Nick flies solo

The first album by Nick Jonas & the Administration, Who I Am, will be released on February 2 with the band hitting the road for a 14-date theater tour beginning on January 2 in Dallas.

Jonas, 17, views the Administration as a going concern alongside the Jonas Brothers. “My thought is the two can definitely exist,” he says.

He plans to tour next year with his two older siblings, although they probably won’t release an album until 2011.

“I think after releasing four albums in three and a half years and then me releasing (Who I Am), we kinda said, ‘Let’s maybe take it easy,”’ Jonas says.

For his part, the Administration allows him to “explore a little more of my roots as an artist and musician” and play songs that he “didn’t think were necessarily right for the Jonas Brothers sound.”

Jonas turned to influences such as Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello and Prince to make an album steeped in 60s and 70s funk-rock.

The Administration includes drummer Michael Bland, keyboardist Tommy Barbarella and guitarist Sonny Thompson from Prince’s New Power Generation and John Fields — who produced the album in Nashville — on bass.

Jonas wrote four of the album’s 10 songs himself, collaborating on others with Fields, Jonas Brothers band bassist Greg Garbowsky, Jonas collaborator P.J. Bianco and others. Who I Am also includes a remake of Tonight from the Jonas Brothers’ 2008 album A Little Bit Longer.

Jonas says the Administration will play the entire album at its shows, as well as “a couple of covers...and then maybe a couple Jonas Brothers songs that I feel kind of a connection to.”

As for his brothers, Kevin, 22, will be focusing on his recent marriage to Danielle Delesea while Joe, 20, will focus on acting opportunities. The group will be seen in a second season of the Disney Channel’s J.O.N.A.S. as well as the Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam film that’s due out this summer.