Joyer, the indie rock project of brothers Nick and Shane Sullivan, is more interested in making music for themselves than the algorithm. That refreshing perspective shines through in their work. Joyer spoke to NYOTA about their fourth studio album, “On The Other End of the Line…,” their collaborative process, and working with Jack Tobias on the album artwork.

What was your sibling dynamic growing up?   

Nick: We were always pretty close. We had a lot of the same friends growing up, and once we started going to shows and playing in our first bands, we both ran in the same tight circle of musicians around our hometown in NJ.

When you first decided to make music as Joyer, was the collaborative process relatively easy because you know each other so well, or did you have to adopt a different mindset when interacting as bandmates versus brothers?

Shane: We pretty much started collaborating out of necessity. No one in the town we grew up in was interested in music, so we were all each other had. We always liked the same kind of music, so it made making music together pretty easy since we were on the same page in terms of musical direction most of the time. I think collaborating with each other has also been really easy because we know each other so well and don’t have to worry about hurting each other’s feelings when we bring an idea to the table. We’re able to be really honest and open with each other, which I think helps yield the strongest songs. 

Your lyrics explore memory, loneliness, distance, and more. Do day-to-day observations often inspire your lyrics, or are you sharing your own lived experiences?

Shane: It really depends on the song. I feel like everything in my life and what I see in the world around me makes its way into the lyrics. I like the lyric writing process because it can be therapeutic. It’s a good way for me to sit down and really ruminate on my thoughts and feelings. The lyric process is really satisfying for me because I feel like, after the fact, I can step back and really see through-lines that I might not have recognized before.

The album artwork for On The Other End Of The Line… is simple but striking. I can envision people getting it printed to hang on their walls. What inspired the cover art and the overall visuals for the project? 

Shane: The visual components of our songs and albums are areas that we really enjoy collaborating with other artists on. We have a lot of friends in the visual arts world, which makes it fun to collaborate across different mediums. It’s really fun for us to have someone sit down with the music and see what imagery the songs inspire. That was the case with Jack Tobias, who did the album artwork. We really love his work and trusted he’d make something great that would work with the album, and he killed it. We also both went to film school, so we have a bunch of friends who work in video. It’s always a lot of fun to get them involved with making music videos and visualizers. Our really good friend Sabrina Nichols, who sings a bunch on the album, is an insanely talented animator, and she made a visualizer for one of the singles. It’s one of my favorite visuals for the record. It plays with the artwork imagery in a really cool way.

You’re both multi-instrumentalists, and the album is chock full of distinctive guitar moments. Did you go into On the Other End of the Line… with an experimental mindset about how instruments would fit into each song, or did that exploration happen naturally?

Nick: It’s usually a little bit of both. Before we go into the studio, we demo the entire album at home. Since it’s just the two of us mostly writing everything, it’s easier to get the big picture of what each song is and flush out each part. Because of that, once we’re in the studio, there’s a sense of what we want to accomplish, but we definitely leave ourselves open to explore. A lot of times, the songs will just naturally end up differently than they started, just from following some whim we have once we’re in the studio. 

When listening to “At The Movies,” I hear a blend of Clairo and Alex G, combined with your unique sound. Who are some of your musical inspirations who might have influenced the record?

Nick: Alex G has always been a big inspiration for us, so it’s cool that you hear that in there. It’s so boring to say, but we’re also huge Beatles fans. Around the time we were writing this album, we were listening to a lot of late 70s/early 80s underground indie bands like the dB’s and Dolly Mixture, which I think really influenced the pop-ier side of the album. 

On The Other End Of The Line… is an album you want to play multiple times through because you catch something new in each listen. In an era where songs have a short shelf life due to being created for viral moments. How do you go about making music that can be timeless?

Nick: That’s something that we think about a lot. We’re big fans of older music that existed before this modern approach of constantly having to roll out new stuff, so it’s weird for us to think of writing with that mindset. I think our approach is to just make music we’re really excited about without necessarily thinking about how it’ll engage with whatever algorithm it’s supposed to. That at least makes us value our own stuff more than I imagine it would if we did it differently, so I guess the hope is that it’ll feel more lasting for others, too.

What advice do you have for aspiring musicians?  

Shane: I would say just keep making music because it’s fun and rewarding. For me, it sucks to get caught up in all of the other things that you have to do as a musician, like social media and things like that. It’s important to remember to keep making music because you love doing it and not worry so much about what others think. It’s a lot more freeing and fulfilling that way. 

This story first ran in NYOTA’s Music issue. Read more from the issue here and purchase a print copy here.