If You Go
• JR JR
• 6:30 p.m. Saturday, June 16.
• Beacon Park, Grand River and Cass avenues, Detroit.
• Admission is free.
• Visit downtowndetroitparks.com/parks/Beacon-Park.
The last we heard from JR JR was not good.
The Detroit duo of Josh Epstein and Daniel Zott had to cancel most of its U.S. tour last fall when Epstein required vocal rest. Fortunately there’s better news now.
Epstein is fully recovered, and JR JR (formerly Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.) has changed many of its surrounding circumstances -- for the better, including parting ways with Warner Bros. Records, which released three albums and two EPs since 2011. JR JR, which is playing a free hometown concert in Detroit this weekend, has a new album on tap for release later this year, as well as plans to celebrate its 10th anniversary during 2019....
• Zott, 34, says by phone that during the past eight months JR JR has undergone “a total reset,” changing nearly all aspects of the group’s career. “We took inventory of almost everything we did, whether it was the live show, who’s playing with us, who’s working with us. We kind of went back to square one about ‘What do we want to do? What are our new goals?’ We’re in a better place than when we started of course, but we felt like we needed to sort of rethink things if we wanted to continue to grow and to learn new things. So we took inventory of everything we did, and it’s been very freeing. It’s us taking back a little control and realizing that we like steering the ship a little more. We’re in a really good place now.”
• One of those changes was leaving Warner Bros. Records -- amicably -- after six years of releases, including a pair of singles during 2017. “When we were at Warner Bros., you can’t steer the ship,” Zott says. “If it goes really well it’s awesome -- and it did at certain points. But in the end it was just not working out for us. We didn’t see eye to eye and it was a mutual ‘Let’s not work on this anymore’ situation, and they didn’t screw us over on the way out.” Warners, in fact, allowed JR JR to take the album it was working on at the time.
• JR JR’s new album has not title, release date or record deal yet, but Zott says the group has 12 definite songs -- and maybe more. “We just got one of those last-second songs,” he says. “With everything going on in the world right now, it’s so depressing and inspiring so we came up with something we feel like we’ve got to put out right now. So it might make it on there, too.”
• Zott and Epstein have continued writing, meanwhile, and the group’s break has taken the two back to their roots as a duo. “We got to a place where Josh and I fell in love with writing, just him and me again,” Zott says. “On the last record and the one that’s about to come out there was a lot of co-writing, with members of our band or songwriters who were friends of ours. But when we took the break Josh and I realized that we haven’t just sat down, me and him, in a long time and wrote a song. We really tried to get back to that and enjoy that process, like Stella got her groove back in a way. We’ve got a bunch of exciting stuff we’re working on.”
• JR JR’s Detroit show this weekend will likely be its only performance of the year. “This is going to be a year of getting back together, playing the Detroit show and putting out some new music, and if everyone likes what they hear they can come see us in 2019,” Zott says. “We want to get going again. We’re always working. We always have something new. If we’re not touring then we immediately go back into the studio. That’s what we love; I think we’re more studio nerds than anything.”
If You Go:
• JR JR
• 6:30 p.m. Saturday, June 16.
• Beacon Park, Grand River and Cass avenues, Detroit.
• Admission is free.
• Visit downtowndetroitparks.com/parks/Beacon-Park.