Listen to Jonas Brothers on Batanga

The band started as a solo project of Nick Jonas When Nick was six years old, he was discovered while singing at a barber shop and was referred to a professional show business manager. At the age of 7, Nicholas began performing on Broadway. He has acted in several plays, including A Christmas Carol, Annie Get Your Gun, Beauty and the Beast, and Les Misérables. After Les Misérables closed, he performed in The Sound of Music at the Paper Mill Playhouse.

In 2002 while performing in Beauty and the Beast, Nick had written a song with his father called "Joy to the World (A Christmas Prayer)". With background vocals from the Beauty and the Beast cast, Nick performed the song on the 2002 annual Broadway "Equity Fights AIDS" album, Broadway's Greatest Gifts: Carols for a Cure, Vol. 4. While Nick was working on his solo project, Joe followed in his footsteps to Broadway, appearing in Baz Lurhmann's production of La Boheme.

In early 2005, Columbia Records' new president, Steve Greenberg, listened to Nick's record. While Greenberg did not like the album, he did like Nick's voice. After meeting with Nick and hearing the song, "Please Be Mine," written and performed by the brothers, Daylight/Columbia Records decided to sign the three as a group act.

After being signed to Columbia, the brothers considered naming their group "Sons of Jonas" before settling on the name "Jonas Brothers." Throughout 2005, the Jonas Brothers went on several tours, including being the opening act of Kelly Clarkson, Jesse McCartney, the Backstreet Boys and The Click Five.

For the album, titled It's About Time, the band collaborated with several writers, including Adam Schlesinger, Michael Mangini, Desmond Child, Billy Mann and Steve Greenberg. The album was initially supposed to be released in February 2006, but was pushed back several times. The delay was due to executive changes at Sony (the parent company of Columbia) and the executives' desire to have "another lead single" on the album. For the album, the Jonas Brothers covered two hit songs by UK band Busted - "Year 3000" and "What I Go to School For".

The Jonas Brothers' first single, "Mandy", was released on December 27, 2005. Its music video was shown on MTV's Total Request Live on February 22, 2006 and reached number four. Another song, "Time for Me to Fly," was released on the Aquamarine soundtrack, also in February. In March, "Mandy" was featured in the Nickelodeon television film Zoey 101: Spring Break-Up and the Zoey 101: Music Mix soundtrack album, with Nicholas Jonas listed as the artist name. The band covered "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)" from Pirates of the Caribbean for the DisneyMania 4 album, released on April 4, 2006. It's About Time was finally released on August 8, 2006.

After shortly being without a label, the Jonas Brothers signed with Hollywood Records in February 2007. Around the same time, brothers began appearing in commercials for Baby Bottle Pops, singing the jingle. On March 24, two additional songs on two different albums were released: "Kids of the Future" from the Meet the Robinsons soundtrack, and "I Wanna Be like You" from DisneyMania 5.

Their self-titled second album, Jonas Brothers, was released on August 7, 2007. It reached number five on the Billboard Hot 200 chart in its first week. Two singles with music videos were also released around this time - "Hold On" two weeks before, and "S.O.S." just after the release of the album.

The Jonas Brothers' third studio album, A Little Bit Longer, was released in the United States on August 12, 2008. The Jonas Brothers made history being the first group ever to sell more than 100,000 digital downloads for three consecutive singles: "Burnin' Up", 183,000+ first week sales, "Play My Music", 109,000+ sales, and "Pushin' Me Away", 116,000+ sales. In addition, "Burnin' Up", "Pushin' Me Away", and "Tonight" all charted as #1 on the iTunes "Top Songs" Chart for several days, pushing off Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl", which had been charting for weeks on #1 already.