Jonas Brothers get in touch with their inner inner-city alienation

There's something sweet, just in itself, of the Jonas Brothers talking about what their next album will sound like, for all the world as if they have a say in it. It's like a sofa holding forth about what cushions might be scattered upon it.

Nevertheless, they have been sharing about what to expect. They really have:

"There's a song we wrote recently and we were thinking ... it does sound different and kind of strange, and [we'd like to work with] a rapper who has some real meaningful lyrics," Nick, the self-proclaimed "most hip-hop" Jonas, told MTV News. "[Someone who] has some real depth to what he's saying — someone like a Common or a Lupe Fiasco or a Mos Def. Someone who takes a more of a spoken-word approach. That'd be really cool."

Nick, while the idea of taking "more of a spoken-word approach", perhaps you should accept your market might be more Sparky's Magic Piano than Theme Music To A Drive-By.

Still, just because they appear to be unfamiliar the word "rap", why shouldn't they perform the final act of desecration upon the badly defiled corpse of hip-hop. They're street. I bet they had a bum education - right boys?

"The next album ... we've been in production for it. We're taking our time with it — we've been taking our time with it since the beginning of this television show," Joe said. "We started recording on our summer tour last year. ... I would say we have eight or nine songs completed that we're still tweaking here and there."

"It's more like five or six," Nick corrected.

Having trouble counting above five? What more evidence of going to a sink school in a bad place could you ask for?

Still, they've got a good grasp on basic biology:

Joe — who joked that the guys have somewhere between five and 20 songs recorded — added, "We're really proud of it. It's a good step for who we are as musicians. As we get older, so does our music."

I think it was Vibe magazine which first alleged that The Jonas Brothers had a portrait of their music in their manager's attic which got older while their tunes, mysteriously, became younger, but Joe's kicked that rumour into the long grass.

So, tell us, Joe: how does this new, maturer sound manifest itself? A more cynical lyric? A call for social justice, or just a world-weary beat?

"There's a lot more horns and it's really fun."

Yes, the mature sound of parping horns. Admittedly, the Jonas Brothers are not the first to try this approach. But, Joe, with these superfun horns, are you sure the audience will come with you?

"I think people are going to be able to jam out to it in their cars or their mom's cars or their boom boxes."

Oh yes. The audience will come with you. Providing their moms are able to drive them to wherever you're going, and it'll be over by nine if it's a school night.