is right now: reflective, fearless and unafraid to challenge themselves creatively. In embracing their own evolution, they’ve created a project that feels universally relatable and profoundly moving.

Joan has spent the year on the road, taking their ever-evolving alt-pop sound to stages across the globe. Most recently, the duo has been opening for Bloc Party on a high-energy run of shows that’s introduced their music to brand new audiences.

Luna caught up with Joan backstage during their Chicago stop on the Bloc Party tour after they hit the stage. The band opened up about the emotional heart of body language, the creative risks they took to bring it to life, and how the EP lays the foundation for their next full-length project, this won’t last forever.

LUNA: Thank you for talking to Luna again, it’s so great to have you back since the last time Luna caught up with you at the MisterWives show in December. How has life been treating you and what have you been up to since?

STEVEN: We’ve been working on an album literally every day since we got back. We have a studio in Little Rock and we basically got home and we have been there five days a week, and we treat it like a normal blue collar job.

LUNA: Congratulations on the release of body language! How are you both feeling now that the EP has been out in the world for a week?

ALAN: My favorite thing is releasing the music, because we're there every day at the studio working, and you just get used to hearing the songs on your dropbox for months. We send it to our friends and family to get reactions, but it’s the best when it’s out in the world and the public and fans get to hear what we’ve been working on for months. I’m excited that it’s out and it’s the precursor to the album that’s coming in the fall, so it’s half released already.

LUNA: What kind of themes or emotions were you most interested in exploring with body language? Did you set out with a clear vision, or did it evolve during the creative process?

STEVEN: For the EP, the playing has basically been letting fans into us making an album. We started with “heartbodymindsoul,” and we knew that was going to be on an album, and we had little nuggets of other songs that really felt like pillars to an album. Through that, we wrote this in the string of a week, all at the same time. We wrote “face,” “eyes” and “magic” in the same timeframe. It was all anatomy themed. We were like, it'd be sick to release these in succession of each other, with “body language” being the total halfway point for the album and to say that we’re working on an album and thanks for being a part of this. For the song “body language,” we found a clip from this producer Shane Becker and he puts these 30 second clips together. He doesn’t release songs, he just puts them on Instagram and we knew we wanted to write on the song. He lets us write over what “body language” ended up being. It's his Instagram clip that we turned into a song, so that was fun.

LUNA: Which track on the EP feels closest to your heart right now, and why? Is there a particular song that challenged you the most to write or produce?

ALAN: Mine's “face” for sure. I always set out to write songs that we'll be proud of when we're in our 60s, and songs that can live in any era. It feels like it could have been like a Genesis song, or it could have been a newer song, and that one means a lot. It's a song about grief, and we've had some really cool stories told of people that have literally lost someone and how that song has really helped them, so you don’t set out to do that necessarily, but to hear the impact is super encouraging that our music affects someone.

LUNA: How have fans been reacting to the songs so far? Are there any unexpected favorites or responses that have surprised you?

STEVEN: “Face” was a song that we released before “body language,” so that would have been in March, and we did not expect it to have the response that it did. It was definitely one that we thought “magic” was going to have this big pop. And it just goes to show you never know what is actually going to happen. The “magic” release was great, releasing music is just weird anyway, because you don't really know how well it's been until you get stories back. Once we released “face,” it just seemed different from everything else. That was one we didn't really super expect, but it was cool to have that.

LUNA: Body language is a sneak peek into your upcoming album. What can listeners expect from you in this new era of music?

ALAN: This whole album is probably more on the melancholy side, sonically. Lyrically, there's love songs. It's going to sound darker. If you listen to a song like “so good,” which is a happy, pop, love song, and then you listen to this album, I think you could juxtapose them and say that's a new Joan. We tried to lean into that a little bit on this. I hope it's catchy, fun, joyful, but maybe it's a little bit different.

LUNA: This is about to be a busy year for the band with non-stop touring and playing major shows. How do you stay grounded and maintain a sense of stability while on the road?

ALAN: It helps that we have family back home. We both have two young kids each and wives and so it’s instantly grounding. There's no room or time for ego because I'm worried about what my daughter will eat and what she was supposed to eat? That helps a lot, actually.

LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like for you that you would like to share with Luna?

STEVEN: If I'm being honest, feeling the most hopeful we've ever been, and also feeling the most important we've ever felt. We've been doing it for seven years now, and we've put out a lot of music, and we've released enough music where we know that it could change our career, or it could keep it the exact same. I think we're also at the point where we're totally fine with whatever happens. We're thankful that we get to release music and connect with people through music and through playing shows and so hopeful in the fact that it would be sick if we connected with more people. That's always the goal. We have a great fan base, so if it makes it to them, that'd be great.

ALAN: I think a lot of people look at any artist that tours and they assume that it's this glamorous thing. This tour, there's a lot of pros to it. For us, it's, we're playing the biggest venues we've ever played in America. We're also the first of three, so it rained tonight right before, and there’s actually way more people out there than I thought was going to be. There's a difference between planning for 500 people in a 5000 cap versus 5000 people at that cap. You try to keep the expectations low enough and soak everything up. We're so lucky to even be able to do this, to be paid to do what we love. You don't try to not take that for granted, but there's always a con. It's hard to balance. I'm hopeful, too.

STEVEN: We’re releasing the album this fall called this won’t last forever and we’re very stoked to release it. It feels like we've been working on it a long time, like we started the legwork on it last January, so it's been a slow process of just making sure we have the right songs.