We Are the Jonas Brothers and We Are Just as Confused as You Are

Dear baseball fans and Jonas Brothers fans,

It has come to our attention that not all of you loved our performance during Game 2 of the World Series. This hurt us deeply, as we truly love to be loved. It has also come to our attention that some of you even blame us for the fact that the Dodgers ended up winning the game, and, well, we can’t really help you with that one. Even after much reflection and soul-searching, it’s still unclear how it could be our fault that Will Smith hit a home run 19 minutes and more than a full inning after we stopped playing. Nevertheless, all of us here at Jonas Brothers, Inc. want to make it very clear that we hear you. It had not occurred to us until our prerecorded backing track kicked in that maybe it was weird to interrupt the most important baseball game of the year for a performance that had nothing to do with baseball and little to do with anything. But we get it now. We promise to do better in the future, and we would like to explain how we found ourselves in this situation.

It’s important to understand that this is kind of a big production. We do a lot of shows. We’ve played at Rogers Centre four times now, which puts us just one behind Trey Yesavage. All those big shows require a lot of logistics. We have managers. We have handlers. We have managers for our handlers. (We call them manhandlers. It is our favorite joke.) Once you’ve gotten to the point where you’re singing into a microphone with a giant MasterCard logo on it, you’re not necessarily the one making all the decisions. The point is, we stopped asking questions a long time ago. We’ve performed at the White House Easter Egg Roll. That constituted a normal day in the life of the Jonas Brothers.

So when we arrived in Toronto and they told us that our show would be 87 seconds long, that it would delay the sixth inning of a pitcher’s duel in Game 2 of the World Series, and that we would be playing on a tiny stage in front of the footlong hot dog stand, we rolled with it. We’re professionals. And honestly, the hot dogs smelled so good that we thought about cutting our set even shorter just so we could hurry over and chow down. That’s not to say that we didn’t have any questions. We had so many questions.

Why not let us perform before the game, maybe even for more than 87 seconds? We felt slightly sheepish interrupting literally the World Series for a song whose main lyrics are “Da da da duh-da duh-da da da.” (Believe it or not, four different writers are credited for those particular lyrics. They took us weeks.) Moreover, our research indicates that people get maximum enjoyment from a song when they can hear at least 49% of it.

How long a leash would John Schneider give Kevin Gausman? From what we could see during sound check, he was cruising, but he’d also allowed some very loud contact, and the Dodgers had the top of their lineup coming up for the third time in the sixth. The bullpen was rested after the Game 1 blowout, and there would be a day off on Sunday. Gausman rolled in the sixth after we’d finished, so Schneider let him come back out for the seventh inning – once again, a decision that we had nothing to do with – and the rest is history.

Why were the big red power switches on our amplifiers turned off? Did that mean people couldn’t hear us shredding? That would be a serious bummer, because we really were shredding. It’s actually the thing we take the most pride in. We’ve tried to name our last three albums “We’re Really Shredding,” but each time, the record label has decided to go in a different direction.

How do you run out of relish before the sixth inning has even started? We rushed to the hot dog stand the moment our set was over, and they were out of both relish and onions. It’s the World Series! What are we even doing here?

Most importantly, is this man our brother?

He plays the drums for us. He’s been playing the drums for us for like 20 years. He’s definitely at Christmas sometimes. But when you mix up family and business, things can get a little muddled, and none of us is sure anymore. His name is Jack. Or maybe it’s Derek? It’s definitely something with a K. At this point, it would be way too awkward to ask his name. We’re pretty sure we have another brother, but we think his name is Fronk – or maybe it’s Frunk? We’re not sure about the vowel situation – and we can’t remember whether he plays the drums.

All of this is to say that we were just as confused as you were. We understand how you felt. You tuned in for a ballgame and you got a great one, and then there we were doing our duh-da das while the Dodgers and the Blue Jays settled in for a power nap. It was confusing for everyone, but we would remind you that we were doing this for a good cause. We really didn’t think it would go down this way. How often do people get angry at you because you played a show for charity? Here at Jonas Brothers, Inc., we take a strong stance against cancer. We do not care for it. We kind of thought everybody was on our side on this one.

The good news is that we know that we are strong enough to weather this storm. We’ve felt like villains before, specifically back in 2004, when we recorded a cover version of the classic Little Mermaid song “Poor Unfortunate Souls” for Walt Disney Records. Once you put yourself in the shoes of the sea witch Ursula, no amount of scorn can stop you. And this isn’t the first time we’ve had a show go poorly. We’ll never forget how audiences reacted the first time we road tested our jingle for Baby Bottle Pops, the lollipop that you eat by sucking on the nipple of a miniature baby bottle, but we survived.

So we can handle this. We will persevere. Rest assured that everybody here at Jonas Brothers, Inc. – the three of us, the managers, the handlers, Jack/Derek, Frunk, and the fine people over at MasterCard – will learn from this experience and come out of it even stronger. We will make more records, and millions of people you’ve never met will adore them. We will be invited to play at the White House for a fourth time. We will defeat cancer. But still, it was weird, right?

Sincerely,

The Jonas Brothers