Franklin Jonas on ‘Joining the Family Business’ and Why He Identifies With the Rats of NYC (Exclusive)

Franklin Jonas is sitting on his couch, underneath a camo baseball cap and a string of star-shaped lights. After a few-year stint in New York, the 22-year-old has returned to L.A., where he grew up alongside his famous siblings, the Jonas Brothers.

"I was always so anti-L.A. and hated the identity," Jonas tells The Messenger over Zoom. "It wasn't until my girlfriend and I hiked Runyon Canyon and I ran into five people I've known my whole life. I was like, f---, I'm from L.A. more than anyone else. I can't run from it anymore."

He shows me his rat tattoo before talking about his debut EP, Sewer Rat, issued jointly by Pizzaslime, the label launched by the clothing imprint of the same name, and Diplo's Mad Decent imprint.

"It started off as a celebration of New York," he says of the release, before realizing it was actually his farewell letter to the city. His songs are about growing up in the shadow of fame, finding an identity, grappling with mental health and, of course, living in New York and seeing rats on the subway.

Jonas calls himself a "nepo baby" and says he owes everything to his family and the environment he grew up in. But he envisions his career in contrast to his brothers' trajectory, more indie singer-songwriter than commercial pop act. The hazy, intimate vignettes found on Sewer Rat make that distinction clear. He's not talking about selling out arenas; he's just happy to fill a room.

Jonas was introduced to the spotlight at a young age, but he was always just out of frame. As a child, he appeared in a few interviews with the Jonas Brothers. The trio’s fans dubbed him the "forgotten" brother and the "Bonus Jonas," a nickname he would grow to hate. But years later, Jonas is in on the joke. He and Kevin Jonas even co-host a reality show called Claim to Fame, where relatives of celebrities move into a house together and guess who the other contestants are related to.

The Messenger chatted with Jonas about his childhood, his evolving relationship with his brothers and his new EP.

You've said Sewer Rat was named after the kinship you felt with the rats on the subway. Can you talk more about your inspiration for the EP?
Originally it was "Subway Rat." I wrote the original demos, which became the EP, on the subway. I wanted to write music I could listen to on the subway. And obviously living in New York, you see a lot of rats. I don't know, I always thought they were cute. I liked them. There was just this idea of being a little subway rat and riding around the subway during quarantine when no one was around.

When did you know you wanted to pursue a music career? 
So I really ran from doing this, even to the point where I showed the guys at Pizzaslime and Mad Decent the demos, the very poorly crafted demos, but I ghosted them. I signed the deal and I was like, I don't know if I can do this. Like, I'm terrified of even pursuing this. 

But it's always been a dream. And it's become very clear with my shows. There wasn't a lot of trial and error to figure out what I would do onstage, because I've thought about it my whole life. I've grown up watching the greats, right? So I come at it from that knowledge and that awareness. 

I showed my girlfriend the first song that I had really written for a long time, "Hoboken," and she was the one who believed in me. And it was that sort of belief that someone would want me to do it. I'm finally over feeling undeserving or wondering why I'm undeserving. 

You mentioned that you were terrified at a certain point. Did anything about your brothers' experience make you want to avoid pursuing this path? 
I think it's just because their experience, I knew it would be so different from what I would be doing. I could never do what they do. They're so incredible and they've created such an amazing career out of the Jonas Brothers and out of their solo careers. My art is my heart and it's my soul, and that can be very painful and very intimate in a lot of ways. I was just terrified of putting myself out there because I knew that it would be judged in association. I don't know if I wanted to put myself through that.

What's been the reception so far from listeners to your music and live shows? Do you find that there's overlap with your brothers' fan base? 
Oh, definitely. I think that there's been some really kind and really supportive Jonatics, as they say. Getting to know them intimately through this process is really awesome for me. We had one of the OG Jonas Brothers fans who used to go to the Radio Disney shows back in the day — she came to the Troubadour set because she just wanted to support. I've known her my whole life. I've been really grateful to the Jonas fan base for accepting me in this journey. 

You mentioned that you knew your experience would be different from theirs. Do you mean that your goal is less commercial and pop-oriented and more indie and intimate?
Their career is based around a very specific image. And they've had the "go" that you don't really see as much anymore: the Disney to the pop star, to the club star, to the radio hits. And it's amazing, and I'm the most proud brother in the world. Their career is something that takes a certain level of work and dedication and courage that I think I just don't have. 

I really just want to paint a picture and I really want to create this world and this Sewer Rat aesthetic. I knew that I would have to find a way to healthily put myself on the line and put myself in the position that I'm doing for the love of this art. The more I perform, the more I realize, holy shit, they're just built different, the way that they're able to perform and hold a crowd and live the life that they live. I mean, hats off, dude — I've only had, like, six shows and I feel like I could go into hibernation. 

Your new music talks about growing up adjacent to fame. Could you talk about what that was like and how you reflect on it now? 
There's always goods and bads to all things. And I am so privileged to have the experience that I've had. I'm, you know, through and through a "nepo baby." One hundred percent. But I also think that I grew up in a situation where I had to experience life very differently. In some ways, I'm horribly undeveloped, but at the same time, I am massively developed in other ways. I grew up watching live music every night. My playground was the American Airlines arena in Dallas. That was my jungle gym. And my friends growing up were roadies and tour managers and these people who taught me about music and taught me about life in a very different context.

It was difficult, too, at a certain point. I got a phone when I was 12, and I got a Twitter account and sort of saw the way that people perceived me while not knowing me at a really young age. So I've wrestled with being in the public eye my whole life as a result of that.

But I think overall, at the end of the day, this EP is just gratitude because everything is a complete result of the experience that I was given and that I've been privileged to have. 

I'd love to hear a bit more about how that experience influences the kind of music you make. You once said, "I was this joke, my entire identity to people was 'adjacent,' which really affected the way I thought about the world and the way I felt about myself." 
Growing up can be about a trillion things. As much as I tried to stray and not make music about my family experience, I think that I just wanted to put my experience into it. And I think that that is how it affected me. Like, how do I tell my stories and how do I acknowledge the experience that I've had, while also, in the least cringey way possible, try and make my own path, and do that in a way that is respectable and admirable. 

I'm the biggest critic of myself in the world, but at the same time, I'm also, like, the biggest troll in the world. So I just sort of went into it like, how do I make this in a way that I wouldn't be able to make fun of me? I'm really grateful for watching my brothers go through so many different phases of their career. I was learning lessons by proxy of how to be yourself. There was no world in which I didn't do music. My whole life has been based in either music, live music or the recording process of music. I'm joining the family business, in a way. Even if I don't do this for the rest of my life, I still am just so honored to be able to do this now.

What is your relationship with your brothers like now, as family and also as fellow artists? 
I'm a cool uncle, man. That's, like, the best position. Our relationship is the best it's ever been. We're really just honest with each other and they've been so kind and so supportive of this project and me doing this. Nick was a really early voice, in that I was sharing things with him, sharing the mixes and asking his opinions, asking his thoughts. Same with Joe and Kevin. I showed Kevin some of the demos back before I even recorded anything, just being like, "What do you think I should do? Should I do anything with this?" I have the best family in the world, especially given our circumstances. We could not talk to each other, you know what I mean? 

I found an old video of you as a kid where you rank your brothers, Nick, Joe and Kevin. What's your updated ranking?
That was a constant bit when I was a kid. That's so funny. It was a game as a kid — like, "Yesterday, Joe was my favorite because I got a lot of attention from him. He got me a bouncy ball," or something. I'd say they're all equal now. It's shifted to a level playing field.