Your New Favorite Band

Up & Down, NYC, September 18th, 2015. Just when you thought Joe was gonna be a DJ and professional party boy, he released a video of your "new favorite band" - DNCE. The frontman of a band? Wasn't sure how I felt about that, never imagined that was the direction we were going in. They certainly looked like a band of characters. The beat in the background of that video was infectious though.
Z100 had the exclusive premiere of DNCE's single "Cake By The Ocean" at 7pm on September 14th, 2015. Then something strange happened. They played the song again while they got Joe on the phone. They asked him what he thought about playing "Cake By The Ocean" every hour until 10pm and picking 10 callers every time they play the song to win a listening party with DNCE for their EP. Of course Joe loved the idea, how could you say no on regional radio, his hometown station, with Sirius XM broadcast?
If I didn't get this I was going to freak out. Two chances in a row were a bust, I only had one chance left and I was having a panic attack...until they picked up the phone. I begged them to tell me they weren't answering the phone because it was too late. They reassured me that me and a guest would be seeing DNCE at a secret location on Thursday and someone would call me tomorrow for all of my information. It was a long awaited phone call until 3pm the next day. They then took my complete information and I was neurotic praying that they took down my email correctly until I got my confirmation two hours after the fact.
The fact that I won this is literally insane because only 30 people won in total. We were broken up in 3 groups to do separate listening parties 3 days in a row at Up & Down. I always dreamed of going to the infamous Up & Down, one of NYC's most exclusive clubs that you're pretty much not getting into unless you're famous or dropping a couple of G's on a table. Well let me tell you the "Down" of Up & Down is by no means glamorous. It's a dark and dangerous walk down a twisting staircase, and I'm sure many a drunk girl in heels has gone toppling down. The ceiling is so low down there it's literally like a basement. However, I won't complain about the intimate setting it provided for the lucky few that got to be down there.
DNCE kicked off the listening party with "Pay My Rent", and as soon as the song takes off you can't help but dance. Their funky 70's vibe was fun, and it was GOOD. You know the music is good when the boyfriends and the dads are dancing more than the girls they came with. Z100 surprised us at the end of the listening party by giving us DNCE t-shirts and taking professional pictures of us with our new favorite band.
It was so good to see Joe again, and this felt so right. Jack Lawless, drummer from the Jonas Brothers, joined Joe for DNCE so it was nice to see another familiar face in the band. Jinjoo Lee was Jordan Sparks' guitarist when she opened for the Jonas Brothers in 2009, and Joe knew he wanted to work with her one day. And finally, there was superhuman Cole Whittle. I'm not sure what this man is, but he is all types of fun and nothing but a good time. Cole really always knows how to make you feel like a part of the band.
That basement was electric, I knew they were gonna blow up instantly. Of course it helps that the world already knew who Joe was, but this was totally different than anything he had ever done, especially with his brothers. This music was universal, people loved "Cake By The Ocean" when they heard it on the radio even though they had no idea who DNCE was, and better yet didn't know a Jonas Brother was in the band. I felt like a brand ambassador for this song, people would tell me all the time, "I love that song, I didn't know it was a Jonas Brother!" It was starting all over again, except this time my guy friends didn't make fun of me. Joe was the new king of cool😎