Knicely Done: Jack and Jack kickin’ it in Los Angeles, 10 years later

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - It’s been about ten years since best friends Jack Johnson and Jack Gilinsky, fresh out of Omaha’s Westside High School, packed their suitcases and headed for Los Angeles.

“We were lucky enough to have supportive parents,” said Gilinsky. “We also had just a great friend group that came out to LA with us.”

It was an ambitious move for the talented duo, who have been best friends since kindergarten.

Their intention was to build on their already-enormous popularity gained initially with clever six-second posts on the social media outlet Vine and followed with their own original music.

A Knicely Done mention back in those days captured the Jack and Jack phenomenon that included hordes of young screaming girls wherever they performed.

Fast forward ten years and Jack and Jack are still at it, releasing their first single in about four years entitled “Stuttering.”

“I really see the progression and how our confidence has grown,” said Johnson. “You know, in the booth, in the studio, and what our creative vision is.”

There have been some drawbacks for Jack and Jack mostly tied to the management team they contracted with in Los Angeles.

“Me and G had to go through a lot of, you know, industry trials and tribulations, as you could call them,” said Johnson. “We got to a point where we had to kind of clear our team out because there was a lot of divide between like what me and G could even do together, as you know, Jack and Jack.”

“It wasn’t always up to us what we put out,” added Gilinsky. “And like if we did put something out, it would be rare that it would just be something that only Johnson and I had hands on.”

For a time Gilinsky released several songs on his own as the two tried to move forward under the contract restrictions.

“But since then we’ve been on our independent journey,” said Johnson. “We signed a distribution deal with this great company, Create TV out of California, and we kind of have taken the power back into our own hands.”

“We’ve kind of gone through a decade out here in Los Angeles and the industry, and we’ve learned a lot,” observed Gilinsky. “We feel like this is just the beginning for this new era for us, and we feel like we’re in the best position possible, even if sometimes we felt like, you know, things didn’t go our way or things could have been better.”

With the release of the new single came the announcement that Jack and Jack would be back on stage later this month.

“That’s something that definitely boosted our confidence,” said Gilinsky. “We put out this single and put a show on sale in Los Angeles and instantly the general admission sold out at this club that we go to a lot.”

Jack and Jack actually have completed eight songs and plan to add four more to complete a new album before year’s end.

“We’re looking forward to taking that on a North American tour in 2024 which will include Omaha,” said Gilinsky. “We’ll always make it to Omaha.”

“It’s just very exciting because we feel like it’s our time around where we have this dedicated core fanbase,” added Johnson. “Now it’s the most accurate representation of who G and I are in terms of music, in terms of content is right now. And so yeah, it’s Jack and Jack is here stronger than ever. And you know, we’re just trying to grow it and expand it as much as possible.

Knicely Done!

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