Q&A: Jesse & Joy Are Back With a Sophomore Album

Siblings Jesse & Joy learned early on how to share. In fact, the Mexico City natives have been sharing the spotlight ever since they decided to form their own band in 2001. Big brother Jesse plays the guitar, piano, drums and sings background vocals, while little sister Joy performs lead vocals and strums the guitar. Together, they deliver a mix of pop, folk and rock that’s positively electric. I recently caught up with the dynamic duo and here’s what they had to say:

Congratulations, you have a new album out today. Tell me about it.
Jesse: We’re very excited; it’s our second album. It’s called Electricidad. Joy is 23, I’m 26. The first album we started writing when I was 18 and Joy was 15, so it’s been a long time of experiences and sound tests. At the end of the day, it sounds like us. We’re always going to be involved. We wrote all of the songs. We worked along with [recording engineer] Tom Russo. He worked with Michael Jackson on the Dangerous album and Johnny Cash on his last album. It’s super-cool. We grew up listening to most of those artists.
Joy: We’ve been traveling and seeing the world. Global warming changes your perspective. We try to put a good positive message out there.

Do you address environmental issues in your music?
Jesse: The whole album is full of energy. At the end of the day, we’re trying to put out a message of love in between all the craziness and darkness that’s around us.
Joy: We’re also in this group called La Onda Verde, for Latin people trying to help others change the world.  

You mentioned you grew up listening to Johnny Cash—who else?
Jesse: Our mom is from Wisconsin, and whenever Dad was away working, we’d play with our toys and listen to music. Neil Young, the Carpenters, Simon & Garfunkel and Aretha Franklin.

Did your parents influence your decision to become musicians?
Joy: They love music. They supported our decision and the steps that we took. We thank them for bringing us to this world and second for supporting our decision.

How is your dynamic as brother and sister in a band? Any sibling rivalry?
Jesse: Besides being band mates and coworkers, we’re friends. I think that’s the most important part of Jesse & Joy.
Joy: It’s easy because we grew up together. If one of us is in a bad mood, I know to stay away.
Jesse: We try to create alter egos so that we don’t get bored of each other.

Any plans to tour with the new record?
Jesse: For the first couple of months, we’re doing promos. At the end of September we’re starting with the tour. We’re going to be all over the United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico and South America.

How do you enjoy your free time when you’re on the road?
Jesse: You have to adapt as a human being to whatever your environment is. We try to rest and try to use our energy in the smartest way as possible.
Joy: It’s a balance thing. Most of the time we’re on a plane. Our main concern is sleep, and after that, if we’re in a place we haven’t been to, we go out for a walk. We pizza-hunt. We love pizza!

Here’s Jesse & Joy’s video for the title song off their new album, Electricidad: