Jake and the Never Land Pirates: Sharky and Bones Interview

When I became a contributing writer for Sippy Cup Mom I knew I was going to get the opportunity to review some pretty cool stuff as well as talk about things that were passions of mine, as well as talk about some of the things my daughter enjoys, too.  Well, I never expected to do an interview with two very famous pirates in Never Land; Sharky and Bones (In real life they are known and Loren and Kevin, respectively).  Yep, the singing pirates on Jake and the Never Land Pirates.  And, I must say, while they are a friend of Hook, these are some of the NICEST guys I have ever had the pleasure to speak with.

If you haven’t had a chance to catch the all new, revamped season of Jake and the Never Land Pirates, I highly recommend that you do. Not only are there brand new storylines but the music is different, too (and rather catchy if I do say so myself).  Of course, I wanted to know more about the new and improved season 3 as well as the Pirate Showdown on Jake and the Never Land Pirates this Friday, February 28^th, I’m sure you do too:

Megan: During the season 3 debut on January 3^rd, the theme song was revamped.  What prompted the makeover of the song?

Kevin:  We wanted to do something special for the 3^rd season and we’re starting to see scripts, and the scripts that were coming in were even more packed with adventure and they were raising the stakes as far as the adventure aspect of the show.  I think they were trying to infuse a little more of the Pirates of the Caribbean energy into the show and we also had gotten a lot of good feedback from the audience about the more “rockin’” songs and they asked us if we could record a cover of our own song and make it a little more “rockin’” so we did.

Megan: It definitely does have that more “Rock N Roll” feel to it, too.

Kevin: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Megan: Do you guys like this revamped version more?

Loren:  Do we like it? Oh yeah, it’s a blast, it’s the mini-pirate mosh pit.  And then, accompanied with all those fast visuals of the new main title sequence, the quick cuts, sweeping action shots, this is what proper adventure is for kids.  It’s exciting.

Megan: Are the two of you involved in a lot of the composition of the music?

Kevin: We’re pretty involved. They give us a script and from that we write songs based on ideas from what they have in the script.  Loren will write the lyrics, or I’ll come up with a tune and we’ll put them together to make the song.  And then later when the animation is done, Loren and I actually compose and produce all the music for each 11 minute segment.  So, I would say we’re definitely involved.

Loren:  Another cool element of that is that the reverse happens too.  When we write all the end credit songs that become the music videos at the end and that end up on the albums and such, we usually take time out from episode production and we spend a month to two months writing and developing new ideas and songs just based from our own love of this genre.  We’ll just develop of bunch of things and then elements of that end up influencing some of the script sometimes.  It’s a really cool relationship that we have with the show.  It’s pretty incredible and they’re very open to our ideas and their ideas always add a new element that we haven’t thought of.

Megan:  You guys also have your own band, “Captain Bog and Salty” band.  Do you guys still have the time do work with that or are you dedicated to just Disney and Jake now?

Both: We’re focused on Jake.

Kevin: Yeah, this is our full time…our waking occupation.

Megan:  One question that I know a lot of people are wondering; in the show, is your hair real or are you wearing wigs?

Kevin: For me it depends on the seasons [Laughing].

Loren: For me, I will tell you that either my beard or my hair is real and one of them is fake, but I’ll let you figure out which one [Laughing].

Megan:  [Laughing] Okay. That’s fair.

Loren: Keep people guessing.  No, it’s my real beard.  I’ve even had kids check before.  That was my Santa Clause moment. [Laughing]

Megan: What can we expect for the episode on the 28^th?  Is there new music for that I assume?

Kevin: Absolutely.

Loren: Yeah, lots of new adventure, the underscore is amped up in a lot of ways. I think its going to be really exciting. You can really feel the music in these episodes and they picked a really cool trio to put together because they have a really excellent build to them and are full of energy and comedy and then the end credit song is I believe “Lead the way Jake” which is a very ‘rockin’ tune and a cool video they had made up.  It’s like, If you were to throw a pirate rock concert, what would it look like?

Megan: That sounds like a lot of fun.  You guys had fun with too I’m sure with all this new music.

Kevin: Oh yeah, it was really fun to put together.

Megan: And like you said, you guys got to incorporate your own little “flare” and that is always fun to put a piece of yourself into the music.  It’s nice to be able to see your version coming out into the Disney show and I’m sure that is exciting to see for yourselves, also.

Loren: Oh yeah. Absolutely

Kevin: Definitely.

Megan: So with this new season does that mean there will be a new Jake and the Never Land Pirates album coming out?

Loren: Well they just released the 3rd album, is that correct Kevin?

Kevin: I think it was the 2nd album, but didn’t they combine season 2 and 3?  So the answer is yes, it has come out.  Yes, Jake and the Never Land Pirates: Yo Ho Matey was released on October 15, 2013.

Loren: Yeah, on iTunes you can get all 3 seasons but there are only 2 CD’s and the 2nd just came out fairly recently.  It’s like a double CD. It has the best of season 2 and 3 all together.  There are some great songs on there and a lot that haven’t hit the air yet.  So, if people listen to the album they should be one up on the songs as they’re rolling out.

Megan: Well, thank you for answering my questions. I was really looking forward to this interview. You guys have a good weekend.

Kevin: Well, great. Thanks for talking with us.

Loren: Thanks, Megan. You too.

And there you have it, the inside scoop to season 3 of Jake and the Never Land Pirates.  And don’t forget to watch Jake and Hook in the ultimate showdown on February 28 at 8:30a/7:30 EST on the Disney Channel! You’ll be able to catch a replay at on Disney Junior at 7:00pm EST!