Jordan McGraw is having the time of his life being slightly inappropriate onstage. “Moms hate me,” he laughs. “They hate me and I love it.”
He’s talking about the current tour he’s on with the Jonas Brothers — a stadium-sized pop spectacle where McGraw opens with his own blend of hooky, neon-drenched pop punk. “Somebody counted how many times I said "fuck" in one night — it was 17. I told the crowd, ‘We can beat that tonight!’” he says proudly. “One woman DM’d me that I was an abomination and a menace to society. I couldn’t have been more honored.”
The humor, the swagger, the Blink-182 energy — all of it fits the version of McGraw who’s reintroducing himself with the singles “She” and “Her,” with a new one called “McConaughey” on the way. “That one’s pure pop punk,” he says. “You can already tell it’s going to be a fan favorite. Halfway through, everyone’s yelling ‘alright, alright, alright.’”
For McGraw, that energy was rediscovered during lockdown. “I hit this wall,” he says. “I was writing songs I didn’t care about. My manager told me, ‘Go lock yourself in a room and stare at the wall until something happens.’ So I did. I listened to all my favorite bands — Blink-182, Green Day, Tears for Fears, Tina Turner — and I tried to build what I’d want to listen to if I were listening to me.”
“She,” a cheeky and punchy standout inspired by his wife’s angry dream, was the first to come out of those sessions. “She woke up glaring at me because Dream Me was in big trouble,” he laughs. “So I wrote a song about it.”
Its video — filmed on the actual Wheel of Fortune set — is pure comic chaos, featuring McGraw playing multiple contestants: cowboy, nerd, and emo kid. “They were all different versions of me,” he admits. “I FaceTimed my brother in the emo makeup and he just said, ‘Yeah, I’ve talked to this guy before.’”
“She” was followed by “Her,” a track with serious INXS-meets-’80s gloss that originated from a collaboration with Nick and Joe Jonas. “Nick played me a piece of the song,” McGraw says. “I asked if I could make it my own. I was chasing my wife at the time, so it worked out perfectly.”
The new run of singles feels like a reboot, though McGraw’s not rushing an album. “Eventually I want that CD with the fold-out poster, all the lyrics, the whole old-school thing,” he says. “But right now, I want to give each song its moment.”
And while his live show might offend a few parents, McGraw’s proud of that edge. “Pop got too safe,” he says. “Music needs a little danger. You gotta piss people off a little. Concerts are about escaping for two or three minutes at a time. Mine just happen to include a lot of bad words.”
Watch the interview above and then check out the video below.
