Nick Jonas

to serious punch. We were very happy to be hit with it. Glad to hear it. Hello, I'm mini driver and welcome to many questions. I've always loved Pruce's questionnaire. It was originally an eighteenth century parlor game meant to reveal an individual's true nature, but with so many questions

there wasn't really an opportunity to expand on anything. So I took the format of Pruce's questionnaire and adapted What I think are seven of the most important questions you could ever ask someone They are when and where were you happiest? What is the quality you like least about yourself. What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you? What question would you most like answered, What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most? What would be your

last meal? And can you tell me something in your life that has grown out of a personal disaster. The more people we ask, the more we begin to see what makes us similar and what makes us individual. I've gathered a group of really remarkable people who I am honored and humbled to have had a chance to engage with. My guest today is Nick Jonas, a legitimate teen idol who is evolved into a producer, creative director, writer, and actor in addition to continuing to record as a solo artist.

I find it to be very thoughtful and quite reserved, virtually a living antonym for pop star. I was really inspired by his work, ethic and how he clearly sees creativity as multifaceted and constantly moving forward. I think it's quite a hard question, where and when you were happiest? Where and when I was happiest. I've got kind of two answers that are somewhat similar. I think the piece I felt when my now wife and I realized that

we should give it a proper go. I don't describe it as saying, oh, I was you know, I swept off my feet, or I don't imagine she was swept off hers at that moment, But there was an immense piece that I felt that carried on and took us into what became my happiest moment, which was our wedding day. And it was sort of a six month runaway from that moment. I realized it's so interesting around love as well, the realization that it throws everything else into relief that

when you really love somebody, how sharp that is. I think particularly it must be I've never been married, but I imagine that really is what kind of lights the pathway towards marrying somebody. And it's the difference between just being into somebody and really knowing I want to spend the rest of my life with this person. You know, it's obviously different for everybody, but for she and I both there was there was just an ease to it

that came. And not to say we didn't think it would have its challenging moments, as every relationship, whether that's marriage or friendship or family does, but there was speak about that piece again that's just sort of settled for each of us. And I think that's probably a good indication. If it feels tumultuous and troubling at the beginning, it's probably not the thing to write into. But this was quite special. It's interesting that you equate peace with happiness.

I mean, happiness it's so layered. I mean, it's as tricky to pin down as love itself. But for you, like when you think about your life and all of the layers that you've lived at a very young age, do you think the piece is the premium because there's so much noise in your life and there's so much spectacle.

I think so. I used to think of happiness tied to achievements and that there would be sort of a part of goal at the end of the rainbow, and that I feel like what ends up happening is if you're a person who cares deeply about your work, as you clearly do, you sort of just keep chasing more of those achievements as opposed to just finding the happiness.

And then for me, piece came in the picture and actually provided ten times the happiness that some career achievement or personal achievement could It's something that my mother and I used to talk about a lot, which is this

idea that there's actually no there there. We're set up in condition to believe that exactly as you said, there's a potch of gold at the end of the rainbow, that there's this place we're supposed to arrive at and then we will get happiness, as opposed to letting go of the notion of arrival and being in the quietness, just letting the moment unfold. And it takes a bit

of practice. Does this year has certainly been good practice and sort of settling into peace in general and quiet wasn't something that I was used to, you know, kind of an anti person by nature, so having to just relax and chill out. It was a good thing to practice because you can find, you know, a routine that actually ends up benefiting you more than just always chasing the next thing totally. Did you write very differently in this period? Do you notice that your state of being

informed you creatively? Yeah, well it was too fold in the sense that the obstacles, the hurdles that you know, we're so unique to this time, so much like we're

doing now writing over zoom with collaborators. In addition to music, now one of my biggest priorities is writing screenplays and developing film and television projects, and so that took a totally different approach, and in isolation kind of came the ability to actually take some time and let it happen in a more languid way, as opposed to my sort of pattern before, which would be to be as efficient quick as possible, which isn't always the best obviously. Yeah,

And I think it's the same thing. We were forced to stay out of the idea of there being this place we were meant to reach because we didn't know how long this was going to go on for. So being creative without that being a time frame I found really interesting. And actually the freedom and the sort of spaceiness of it actually created more discipline creatively, I found.

I agree. Yeah, I did feel moments of frustration, you know, when I would complete a task, whether it was a song or writing a script and the work was done and it felt like, oh, the reality said in this may never see the light day because of the state of the world. Know what's happening, right, And so I had sort of my biggest lesson this year and just patients and the ability to be proud of something knowing

that the runway to it being released maybe long. But as long as you're happy with your work and how you applied yourself to the process, it's it's fine. Got your very grown up. I'm literally a hundred and fifty times your age. I feel like I'm only just arriving at those conclusions. It's cool, like I'm and I'm sort of slightly bitter, but I'm also stacked. What is the quality that you least like about yourself? The quality I

at least like about myself. I have knee jerk reactions, two things sometimes that I think are incredibly uh stupid, And in retrospect it's it's never you know, anything to intense or you know, my my fuse is not short in the sense that I feel that I get angry, but I'll react because, as we all do, there's an insecurity that I'm not willing to just sort of own.

And it's just it's funny. More and more I'll sort of visualize myself in the doctor's office and he hits the knee with the rubber mallet and it pops up, and that's my literal sort of emotional reaction to certain things. Can you give me an example of a knee jerk reaction to something that you've either in the moment or later gone back and thought, you know what that was? Yeah, there's there's plenty. I guess you'd have to ask my wife too. That's probably example. This was somebody on the

other end of the knetz Jack reaction getting kicked. Yeah, exactly. Well, I think what it is is like, in our early days of working, there was a bit of a structure kind of to the things that we were doing because of our partnership with Disney, which is not to say that it was a negative experience. In fact, I really thought it was great training wheels for all that we did. But naturally there's a structure to it, and so, you know,

sort of rules and guidelines. As the three of us, my brothers and I have gotten older, it can be a bit of a thing where we sort of react to it. So it's like, oh, you know, it's an early more tomorrow we would probably get to bed. It's like, well, I'll be fine, I don't need to go to bed now. If I want to, i'll go, but I don't have to, So it's idiotic stuff like that. But when you can own it after the fact, I think it's it's all good. Are you quite competitive with your brothers? I mean in

a brotherly way. I don't mean she's sort of like achievement's been in a sibling way. So it's kind of like I'm gonna I'm going to hold out for the last drink and I'm going to be the last bed. Does that competition exist within your hierarchy? There is a natural competitiveness. My brothers both have kids now, so the bedtime thing is they're probably thrilled to get to bed, you know. I tend to like to stay up a bit later. But we are. We're very competitive. We're all

big golf fans, are all of you golfers? We are, And that's the one arena that gets kind of heated. I love it. That's only because none of us are that good, and so it's it's tragic when you care that much but you actually are terrible. The things. I'm not even going to ask your handicap, because it's because it doesn't matter. It's all about enjoying the game. I got yelled at actually on the golf course the other day.

I was holding the dogs. I was what, we're waiting for this guy to take a shot, and he was, you know, whack in it, which I believe is the technical term whack in the board away from the technical term. So it's holding the dogs, keeping quiet, and you know what it's like when someone's watching you. I guess because he he whacked the ball real bad. It didn't work out, and then he turned around and he yelled at me, of course it's your fault. I was just like, I'm

standing a hold in the labrador like I didn't. It's I think, and then his friends laughed at him. The best thing about golf is that you can always blame someone else for your bad shots. I've realized that, you know, it's because this person talkers, because you did that. There's an easy out there in your life. Can you tell

me of something that grew out of a personal disaster. Yeah, there, I mean, there's a kind of handful of things, but one in particular was a state of flub on stage that was on televised performance, which which ended up being really difficult for me to deal with after the facts. It was just it was very embarrassing and one of those things where I just had a brain fart to describe it, and I was playing a guitar solo and

just I couldn't get it. My brain was connecting to my my fingers, my hands, and and it wasn't the end of the world as as you know, as you always are able to sort of process in retrospect, and from the thirty ft view, it's a blip and the bigger sort of life story. I was sort of asked myself the question, would this end up in the screenplay, you know, of my life? And if it's not significant, significant enough that it would, then it's just let it go.

But this feels like it would have been something that would have marked a moment where I hopefully grew in that I was more understanding of the fact that I am human and I'm going to make mistakes and that's okay, and these things happen. That's really nice. I mean that kindness would be the thing that would grow out of an embarrassing moment for you, and particularly being really young with that happening and feeling humiliated that that's it's always good to fall on your face from time to time.

I couldn't agree with you more. I mean I I quite literally do it, and I also figuratively, and I'm very clumsy and fall over a lot. I don't think it's a bad thing at all. And I think we're also I don't know if you agree, but we're often trained to sort of a near ourselves, to pain and to looking stupid. But it's the best breeding ground for

like you said, connecting with your humanity. Completely agree, and I often think, you know, like God the universe, I didn't need to be humbled, and I was pretty humble before, but you show up at the times when you least expected and just add a little bit to the humility. Jar It's good to keep filling it up. I couldn't agree with you more. Also, neurologically, when you talked about your brain sort of disconnecting from you being able to

play the guitar. I was going to play in the West End at David Mammitt play, you know, full House. I've been doing the show for probably three months, and when I went on stage and it was just me and another actress on stage and you know, David Mammitt very quick fire dialogue, and it was like it was like the screen had just come down between all cognitive functions, and I couldn't remember what I was supposed to say, frozen in fear and then just spiraled and it sounds

quite similar to what you experienced. And it was so terrifying and weird and anyway, whatever, you get through it. But a few weeks later I was talking to this guy who's that's his life is starting the brain, and I said, look, this thing happened. Why did this happen? And he said, oh, it's really it's actually really common with creative people. And also when you've remembered something and you've repeatedly done something, it stays in the forefront of

our brain and our memory. But there's a point when you've done it so many times that your brain goes, you know, we do this all the time. This needs to be reredownloaded to a deep storage and in that moment, literally when it's switching over, that's when we have these moments of complete and utter forgetfulness and disconnection because it's the brain quite literally transferring information. I felt so much better,

and I was like, what do I do? And he said, oh, you just go and read the play again and you tell your brain I'm needing to relearn this you do whatever you did when you first sat down with it. That's so interesting. It's quite cool. I I love that. There's nothing quite like going up on a line on stage though it's it's it's the most frightening thing in the world. It's shockingly it feels so exposed, exposed and raw.

And I wonder why it's so terrifying. I wonder what we think is actually going to happen, because like, there's audience have paid tickets to see us, and they're probably all quite nice people, like it's not the Roman colisseum, Like they don't want to see us ripped to pieces. For me, yeah, I agree with you. It's less about the audience. It's the sort of embarrassment of going up in front of your cast mates. And I did have

a succeeding business without really trying Broadway. And there's a big monologue and it's very fast and if you if you miss, if you hit a speed bump middle of it's one of those where you've lost the whole. And I hit the speed bump and I kept stumbling and my cast mate was looking at me like I had a brain problem of some kind. And it was so embarrassing more so than the audience. That's interesting. It's peer fear. Let's call it that. It's pear fair neck. Absolutely what relationship,

real or fictionalized, defines love fear, real or fictionalized. I would say my parents relationship is quite inspiring to me in one that I've always admired. They met very young and at college and got married pretty quickly without having ever really dated properly. They were just really good friends and it evolved into love naturally, and you know, their thirty four years. I believe now it's a great relationship

and certainly inspiring to me. What are the corner stands I mean, because again, remember this is all field work for me, Like I'm desperate to get answers about everything, which is largely why I wanted to do this podcast. A thirty four year old marriage becaus a kid. As you're watching that as you grow up, do you notice

all the touchstones rather of what it's built on. Yes, I think it's a kind of a combination of a passion and love and being in a moment and all these things, but also having a roadmap for success or potential success, and you know, being able to set sort of certain pillars as a couple and as a family that you can actually lean on rely on in addition to following your heart and kind of being in the moment, which is something that uh, you know, in my life

I've tried to adopt as well. It's wonderful to be spontaneous and really important for the kind of work that we do, obviously in a creative field, but also understanding who you are. Having that roadmap for success is important. And when I say success just mean a healthy life and marriage or friendships and relationships. It's tricky that with

to create two people. And I've just found that in my life you can be on the same page spiritually and the decisions about whether you want children and how you would raise them and kind of who you are, but logistically it can be so difficult to kind of sink that up. Do you think that compromise, I guess is something that you may be noticed in your parents relationship, or that there's a loving compromise that one finds. Yeah, I mean, I absolutely hear you on not to creative

people front that can be tricky. In my parents relationship, they were both very creative but also very supportive of one another. And then found that balance. And my mom and dad will talk about, you know times my dad was a singer as well, and oh was he It was he was a pastor, and I said, I knew as a pastor. I didn't know he was a singer.

It's very talented. But he would show up, you know, in the early days of their marriage and have been at the studio until four in the morning she was with the three of us, we were quite young, and show up with his tapes and she would like lean up against the wall to stay awake to listen to it. But the fact that she was willing to get up out of bed and listen to his thing that he

was excited about it was really meaningful. And in the same way, he would show up for her in ways where she was being creative and needed to feel supportive. I've found that. But I also know and have experience in different relationships in my past and even friendships and things like that, times where those two creative forces can be really competitive and it's not the best to fit. I guess when you say compromise, that's very important and

an essential piece. But also that willingness to sort of at any point in time whether it's during the morning or too in the afternoon, and show up and be supportive of one's passion about something. What question which you most like answered? Well, I am currently reading Sapiens, so I'm deep into that world. And also it's simultaneously we started watching the first season of Ancient Aliens. So I don't necessarily want to know everything about how it all happened.

And when I say that, I mean the Earth and civilization everything, but I would like to know some of it. Just give me a little bit, which bit, like are you like I would like to know if there was a creative hand in the Big Bang, because I mean even Harari doesn't get to it in Sapiens, Like I was waiting for that to be. I mean, I don't want to do any spoilers, but like it's not like you get to the end of it and it's like, this is what's up. I don't want to ruin it

for you. But there's no specific answer. Yeah, a conclusion, yeah no, no, no, it's I saw it trending that direction. So if I had like one thing i'd want to know. I think one of the most fascinating things to me about Homo sapiens is our ability to love one another, and how there's a reverse reaction to that, which is violence,

and understanding why that happens. So that's something that I just think is fascinating when that began and when it evolved into what it is to day, because I think a lot of the world's problems could be solved if we had some understanding of that piece. I would really like to know that as well. I would also really like to know why more people aren't talking about the little green pyramids that were seen off the naval ship. I don't know about this. Oh you need to when

you get off the phone and you go deep. You don't even have to go that deep. It was like on the Today Show, it's everywhere. But they finally released this footage that I guess the Navy have been recording for years, and it's it's epic. I've we've now in our household, We've been talking a lot about, you know, if there's some bad behavior in our household. It's like, what do you think the aliens would think about that?

They were if they were seeing that at the moment they're watching, and I wonder what they think, Like, do they think that we are just so extraordinarily primitive because of the reasons that you just said, because of our insane violence and our extraordinary capacity to love. Like, do they feel that vibrationally or are they just looking at our tactical missiles and and ships and going, boy, that's that's some behind stuff. Yeah. I think it's probably a

combination of both. Do you love space because your record is called Space Man, and I did watch a couple of your videos and they do seem to be connected. Yeah, I'm fascinated by it a little bit. The album and the whole idea that came more so from being kind of isolated from the world and feeling disconnected and and I wanted to give that a name, sort of an era record, a bit of a theme. Didn't necessarily think it's a concept album, but it has fragments of that.

I think it's really cool. Thank you. Did you shoot the videos during lockdown as well? We did? Yeah, you know, we went out to for the Spaceman video. Were not to displace here in California. It's a couple of hours away from l A that's at some point was a volcano. So the volcanic rock all around this site and pretty fascinating place. And then the other one I shot in

London for a song called This is Heaven. I like the fact, you know how, you're writing a screenplay and this has happened, and you write his jet pack ignites, and then in the Spaceman video, his yeah pack does ignite. Yeah, I was trying to create some you know, Spaceman universe stuff. By the way, it worked, Nick Jonas, because I saw it and I completely loved it. Well, thank you very much. They're with really beautiful videos. It was like watching a

short film that they were loving. Thank you. It's pretty cool. I think it's my favorite question. But what would be your last meal? My last meal? I've thought about this quite a bit, so it's a little bit off the wall, but just go with me for a second hit. First course would be a Nioki pesto with pine nuts. That's just my favorite. You're the first person, by the way, to go already split it into courses, Bravo, carry on.

Second course would be a Japanese steak some kind not like wagu, but like a Japanese seared steak with with a soy glaze or something really kind of decadent and amazing. And then I would finish it with and this is abnormal because should usually confirst, but I finished with a piece of pizza, Pepperoni pizza. That's like the final send off. Wait, I love I love that that's the final send off.

So it's there. She's like the last minute in you know, the rizzler paper breath between life and death potentially, and for you as Pepperoni pizza. Yeah, it's like you know, we we start as children loving pizza and eating pizza and having no consequences to that and just eat as much as it as you want. It's great, and then you know, you start choosing other things as you grow up, and then going back to that as they send off is what I'd want to do. Just the simplicity of it.

I really love that. Is it also because he is from New Jersey and like pizza is in your blood, it is. I would argue that there are better not per capita, but there are better piece of shops in New Jersey than there are in New York. But there are also great places in New York. I love. It's a bold statement, but I think that's what you're supposed to do about your home state and I have fund some good pizza in London to know. Oh yeah, and by the way, there's like a whole racket going on

with pizza ovens that people have now got. I've had better pizza in people's back gardens because it's crazy therm imported from Naples ovens. Then maybe in the stores when you're back in London, maybe I'll just give you a tip about way you could put one in your in back garden. It's good to know. I'm up for it. I love a good slice of pizza. So wait, just really quickly because I have to clarify. So no dessert. Pizza is your dessert. You don't have a sweet tooth

at all. I do, but I want to end it savory the sweet you know you know what that's um. It's a very bold choice. No one has been there yet and I'm very much here for it. I can't thank you enough for your time, Thank you for having this was great, very welcome, and I'll see you on the golf course. Indeed, let's do it. You need your mini driver what. Nick's fourth studio album, Spaceman, was released

on March twelve. It's an album that evolved out of our global Lockdown and explores themes of distance and dislocation. There is also a Mad Good sax solo in the second single he released, called This Is Heaven. Nick hosts the Billboard Music Awards on MA Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver, supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, Producer Morgan Levoy, Research assistant Marissa Brown. Original music Sorry Baby by a Mini Driver, Additional music by Aaron Kaufman.

Executive produced by Me and man Gesh Hetty Cadore. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day, Lisa Castella and Nique Oppenheim, a w kPr Day, Pescador, Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech support Henry Driver, M