As part of the hugely successful pop group the Jonas Brothers, guitarist and singer Kevin Jonas has been in the limelight for 20 years, but his musical journey goes back way further than that; he’s been steadily honing his skills from a young age.
“I taught myself guitar early,” Jonas says. “I was home sick from school one day when I was 13 or 14, and we had a red knock-off electric guitar in the house and a ‘teach yourself guitar’ book in our piano bench. I just looked at it and was like, ‘You know what? Maybe I’ll play guitar,’ because I was already fooling around with the bass at that point.
“Opening up that book to playing guitar just changed everything for me. For the next week, I just kept cranking until my fingers were essentially bleeding. After that, I spent a lot of time playing acoustic guitar.
Jonas’ influences were a bit wider than you might expect from a pop star.
“I was really into punk rock and the emo scene back in the day,” he says. “The first tape I bought was by MxPx, and I was also into Slick Shoes and Element 101 – there were so many bands that pushed the boundaries for me.
“I just wanted to be able to learn to play like those guys. They played a lot of fast drop D, but at the same time they also played a lot of harmony power chords. That influenced all of us; you can hear a lot of that in our early music.”
Occasionally joined on stage by dad Kevin Sr. and younger brother Frankie, the trio of Kevin, Nick, and Joe Jonas have spent the second half of 2025 touring in support of their seventh album, Greetings from Your Hometown.
On it, the brothers joined forces with a battery of talented producers, songwriters, and players to craft an album that draws inspiration from sources as varied as their New Jersey upbringing to the classic stylings of the Bee Gees.
Jonas has mostly sung backup with the group, but the 2025 tour saw him take the lead on the new non-LP song Changing. Although he’s not the tune’s author, he feels a special connection to it.
“I worked with [singer-songwriter] Jason Evigan and his team. Those guys are incredible, and Changing is really special,” Jonas says.
Asked about his future songwriting plans, he explains: “I’m still unsure exactly what the plan is. I just wanted to start working on some independent music. I’ve been making music for 20 years, writing songs and putting my vocal on them. But something never really clicked. It never felt like my song. And then when I heard this one, I just felt like, OK, this is the first time I’m feeling different about something: it spoke to me.”
Jonas says the group likes to mix up their tunings, adding, “One of our favorites is DADGAD; we play it to this day. You can hear its influence in When You Look Me in the Eyes. It’s this big open tuning that just triggers everything. Our song Little Bird’ is in that tuning but down a half step.”
He also notes that being able to play in different tunings comes in handy at gigs.
“We do a section in our show where Joe will read signs [held up by audience members] and we take requests in the middle of the show. We’ll play anything from those requests, which is great because with DADGAD we can get away with figuring most things out.”
Plenty of photos show Jonas holding a Les Paul, but he’s also a Gibson acoustic player, with a preference for square-shouldered models.
“Gibson’s Doves in Flight guitar is my baby when it comes to the acoustic stuff,” he says. “For some reason I always connected with them; I even have tattoos of the doves on my arms. I made my own version, and Gibson added those to the pickguards for me, which is really beautiful and cool.”
Besides the Les Pauls, Jonas loves his custom Baranik.
“It’s unique. When I went to Mike Baranik and told him I’d love to buy one, he said, ‘I don’t have any, but I can build one,’ and I asked, ‘What’s the time frame on that?’ And he told me he needed six months. I said, ‘I leave for a tour in a month and a half – is it possible?’ Luckily, he made it work!”
Although Jonas says he’s not a gearhead, he can’t help collecting the tools of his trade and leaving them around the house.
“There’s pretty much a guitar in each room,” he says. “Even at our wedding, our guest book was two custom acoustic Gibsons that everyone signed for us. They have ‘Kevin’ and ‘Danielle’ down the fretboards, which was a very special thing – and I have them in my house to this day.”
- Greetings From Your Hometown is out now via Republic
- This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.
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