When Joe Jonas got on the phone with his pal Jake Shane last month, he had one burning question: what’s the deal with Shane’s octopus obsession? As it goes, what started out as a play on words turned into the name of a food-based Instagram account where Shane would post pictures and rate different octopus (out of eight tentacles, of course). It’s a garden-variety tale of boredom, although the eventual outcome would turn Shane into one of the funniest people on TikTok. His internet presence soon “spiraled,” as he put it, leading to countless viral videos and ultimately a podcast, aptly called Therapuss, in which Shane untangles all kinds of drama and dirt with his celebrity guests. Most recently, though, Shane released a comedy album titled Puss & Poems, in which he explores the many wonders of human existence, including but not limited to talking shit, unrequited crushes, stolen food delivery, and the bureaucracies of visiting your pharmacist. It’s a tongue-in-cheek cacophony of spoken word and polite singing, accompanied by a number of star-studded features (like Jonas himself, plus Tate McRae, Jack Schlossberg, and even Snooki.) In conversation, the friends and collaborators got to talking about pilates, touring, and why dating in Los Angeles is a pain in the ass.
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JOE JONAS: Let me get my notes up. Hold on.
JAKE SHANE: Oh, you have notes?
JONAS: This ain’t my first rodeo, okay?
SHANE: Oh, okay.
JONAS: Where were you the night of… No, just kidding. First of all, how are you doing?
SHANE: I’m good.
JONAS: I miss you.
SHANE: I miss you more. Are you in New York?
JONAS: I’m in New York, yeah.
SHANE: I need to come back. I really miss it.
JONAS: Come see my new place. Hold on. Look at that view.
SHANE: Are you in Brooklyn?
JONAS: I am, just right over the bridge. It’s quiet. I thought of you today because I did Pilates.
SHANE: Did you really? I did Pilates this morning too.
JONAS: I’m sore in places that I didn’t know existed. And I felt bad every time she would give me help. I was so embarrassed. But anyway, I’m so excited to do this. First off, let’s get the elephant out of the room. You have made an album.
SHANE: Yes.
JONAS: So tell the readers or listeners or viewers how this came together and what inspired it.
SHANE: Well, Alexander came on Therapuss a while back–
JONAS: Alexander 23.
SHANE: Yeah, Alexander 23. And I was like, “When you come and record, can you bring your guitar?” Because I used to make these very funny poems and I was like, “I want to sing one of these poems with you.” So we sang my “Jetblue” poem about the time that I lost my luggage.
JONAS: And it’s in the episode, isn’t it?
SHANE: Yes, it’s in the episode. I’m so used to people not taking what I say seriously, and he was like, “I was actually serious about that if you were too.” So I went to his studio and we recorded “Jetblue,” and then I was like, “I think I want to do more of this.” So I came back and did another one, and another one, and another one. And then I was like, “I want to make this an album.” I talked about it a lot on tour. During the VIP question and answer, I would tell everyone about it.
JONAS: That was your first tour?
SHANE: It was my first tour ever.
JONAS: How was the experience? Would you do it again?
SHANE: The experience was harder than I anticipated. I’m very used to not having to turn it on if I’m really going through it. But it’s like, “Everyone bought tickets, so no matter what’s happening, you better get up on that stage and make everyone laugh.” But it was really, really rewarding and really good for my confidence.
JONAS: How did you get yourself into that mindset if you weren’t feeling it? I’ve been there many times and I have my own tricks, but I’m curious about yours.
SHANE: The first time it ever really happened I was in Toronto. And that was the first time I kind of went off-book. I realized that doing crowd work kind of gets me out of the funk. I don’t know, the more upset I was, the more anxious and the harder the day I was having, the better the show was, which was a weird correlation.
JONAS: Yeah.
SHANE: I think it’s because if the day is bad, I’m more open to laughing at myself than if the day is good.
JONAS: So you’re saying you wouldn’t run to do another one, but you probably would at some point?
SHANE: Well, we are doing another one. I actually just got off the phone about it.
JONAS: Well, that’s awesome. That leads me to another question. When you were in fifth grade, you were at circus camp—
SHANE: Wait, how do you know that?
JONAS: Girl, I went deep. So is that why you got into comedy?
SHANE: No, but I do think that’s where I learned that I really like to do the stilts.
JONAS: What?
SHANE: I was also really good at unicycling. I think it made me realize that I liked to perform. That was the best two weeks of my life. I never had more fun, ever.
JONAS: Can you still do the unicycling and the stilts, you think?
SHANE: You know what? If you give me five minutes to recalibrate myself, I could figure out the unicycle.
JONAS: I think it would be a good look, riding through New York on a unicycle.
SHANE: It’s not as hard as you would think.
JONAS: You also started very young in your career. I mean, you used to review movies on Tumblr. And you’re so charismatic in the way you speak and the way you interview people. You just make people feel comfortable. Looking back, were you that kid who definitely wanted to do this professionally one day?
SHANE: Oh, I definitely wanted to do it.
JONAS: How old were you when you were doing those video reviews?
SHANE: I was in fifth grade as well. It does feel like fate sometimes, because I know that it’s the only thing I can imagine myself doing. The only thing that doesn’t feel like work to me is entertaining people.
JONAS: Totally. And for the readers out there, let’s talk about your obsession with the octopus and Octopussy and all of that? I see there are three just ver your shoulder right now.
SHANE: There are 20 in my room. But basically, it was my senior year of college and I had just finished interning at this record label. At the time I wanted to drop out and work there full-time, but they were like, “No, you need to finish school and then come back and we’ll see if we have something for you.” So I was finishing school, it was my senior year, I had senioritis, and I always had this really funny idea where me and my friend Drew always called octopus “Puss,” and we were the only two that ate it. So we’d send each other photos of octopus and say, “Puss.” And I was like, what if I made a food account called “Pass the puss”? But “Pass the puss” was taken. “Pass that puss” wasn’t, so I took that. Then I deleted it because I got nervous. But I remade it. Then I just started posting photos with the reviews. It just started with a photo of the octopus, and then it moved to a video, then the video would be me rating it out of eight tentacles. Then it moved to me saying, “Hi pussies,” then it literally just spiraled.
JONAS: That’s so good. Back to the album real quick; do you have a favorite song? I know that’s like picking a favorite child.
SHANE: I think “Pharmacist.” It’s just very simple. It was about this time I couldn’t get my meds and I got in a fight with the pharmacist, then my psychiatrist and I wrote a poem about it. Then I brought the poem in a few months later and we made this Ed Sheeran-esque track.
JONAS: You have how many features on the record?
SHANE: Five. It’s you, Tate McRae, Jack Schlossberg, and also my best friend Julia [Mervis], and also Snooki.
JONAS: Snooki, that’s incredible. What song is Snooki on?
SHANE: “The Hangover Song.”
JONAS: Big feature right there. Is there one lyric off the album that you want people to really hear?
SHANE: Oh, it’s in “Jetblue.” It goes: “I want to say goodbye, but my plans have gone awry, 30,000 in the sky, but god, I want to fly.” Like, that’s cunt.
JONAS: That goes off. I was just looking at your TikToks and I think one of your most-viewed videos is you pretending to be a water bottle being pushed down a flight of stairs. How many views do we have on that? Should we look?
SHANE: I don’t remember, but I remember I had like 5 million likes and I was really, really proud of it. [Checks phone] Okay, it has 30 million views.
JONAS: Holy shit. How do you relax? Do you like relaxing?
SHANE: I hate it. I hate not being busy. When I have too much time to think, it’s not a good thing. That’s why this album was so good, because it came when I did have a lot of time to think. I guess sometimes the greatest ideas come out of boredom.
JONAS: If your attention’s in so many places, that’s probably why you don’t have a driver’s license.
SHANE: You know I can’t. I’ll crash.
JONAS: So you pretty much Uber or get driven everywhere?
SHANE: I Uber multiple times a day.
JONAS: Do you think you’d ever move back to New York?
SHANE: I love me some L.A. more than anything in the world, but part of me really, really misses how easy it is in New York to see people. Like, remember how you texted to me and you were like, “Want to meet me?” And I was just a few blocks away. I can’t do that here.
JONAS: And we had Aperol Spritzes for lunch and it was perfect. You can’t do that in L.A. But I think if you create a good environment, people will come to you.
SHANE: Yeah.
JONAS: I also noticed you were one of Forbes 30 Under 30 this past year. Congratulations.
SHANE: Thank you.
JONAS: What did that mean to you?
SHANE: I remember thinking it was the coolest thing ever because I always used to want it as a kid. And then it’s funny, because when you get an accomplishment like that, the dopamine lasts only so long. I immediately started thinking, “I don’t want this to just be a blip. I want to actually do well off the heels of this.” So for Therapuss, my goal is to turn it into a late-night talk show, because I feel like there’s no late-night for Gen Z. We had Ziwe, which was so, so incredible. But I think that was only on for two or three seasons on Showtime. I mean, they’re very broad, big goals, but I think I’m at my happiest when I’m acting and improvising behind a camera.
JONAS: You do that so well. But have you thought about doing more acting?
SHANE: I just did my first thing.
JONAS: Oh, shit. Film or TV? Can you say?
SHANE: I’ll tell you on the side. You’ll freak out when I text it to you.
JONAS: Text it to me now and I won’t say it on camera.
SHANE: Okay, ready?
JONAS: Yeah.
SHANE: Okay. [Texts Jonas].
JONAS: [Checks phone] That’s great. Oh, shit!
SHANE: Right?
JONAS: That’s amazing. If you’re open for business on that front, I’m going to send you a script.
SHANE: Please, please. I would love nothing more.
JONAS: Okay, awesome. I’m curious, let’s say you’re looking at young Tumblr Jake, what advice would you give yourself that you wish was given to you? Magic wand. I want to know about career, personal life, and dating. Give me three.
SHANE: For career, I would say it’s not too late. I always thought I missed the mark or missed the moment on things, and I would be like, “Oh, well I haven’t started yet, so I can’t start now.” And it’s so far from true. And I would say I really realized that that wasn’t true when—you know Adam Driver?
JONAS: Of course.
SHANE: He started so late. I’m pretty sure he was in the Army before he started acting. And then personally, I just had this fear of getting in trouble constantly based on who I was. So I wish I could just tell my younger self to let it go. I was so consumed with controlling my narrative. In a sense, I still am, but I’m really trying to work on it. I think it’s maybe a part of my OCD, but I just don’t have enough faith in myself that I feel like if someone else says something about me, then it has to be true. That’s the one thing I would tell my younger self.
JONAS: That’s beautiful. And dating?
SHANE: For dating, I would tell myself to put myself out there a little more. I didn’t even think of dating as an option in high school and I wish I did. I wish I’d tried to do something. I just didn’t.
JONAS: Are you dating now?
SHANE: I try to, every now and then. It’s just hard because a lot of the dates I go on are in New York and then I live in L.A. Dating in L.A. is just impossible. And then it’s just like, what are we—pen pals? You know what I mean?
JONAS: Not going to happen. I want to ask about your podcast. Besides me, who’s your favorite person that you’ve had on, where you were surprised to find you enjoyed their company?
SHANE: I have two people. One is Mary Beth Barone. She is a comedian and she has a podcast called Ride with Benito Skinner. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard. And we had on this comedian named Matt Rogers who has this podcast with Bowen Yang called Las Culturistas. That might’ve been one of my all-time favorite episodes. I think it was the longest I ever spoke to anyone on Therapuss. He was hysterical. We played off of each other so well.
JONAS: That’s great. And who was the worst?
SHANE: Well, um.
JONAS: Just kidding. You don’t have to answer that.