Have you been on American Idol, X Factor and Boy Band? No? Well Jon Klaasen has been on ALL three shows and he’s only age 20. Klaasen was one of the members of Forever in Your Mind before he left to pursue a solo career. Currently Klaasen is on the Boys of Summer Tour promoting his latest album, Blame Games, which was released earlier this year. CelebMix had the chance to talk with Klaasen in Boston, his first time ever on the East coast!
What are you most excited for about the tour?
The tour has been amazing, a lot of insane support from all the fans, super loud and crazy, the energy is awesome. What I’m actually most excited for is that this is my first time ever on the East coast and I’ve been performing and doing music my whole life. I grew up in Indiana, midwest, so you’d think I would be on the East coast more often but this is my first time performing on the East coast, so I’m excited to hit all the stops.
You recently released “Best I Can,” what’s the message behind that?
The writing process behind “Best I Can,” it was actually a different genre than what I had originally released but I just thought it would be really cool to release something different for my fans. It’s about all these relationships that are filled with drama and all these things that don’t need to happen. The intention behind it was just to say, when you love someone or you’re in a relationship with someone, the best thing to do is just to do the best you can. Don’t expect things to be perfect, because things are going to be messy, which is how things work, so it’s just to give people hope.
You were in Forever in Your Mind, a boy band, do you still talk to them and what’s the difference between being a solo artist and being in a boy band?
Yeah I do, I talk to them every once in a while. I know Emery and Ricky are doing a lot of their own stuff and we chat every once in a while. I love both being in a boy band and being a solo artist. Being in a band, you have a comradery that you’re not going to have as a solo artist, being on stage and being able to do those harmonies, there’s just somethings you can do in a band that you can’t do as a solo artist and it’s amazing. As a solo artist, you have a lot more creative freedom with what you want to do and how you’re going to do it, so those are my favorite things of each and how they’re different to me.
You were on American Idol, X Factor and Boy Band, what show gave you the most experience?
I think X Factor was good experience wise because that was the first one I did so it kind of really threw me into the industry and I learned a lot through it. Actually, the one I think that was the best was Boy Band, I feel like the producers of the show and the people that got on the show, was incredible. It was less about the story and more about who they were, it was more about the cast, instead of the stories they could bring to the show. I still talk to everyone on Boy Band, I’m best friends with all those guys. I just think they had some really solid line ups on that show, it was really fun.
What’s the overall theme of your latest album, Blame Games?
The overall theme is just to give a bunch of inspiration to different situations. A lot of it is about relationship stuff but then I have a song, personally my favorite called “Irreplaceable,” and that’s about a friend of mine, who lost their grandmother and she was really important to them, just to help them know that even though they lost somebody irreplaceable, that it doesn’t meant that they aren’t irreplaceable to someone else. It’s just trying to spread positivity throughout it all, without having to do all of the dramatic stuff that everyone else writes about.
What has been your favorite song to perform on the tour so far?
My favorite one so far is “Best I Can,” I’ve had Elyssa come to a few shows and we’ve performed it together. She’s actually going to be on Atlanta through Orlando shows with us. So that’s been one of my favorite to perform because the crowd reacts to it really well and obviously that’s really nice knowing that’s single I released most recently. It’s always nice to just see how a song you’ve just written or a song you just released moves a crowd.
What is your one goal that you want to finish before the end of the summer?
Honestly, one of the biggest goals I’m trying to get done before the end of the summer is release the “Best I Can” music video. We have it all filmed, we might need to get a few shots when I get back from tour, but we are working on editing and I would love to get that out before the end of the summer.
Make sure to listen to “Best I Can” by clicking here.
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