Jake and Nolan

    It was the start of a new calendar year for elementary school students, causing parents to flood classrooms with their children, and as one first grade teacher introduced a new student to the bunch, she sparked a bond that would last a lifetime.
    “Class, this is Nolan McDowell. He just moved here, and will be joining our class. Can everyone say hi?” 
    As the classroom filled with the ear-shattering greetings of six year olds, one student, Jake Monger, made eye contact with McDowell from across the room. 
    “You should be friends with him,” Monger’s mother whispered to him. 
    Reluctantly, Monger eventually complied with his mom’s request, and he and McDowell were friends for the year. However, class schedules tore the two apart until their freshman year of high school. 
    Meeting for the second time in gym class, the two began talking again. When it came up that McDowell had a Spotify account one afternoon, an idea for sharing music was born.
    “I let him use my spotify account, and he would play me songs, because you know how with Spotify you can only use one device at a time?” McDowell explained. “So he’d choose the songs from his phone and play them at my house, and I’d be like ‘Oh yeah, I like this song.’ We’d just share music like that, and that’s how we actually became friends.”
    Their bond over music did not stop there. After the two found out several peers were trying to start up careers as rappers and musicians, they decided to take a similar route. 
    “There were just a bunch of people that were making these raps, and they were just getting really serious with it, so we wanted to make a song and say the exact opposite things anyone would say… It was just so bad,” said Monger. 
    Rapping over a Lil’ Wayne beat, the duo quickly released their first song, “I’m Cool,” to Soundcloud, creating what would eventually turn into the alt-pop hybrid that is Jake and Nolan. Although “I’m Cool” has since been set to private, their second track ever made, “All Dogs Go to Heaven” still remains up, and is quite popular, with nearly 3,000 plays. 
    Starting out, the group wrote with simplicity and a hint of sarcasm, but are currently moving away from their roots to cover more serious topics. 
    “We’ll never take it too seriously,” said McDowell. “We just kept making stuff as a joke and then we were like, ‘Wait, this is cool.’ Then we slowly started making it more and more serious.”
    In addition to more mature lyrics, McDowell and Monger’s roles have changed within the band. Originally, McDowell would stick to making the beat, and Monger was responsible for rapping overtop of it.
    “Now for a lot more songs, Jake is making the whole beat, where before, it was mainly just me. So now the roles are totally mixed and it’s actually even for all parts of the song,” said McDowell. 
    This new approach to their recording process is shown for the first time on their EP See You Later, which dropped back in August. This album was a collaboration, combining the lo-fi beats of Jake and Nolan with the indie artistry of fellow musician and longtime friend, Jack Pfeffer. 
    “[We] have been good friends since early on in elementary school. And we’ve always had a love for music, and now since we all are making music… it only seemed natural to make a collaborative album. For the first time, it felt natural and free to be in the studio with other people,” said Pfeffer. 
    The idea of a collab album was always in the works, but was truly put to life when Monger and McDowell traveled to Minnesota, a place Pfeffer currently calls home. Adding the guitar, bass, drums, and writing skills Pfeffer possesses to Jake and Nolan’s usual mix,  the boys, filled with a newfound inspiration, recorded the entirety of four songs during their four day stay.
    “We watched Prince’s movie ‘Purple Rain’ before making any of the songs, and then we went to Paisley Park where he lived and created. It sounds nothing like Prince’s music, but his energy inspired us,” said McDowell.
    After, they flew back to Arizona, and put their final touches on the tracks.
     “We each make music for fun so it was just another thing to do together,” said Monger. “I think we want this sound to forever represent the week we spent in Minnesota... and maybe some people can relate it to their own life when they hear it.”
    See You Later and Last Summer, the boys’ new single, have both debuted on Grape Jelly Records, a record label they and Pfeffer run together. 
    “I mean, we do it that way [release DIY] because it’s the only way we can, really,” said McDowell. “It would be cool to stay completely independent for as long as we can, because then we don’t have to worry about other people taking what’s ours.” 
    McDowell and Monger seem to be doing just fine on their own, too, as they were just shouted out on Bandcamp by the Symposium, and are in talks of opening up for the band for their Arizona dates.
    Just before the bandcamp shoutout, Jake and Nolan made their first dollar off of the music sharing platform, and have just partnered with Sweeteez, a nearby cookie business. 
    “They think I look like Bob Saget, so they gave me a ton of free cookies,” said McDowell. 
    As for Jake and Nolan’s future in music, they plan on releasing more tunes soon.  
“The next song we’re gonna put out is sleep related, I might have said too much,” said McDowell. 
    Right now, you can stream Jake and Nolan on soundcloud, bandcamp, Spotify, and iTunes.


by sara windom