Six-second video clips on the now defunct Vine Internet website hardly seem enough upon which to build a successful career. Yet this is exactly the route to music fame taken by 22-year-old Jack Johnson and 21-year-old Jack Gilinsky, better known collectively as Jack & Jack.
“We actually started on YouTube in 2007,” recalled Jack Gilinsky. “We made short comedy videos as a hobby during our free time after school in fourth, fifth and sixth grade. We used to get a pretty good number of hits but we stopped doing these when we started high school.”
School has played an important role in Jack & Jack’s lives. They met on their first day of kindergarten in Omaha, Nebraska, attended the same elementary and high schools and have remained the best of friends since their first meeting.
“We were both wearing the same shirt on that first day in kindergarten,” Jack Johnson laughed. “I guess that made us think we must be kindred spirits.”
Jack Johnson made his first posting on Vine during the summer of 2013.
“It was July 4th to be precise. I did the first few Vines under my own name but Jack (Gilinsky) would make guest appearances so we rebranded the account as Jack and Jack.”
“Things really began to happen for us after our Nerd Vandals comedy Vine went viral,” Jack Gilinsky stated. “As Eric and Winston, a couple of hard-core nerd criminals, we’d vandalise stuff. The Vine that went viral and got praised by the Huffington Post saw us write 16 after the 4x4 sign on the back of a Jeep.”
In addition to their comedy clips, Jack & Jack’s Vines also included six-second song covers. Their first original song, Indoor Recess, was developed with the assistance of brothers Turner and Travis Eakins, better known as Barrington Park. Although the song could be heard in full and purchased at iTunes, there was much confusion among Jack & Jack’s Vine followers.
“We had about 700,000 followers at that time,” Jack Johnson explained. “They knew us for comedy but our music was serious. We were afraid that any song we made wouldn’t be taken seriously so we decided to disguise our identities under the name of Indoor Recess for a track called Chill Pad Deluxe or CPD.
“But the fans knew it was us and thought Indoor Recess was part of the song title. It ended up with people being so confused that we dropped the Chill Pad Deluxe and just called the song Indoor Recess even though this was supposed to be our group name.”
Although Indoor Recess made no great impression on the charts, it marked the beginning of Jack & Jack’s progression from comedy to all-round entertainers. They crossed America with other notable Vine personalities on the Magcon Tour, were featured performers at the INTOUR social festival and headlined their own Jack & Jack DigiTour. A film was made chronicling their performances. This also included behind-the-scenes footage.
The boys have also developed mobile app games in partnership with their local Omaha-based mobile games company, SkyVu Entertainment. The first of these was downloaded by more than one million users within the opening month after release.
After moving to Los Angeles, Jack & Jack have concentrated more on their music career. Their 2015 four-track EP (Extended Play Record), Calibraska, shot straight to number one on the US iTunes Albums chart and reached number 12 on the Billboard 200.
This came on the back of singles success, most notably with Wild Life. The track peaked at number 87 on the Hot 100, number 25 on the Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart and number 16 on the Hot Rap Songs chart. But their expected rise to true music stardom did not materialise.
“Our stuff has sold pretty well without setting the charts alight,” Jack Gilinsky reflected. “We play sold-out concerts and the number of our social media followers keeps increasing. We’ve also done a lot of tracks with other artistes.”
One of those other artistes is London-based producer, songwriter and remixer Guy Robin, better known as Jonas Blue. He heard Jack & Jack being interviewed on a Los Angeles radio station and felt they were perfect to provide the vocals for his house-pop track, Rise. The song has become an international smash hit going top ten in numerous countries including a number three spot in Britain. 
“The style of the song was really foreign to us,” Jack Johnson admitted. “We’ve never even previously done a feature on an electronic dance music song like Rise. But we are huge fans of feel good music so doing the song was a no brainer for us.”
“It wouldn’t have seemed as genuine if we’d just come out with this sort of dance song,” Jack Gilinsky added. “I think we’d also have felt really self-conscious because we’re not DJs. But with Jonas behind the song and us just providing the vocals, everything is totally authentic.”