Europe + UK 2025 Tour
Having started the new year as one of Amazon Music's "2025 Artists To Watch", boyband hitmaker Jonah Marais (formerly Why Don't We) has announced his first solo tour, which will also see him stop off in Germany this spring. From April 28 to May 1, the 26-year-old US musician, who will be collecting billions of streams by 2022 with Why Don't We (with "8 Letters" alone racking up 500m+), will be presenting his new solo sound live in Munich, Berlin and Cologne.
In fact, it's already the second career for Jonah Marais, a native of Stillwater, Minnesota. The triumphal march of Why Don't We (WDW) began in 2016, when the then 18-year-old Jonah released their first single "Taking You" together with his buddies Jack, Corbyn, Zach and Daniel. Two studio albums, several EPs and four major tours were to follow - until they also conquered the German Top 20 in 2021 with album number 2, "The Good Times and the Bad Ones". Although many millions of monthly listeners continued to celebrate the WDW era, the air was out the following year. At first it was called a "temporary break", but soon afterwards they finally drew the line and all went their separate ways.
For Jonah Marais, the time with Why Don't We could only be followed by one logical question: Why don't I just take the next step on my own? "Whether I should continue or not was never really a question for me," he recently commented. "I just love making music, and when the thing with the group came to an end, I just carried on." In fact, the 26-year-old already ushered in this new era in the summer of 2024 when he brought two experienced creative partners to his side in Ryan Lewis (from Macklemore & Ryan Lewis) and his director sidekick Jason Koenig (videos for Macklemore, Ed Sheeran, Imagine Dragons, among others). The first song ideas emerged shortly afterwards in Lewis' studio, and to shorten the waiting time, he released his "The Jonah Marais Mixtape" in the summer of 2024. The central highlight of the EP was the subtly abysmal guitar anthem "Twisted Lullaby", on which Jonah addressed the final phase of WDW. Above all, however, he wanted to "roughly mark out how many different styles and musical genres" can be expected from this solo chapter.
Jonah Marais will certainly be presenting the first songs from his debut album, which is due to be released in summer 2025, live when he performs in Germany in April and May. It has been clear since the first pre-release single "Slow Motion" that you can also party really well to it: "I'm even rapping in the verses for the first time, which is really great fun," says the singer, who relies on hypnotic and danceable beats for the single to celebrate the moment.