Why Do Filipinos Love Indie Pop Duo Joan So Much?
In 2019, Arkansas-based duo Alan Thomas and Steven Rutherford–better known as joan–said they never imagined they had thousands of fans in the Philippines. In fact, Quezon City is the group’s top streaming city in the world back then. This year, the duo is returning to the country to perform in their first-ever headlining tour, superglue, presented by Live Nation at the New Frontier Theater this coming Tuesday, September 19.
Before the pandemic hit, the band had already been to the country twice. “The fans are so awesome there, so we're excited to get back and play yeah,” Thomas and Rutherford said during an online interview with Esquire Philippines. “And (they’re) wild.”
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“The Philippines in general has been super warm and welcoming to us from the beginning,” they said. “I don't know exactly what started it, I think we were known as a part of bands that play kind of similar styles and we kind of got picked up from that. I remember us starting to see the numbers kind of grow in the Philippines which was really special we're just like wow this is crazy.”
The band has been playing indelible synth-pop with a timeless emotional quotient since 2017 and helping craft new memories for new generations of music fans since the release of the “portra” EP.
"We were chasing a feeling—the feeling that you get when you hear a certain song for the first time," Rutherford explained regarding the band's creative fertility when they launched their exquisite first EP.
"We set out to elicit the feeling you get when you watch a John Hughes movie,” Thomas added. “We never sat down and consciously said, 'We want to brand ourselves like this.' We just love the sounds. Why do we get these feelings when we listen to these songs?"
Superglue experience
While they may be performing on the same stage, each of the members has a different individual experience of the superglue tour.
Thomas has played the bass as backup behind Alan for the most part of the tour. “[Before] it's just usually me and Alan on on stage. And we have two other guys who come with us now so it’s like a full band. And I play bass and backup behind Alan most of the time. It took me a long time to feel like I'm nailing all my bass parts because it’s new to me. So that kept it really fresh to me for the first 20 shows,” he said.
Rutherford, despite his performance jitters, has started to feel more comfortable coming out of his shell with this tour. “We could play a thousand more shows and I'm still gonna get like an anxious pit in my stomach right before we go out there,” he explained. “Usually, it takes me a few songs to get in the groove and feel comfortable, but [with] the superglue tour, I've felt the most comfortable on stage. It's shown more than ever that I tend to be like an ‘eyes-closed, just-let-me-sing-the-song’ guy, but I've tried to grow out of that a little bit.”
“I feel like we're so locked in,” Thomas added. “We just take little moments from each song and try to almost make it a challenge for us to play those songs again. We’ve been finding ourselves trying to run around the stage a lot more and trying to crack each other up a little bit. It just makes it more fun, and makes those moments more exciting for us on stage. And I think that translates for everybody watching, too, so it's kind of fun to have the mystery there, like, who knows what's going to happen.”
The duo’s practice and appreciation of other art forms
The band has amassed more fans particularly with singles like "drive all night," “superglue,” “so good,” “I loved you first,” and “love somebody.” Joan’s full-length album ‘superglue’ was released earlier this year. It includes the song of the same title, which has since garnered over a million streams on Spotify.
Offstage, both of the guys find themselves creating other forms of art, especially with fans who ask them for a tattoo design and then actually getting the tattoo and showing it to them the next time they see them. “I always point them to Steven because he draws,” Thomas said. “He is actually good and does all of our artwork. My handwriting is like chicken scratch so I just point them to him and so Steven has tattooed a thousand people at this point.”
“There was this girl named Liz,” Rutherford recalled. “She's on our journey fans [which is] like a Patreon subscription thing [where] you get to hang out every month and go on a zoom call. The first show [of ours] that she saw, she got our signatures on her arm and literally went from the show and got it tattooed. It was the first time she had ever seen us.”
The duo are also fans of stand-up comedy, but follow different artists. “Steven and I both love stand up comedy and there's a lot of parallels between people writing stand up sets and writing songs,” Thomas shared. “I've been listening to a lot of podcasts and there's a particular podcast that I love called Fly on the Wall. It's David Spade and Dana Carvey. I've [also] been listening to a lot of Lauv and his new song “Love U Like That.” [It] freaking kills me. It's good pop. It's pop perfection.”
“I'd get the chorus of “Toxic” by Britney Spears on my chest. I've been thinking about it,” Rutherford said, half-jokingly. “I've been listening to a lot of this band called Parcels. I think they're maybe out of Germany but I'm obsessed with them. I love them so much for some reason.”
If for some unlikely reason they stopped making music, the duo would still find themselves creating art. “The practical side of me thinks that I would probably try to go into some sort of marketing job just because that's the education background I have,” Rutherford shared. “But I would not want to do that. I'd probably still do something artistic like painting or doing design or interior design.”
“My wife and I like to renovate houses and we've done like six now,” Thomas said. “We're currently doing one that's going to be our new house which is actually one street over from where Steven and his wife live. I do enjoy working with my hands, making stuff. I don't love the sweating and getting dirty part, but taking something old and dingy and making it new and feel new and fresh and look better in design, I really enjoy that.”
Get your tickets to joan’s superglue tour at ticketnet.com.ph. More info at livenation.ph.
