When you leave a monstrous boy band like The Jonas Brothers, you’re always in for an awakening — in all possible ways. But when members of the band are family, it can be a whole other experience.

In an interview with Gotham magazine, Joe Jonas opened about what it was like: “It was startling at first,” he shared. “I needed a week or two to process it. It was such an important changeover for me. I felt like it was time for us to hang up the hat, but we were holding on to it for so long.”

Now he’s the frontman of the group DNCE, so he definitely found his own way. “For all of us, it’s like a new life in a way,” he said. “The music industry moves so quickly and everyone is listening to the next thing that’s coming out, and it’s always the goal to find the next song or next band, and so we feel very lucky to be able to have a life in the music industry again and have fans out there… I’ll never forget the conversation I had with my manager. He was like, ‘You need to get this band together, do what you want to do, and just go have fun.’”

Read the full interview at Gotham mag.