Andrew McMahon Sees 'Glass' Half Full
By Chad Durkee
Source
After a somewhat slow start for Jack’s Mannequin’s 2008 release The Glass Passenger, singer/songwriter Andrew McMahon is hoping that the album will catch a second wind thanks to the band’s current tour with the Fray and release of their new single “Swim.”
“We had an interesting start to the record, we came out swinging, but I don’t think we had all the ducks in a row for the first single,” McMahon told Alternative Addiction. “But we just recently had a sort of resurgence towards “Swim” and the record, and I am really excited to see it sort of get a second life.”
McMahon is especially excited about “Swim” being promoted as a new single since its one of the more personal songs on the record.
“It’s one of the more universal themes of the album, just sort of pushing through the tough stuff and just trying to get to the other side,” McMahon explained. “That was really where it came from, and just sort of summed up the themes of the record to me.”
He says the song actually came quite naturally to him, especially the title, which he says felt like a perfect fit.
“I was feeling a little down, and I came across the word ‘swim,’ and it sort of struck a cord with me in my current state,” McMahon says of the writing process for Swim. “I sat down at the piano and wrote those first lines, and just immediately fell in love with the song. It was really one of the quicker writing sessions on the whole record.”
McMahon says he plans to start writing new material while on the road for his current tour with singer Richard Swift and melodic rockers Meese, but he says he is “always itching to be in the studio” writing new material. A trip to the studio could come as early as this spring, although that is entirely dependent on when McMahon feels inspired.
“I usually don’t sit down at a piano unless there is something I am really trying to say,” explained McMahon. “I don’t to feel like ‘Oh, I’ve [already] got a record [out], I have to write another one.’ That is just not how I work. I tend to write songs [only] when they come to me. If that means it takes a couple years because I am not going to force the issue then so be it.”
Jack’s Mannequin’s tour with The Fray wraps up August 7th in Spokane, WA.
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Sunday, 21 June 2009
HitFix Interview - June 10th, 2009
Ten Minutes With...Jack's Mannequin's Andrew McMahon
By Melinda Newman
Source
Piano rock band Jack's Mannequin starts an amphitheater tour opening for the Fray on June 12 in Atlanta. While some groups loathe playing before dark, head Mannequin Andrew McMahon loves the light show nature provides: "For me, playing the sun out of the sky is probably my favorite [time] to play," he says. But McMahon has much more than that on his plate than the tour: he's already thinking about the follow-up to "The Glass Passenger" and is prepping the launch of his clothing line, River Apparel. Fifty percent of profits from sales will go to The Dear Jack Foundation, McMahon's charity that benefits leukemia research. He started the charity after surviving his own bout with leukemia four years ago.
Shortly before hitting the road, McMahon took a few minutes out to talk with Hitfix.
Q: Many of your songs are about coming out of the dark into the light. Is there certain music you turn to when you need to do that?
A: You know, there is and there isn't. A lot of it is sitting down at the piano and trying to write, that's where I tend to find myself when I'm at those moments...There are a ton of records that travel with me. Anything by Tom Petty travels with me. There's an old Counting Crows' record, "August and Everything After" that's a great rainy day listen.
Q: You asked for fans to send in artwork for inclusion for the new video, "Swim." Why did you want their involvement?
A: A lot of the record is very personal, obviously. That song is not really an exception, but I was trying to use what I had gone through to tap into a more universal theme. With the video, we really wanted it to be more about the human condition than my own condition. We thought a great way to do that would be to include people from my fan base and other artists and [make it a] universal meditation on hope and perseverance...We may put up a big gallery where all the art is exhibited... We'd like to do something in the fall for the foundation that I run. Within 3 days we had 150 submissions, I was pretty impressed. It's cool to see that's a common thread between myself and people that listen to my music.
Q: Jack's Mannequin postponed a leg of your Farther from the Earth headlining tour to open for the Fray this summer. You wrote a really nice note to your fans about why you did it. Still feeling any backlash?
A: You know, if there is one, it's probably contained to the internet, which is a place I visit very infrequently. From what I understand, people responded a lot more warmly than I anticipated. I was very nervous when I sent it out; cancelling shows isn't something I take lighty. ..The Fray is giving us an hour set, so if someone comes out and sees us on that tour, they're only missing about 20 minutes [of our headlining tour], and, frankly, we'll probably reschedule those dates, Hopefully, they won't hate me too much and won't stop listening to our music. It's a business and we want new people to hear our music. It gives us the chance to reach out to 10-15,000 people a night; that's not an opportunity that you pass up.
Q: Both you and the Fray's Isaac Slade play piano. Any mean duets planned on this tour of "Heart and Soul" or "Chopsticks?"
A: Right! We're roll [my piano] out and do dueling pianos. (laughs) At this point, there's not any plan, you never know. You're spending a whole summer out there. Part of me hopes that we end up working something out. Usually when we're traveling with any band, we get them up there to do something. Maybe we'll get a little duet on "Heart and Soul." Go print that; I'll be living that down for the rest of the summer.
Q: "The Glass Passenger" seems to be a way of putting your illness behind you. What are you thinking about for the next album?
A: I definitely have the beginnings of a new record hatching. That's still a pretty initial idea, but I try to wrap a record up and within the next few months start moving forward. I can't say I have dealt with every issue attached to the last few years, I don't know if that's the case. You try to clear out the residual. The hope is that thematically I'm able to pass what "The Glass Passenger" was about and I hope I will. My hope is that the next record is a more uptempo, major themed. At this point, I have a lot of ideas running around, but getting into the studio and finding the right guy to work with...
Q: Who is your dream producer?
A: I don't have that sort of thought like, "Oh I'm just going to find that guy." I've met some of the greatest guys outside of the studio that I'd love to work with, but until you're in the studio you can't tell over coffee whether you're going to like working in the studio. I would die to work with someone like Jeff Lynne; there are a few of these guys that we're talking to now. I'm a little bit manic when it comes to the studio. It will really come down to if there's someone who can tolerate me... That's why I had such a good relationship with [co-producer] Jim [Wirt]; it became easier because he was able to deal with my level of lunacy. We made five records together. I'll probably try someone else; I have to find someone else to strap onto the bomb. The unfortunate thing with a lot of these big-name producers...they want you to commit to doing a whole album after cup of tea."
Q: You do a great deal of charity work, including your own foundation, the Dear Jack Foundation. How important is it that artists who have a platform use it for good and to raise awareness?
A: It's important to me. I'd never insinuate that it's necessary or an obligation to someone else to do the same. I was in music for several years before what happened to me inspired me to use the platform to enable a charitable device. It's been really rewarding to me spiritually and personally to use some of what I do to give back. It means a lot to me, but I also see the flipside of that--if you don't have a cause, in some respects it allows you to just approach your art, but it's been a fundamental part of what I do.
Q: Who would we be surprised to know is on your iPod?
A: There's this amazing rapper named Kool Keith, who [recorded] in this other personality, Dr. Octagon. I'm an enormous Dr. Octagon fan. People would consider that a little shocking, the last few dates we've come out to stage to Dr. Octagon.
Q: When's the last time someone called you Jack?
A: It's so funny, it's pretty rare. I imagine I could count the times that rally stand out on a couple of hands. I really thought that was coming back to haunt me when I named the band. It's usually not all that common. It's when we open up for another band their fans will be 'You're Jack?" ... I usually just go with it.
By Melinda Newman
Source
Piano rock band Jack's Mannequin starts an amphitheater tour opening for the Fray on June 12 in Atlanta. While some groups loathe playing before dark, head Mannequin Andrew McMahon loves the light show nature provides: "For me, playing the sun out of the sky is probably my favorite [time] to play," he says. But McMahon has much more than that on his plate than the tour: he's already thinking about the follow-up to "The Glass Passenger" and is prepping the launch of his clothing line, River Apparel. Fifty percent of profits from sales will go to The Dear Jack Foundation, McMahon's charity that benefits leukemia research. He started the charity after surviving his own bout with leukemia four years ago.
Shortly before hitting the road, McMahon took a few minutes out to talk with Hitfix.
Q: Many of your songs are about coming out of the dark into the light. Is there certain music you turn to when you need to do that?
A: You know, there is and there isn't. A lot of it is sitting down at the piano and trying to write, that's where I tend to find myself when I'm at those moments...There are a ton of records that travel with me. Anything by Tom Petty travels with me. There's an old Counting Crows' record, "August and Everything After" that's a great rainy day listen.
Q: You asked for fans to send in artwork for inclusion for the new video, "Swim." Why did you want their involvement?
A: A lot of the record is very personal, obviously. That song is not really an exception, but I was trying to use what I had gone through to tap into a more universal theme. With the video, we really wanted it to be more about the human condition than my own condition. We thought a great way to do that would be to include people from my fan base and other artists and [make it a] universal meditation on hope and perseverance...We may put up a big gallery where all the art is exhibited... We'd like to do something in the fall for the foundation that I run. Within 3 days we had 150 submissions, I was pretty impressed. It's cool to see that's a common thread between myself and people that listen to my music.
Q: Jack's Mannequin postponed a leg of your Farther from the Earth headlining tour to open for the Fray this summer. You wrote a really nice note to your fans about why you did it. Still feeling any backlash?
A: You know, if there is one, it's probably contained to the internet, which is a place I visit very infrequently. From what I understand, people responded a lot more warmly than I anticipated. I was very nervous when I sent it out; cancelling shows isn't something I take lighty. ..The Fray is giving us an hour set, so if someone comes out and sees us on that tour, they're only missing about 20 minutes [of our headlining tour], and, frankly, we'll probably reschedule those dates, Hopefully, they won't hate me too much and won't stop listening to our music. It's a business and we want new people to hear our music. It gives us the chance to reach out to 10-15,000 people a night; that's not an opportunity that you pass up.
Q: Both you and the Fray's Isaac Slade play piano. Any mean duets planned on this tour of "Heart and Soul" or "Chopsticks?"
A: Right! We're roll [my piano] out and do dueling pianos. (laughs) At this point, there's not any plan, you never know. You're spending a whole summer out there. Part of me hopes that we end up working something out. Usually when we're traveling with any band, we get them up there to do something. Maybe we'll get a little duet on "Heart and Soul." Go print that; I'll be living that down for the rest of the summer.
Q: "The Glass Passenger" seems to be a way of putting your illness behind you. What are you thinking about for the next album?
A: I definitely have the beginnings of a new record hatching. That's still a pretty initial idea, but I try to wrap a record up and within the next few months start moving forward. I can't say I have dealt with every issue attached to the last few years, I don't know if that's the case. You try to clear out the residual. The hope is that thematically I'm able to pass what "The Glass Passenger" was about and I hope I will. My hope is that the next record is a more uptempo, major themed. At this point, I have a lot of ideas running around, but getting into the studio and finding the right guy to work with...
Q: Who is your dream producer?
A: I don't have that sort of thought like, "Oh I'm just going to find that guy." I've met some of the greatest guys outside of the studio that I'd love to work with, but until you're in the studio you can't tell over coffee whether you're going to like working in the studio. I would die to work with someone like Jeff Lynne; there are a few of these guys that we're talking to now. I'm a little bit manic when it comes to the studio. It will really come down to if there's someone who can tolerate me... That's why I had such a good relationship with [co-producer] Jim [Wirt]; it became easier because he was able to deal with my level of lunacy. We made five records together. I'll probably try someone else; I have to find someone else to strap onto the bomb. The unfortunate thing with a lot of these big-name producers...they want you to commit to doing a whole album after cup of tea."
Q: You do a great deal of charity work, including your own foundation, the Dear Jack Foundation. How important is it that artists who have a platform use it for good and to raise awareness?
A: It's important to me. I'd never insinuate that it's necessary or an obligation to someone else to do the same. I was in music for several years before what happened to me inspired me to use the platform to enable a charitable device. It's been really rewarding to me spiritually and personally to use some of what I do to give back. It means a lot to me, but I also see the flipside of that--if you don't have a cause, in some respects it allows you to just approach your art, but it's been a fundamental part of what I do.
Q: Who would we be surprised to know is on your iPod?
A: There's this amazing rapper named Kool Keith, who [recorded] in this other personality, Dr. Octagon. I'm an enormous Dr. Octagon fan. People would consider that a little shocking, the last few dates we've come out to stage to Dr. Octagon.
Q: When's the last time someone called you Jack?
A: It's so funny, it's pretty rare. I imagine I could count the times that rally stand out on a couple of hands. I really thought that was coming back to haunt me when I named the band. It's usually not all that common. It's when we open up for another band their fans will be 'You're Jack?" ... I usually just go with it.
Sunday, 24 May 2009
Blast Interview - May 4th, 2009
Andrew McMahon talks Jack’s, SoCo and Twilight
By Terri Schwartz
Source
Blast got an opportunity to talk at length with Jack’s Mannequin front man Andrew McMahon about the group’s new album, working with Stephenie Meyer, the Dear Jack Foundation and the future of Something Corporate.
BLAST: Where did the content for The Glass Passenger come from?
ANDREW MCMAHON: Gosh, it was sort of this weird limbo period, to be honest. I was recording a lot of The Glass Passenger while I was touring everything in transit. Obviously it’s no secret that I had fallen ill around the time that Everything In Transit was finished and was coming out. So pretty much it took me several months to kind of recover from that and deal with all the things that went along with that. And then of course you know, I wanted to get back on the road and really make sure that people had heard Everything In Transit, so I started really working that record and touring tons of dates a year to support “Transit,” while kind of concurrently starting to write and record The Glass Passenger. So there was sort of this strange limbo period where I had my hands in a lot of things and was doing a lot and obviously still trying, while my body was bouncing back, I was still sort of dealing with some of the stress and trauma that goes along with, you know, having recovered and gone through what I had dealt with and getting sick, so, that’s where the content came from, in a lot of respects; that sort of inner-personal struggle of trying to find my place in the world after a pretty traumatic event and in a lot of ways trying to use the music to propel me forward and to get me past this.
BLAST: Are you going to continue writing more mature songs or do you prefer writing similar to your earlier, lighter songs?
AM: I was 17, 18 years old when I was in Something Corporate, you know. Obviously by the time we had put it on hiatus I was turning 21 and becoming an adult and all the things that go along with it. I guess mature is a word. I’ve always, since I was nine years old and started writing songs, have written songs about what I’m dealing with at that point in my life. When you’re 17, you’re writing songs about what it’s like to be in love at 17 and what’s really more relevant at 17 than love: getting into relationships and then breaking them off and the pain of that and all that stuff. Not to say that that stuff isn’t very relevant too, but obviously the approach, when you start getting older; now I’m 26, I’ll be 27 in the summer, it’s like … I write songs from the perspective of a 26 year old now, not a 16 year old. So yeah, I think I’ll continue to grow hopefully and continue to write songs that represent who I am, not songs that intentionally hearken back to some old sentiment, I guess.
BLAST: So what are the songs that you’re writing now about?
AM: The songs I’m writing now about … it’s kind of hard to say. I haven’t really gone in and recorded too much. I went into a recording session recently that was kind of groovy. We ran a bunch of old material we had an accumulated over the course of four or five years. Two of the songs very well may make a new record, but those are obviously older tracks. I think now a lot of these songs are sort of angled around love and about relationships, but I think from a very different perspective. I think that in a lot of ways about real love and what goes along with that and what goes along with you know really being committed to someone and something and sort of how that can be idealized, but sometimes that ideal isn’t always the reality and sort of trying to approach that and analyze it from that level which is sort of the first time I’ve really gotten to do that because obviously The Glass Passenger was about something very different.
BLAST: Are you experimenting with any new sounds?
AM: The sounds I find myself gravitating towards now more than ever are really rich, warm and natural sounds. I think the studio for me is always my second home if you consider I tour anywhere from six to 10 months a year. I’ll spend the remaining months in the studio, regardless of whether I’m recording for an album or just trying to work out some new material and stuff. I find myself sort of slowly gravitating away from the more rigid recording structure, not to say avoiding pro-tools all together or things like that, but I think pro-tools have created this safety net for a lot of bands and a lot of artists to not accomplish and not achieve the sounds on their own and I think my perspective, especially after having been on the road for so long, in these past few years playing with a really talented band, I think you’ll find me going into studio recording more live and recording with less effects and you know less processing and all of these things and really kind of focusing on nailing the sounds and nailing the take and really kind of making it about the magic of the take instead of spending months and months and months and month working on the song and working in the effects. I think I’m kind of getting away from that style.
BLAST: You must have had an interesting end to 2008 — you kind of got sucked into Twilight-mania.
AM: Yes I did sort of, didn’t I? (laughs)
BLAST: Tell me a little bit about working with Stephenie Meyer on the making of the “The Resolution” music video.
AM: It was one of these things where I had a friend of mine who had notified me, this is probably months before I got involved with Stephenie, that Stephenie was a fan of Jack’s Mannequin and that she had made reference to Jack’s either on her website or in the thank you’s in one of her books as being an inspiration for a character or whatever, we were on a play list or something like that. I heard this and at that point didn’t really know much about “Twilight” and while it was obviously a huge phenomenon throughout the country and probably the world and what-not, I don’t think it had quite broken the surface yet. As the months wore on, obviously I was sort of realizing how big a deal this whole thing was and about the same time we were searching for video treatments for “The Resolution” and frankly hadn’t really found one that we clicked with. It was sort of a frustrating process and I was trying to kind of sort it out and we started talking; myself and the label, we started talking about, “Is there anything we could do that would be different and cool and clever that might invigorate this process, and maybe it isn’t just going to video treatments, maybe we reach out to the musicians from another band we like or we reach out to film directors or actors or other people we know?,” that sort of thing. In that conversation, I was like, “Well you know, this woman who writes these books that have sold millions of copies is a purported fan of Jack’s Mannequin. Maybe we could reach out to her. She’s an author, I’m sure she could come up with something cool.” And then of course, it was sort of a pipe dream, I guess, in a sense. I mean I wasn’t really thinking of it on the grander scale of how huge she really was. Sure enough, we reached out, and she was like, “Sure, that sounds great,” and she sent in three treatments and we loved one of them and she ended up coming out and co-directing the video for us.
BLAST: How involved was Stephenie in the process of filming the video?
AM: It wasn’t like she was behind the camera, you know, she’s an author. There was this guy named Nobel Jones who is a director and she was on set the whole time, she obviously wrote the treatment, and she and Nobel collaborated quite a bit as far as the execution of her vision and how she wanted it to look. She was definitely there and approving shots and giving her opinion of certain shots as we went along, so she was definitely a part of the production and the directing of the video, sure.
BLAST: When you were making “The Resolution,” were you thinking mermaids?
AM: (laughs) No, and that’s almost why I picked her treatment more than anybody else’s, you know what I mean? Like, especially when I think my story and what people perceive and, frankly, what is a legitimate perception of what that song is about, we started getting a lot of treatments that I think were just very literal, and what I loved about Stephenie’s is that it was creative. I mean, I loved the metaphor, I loved that she made it more sort of this bizarre kind of love story. There’s the water rising and representing the kind of love that you can’t escape sort of thing and there’s the mermaid at the end. The mermaid sort of freaked people out in the treatment, but I was like, “Let her do her thing. She obviously has done well enough for herself; I’ve got a crazy feeling it’s going to be okay.” And I think they nailed it. But was I writing about mermaids? Definitely not.
BLAST: Bands like Muse and Blue October, who Stephenie’s expressed interest in, have written songs for the movies. I know you wrote “Meet Me At My Window” for “Superman Returns.” Would you be interested in doing something like that for the future “Twilight” movies?
AM: Yeah, of course I would. But that’s like one of the biggest trench wars in the entire music business, just people trying to get their artists on future “Twilight”s or things like that, you know. I tend to find, when it comes down to things like that, where it’s just a bloody bath over everybody trying to force their way in the door and figure it out that I tend to shy away from it. But I would love to have a song featured in (”New Moon”), no question. I don’t tend to written from a writing assignment standpoint, I write what I feel in my day-to-day life, and if there’s something from that that inspires the person putting the soundtrack together enough that they want to use it, then god, of course I would be totally honored, you know? Whether or not I’ll go sit down and pen a song with “New Moon” in mind is maybe a different story.
BLAST: The “Dear Jack” documentary is slated to come out this summer. Do you know any more details about its release or what we can expect from it?
AM: I don’t. I’m in a little bit of a transition in my business world and everything period right now where we’re starting to find out and figure out what the best way for that to come out is. It’s sort of just this thing that the people who put the documentary together got anxious and threw a trailer out very early; a lot earlier than I would have liked to have it come out because I wasn’t sure when the movie would be released. I’m not 100 percent still when it will be released and when I do know, obviously we will send out a press release and everyone will find out. For me, it’s a powerful film; it’s something that means a lot to me. It’s also, it’s touchy for me at the same time and I just want to make sure that it’s handled appropriately and it’s not exploited in a strange way, so we’re still trying to find a home for it and the right sort of distribution angle. My hope is that it would come out sometime around (September), I think that would be sort of the most sensible time for it to come out and you know be able to use that sort of pivotal time for fundraising and those things to release the movie and call attention to it.
BLAST: Some Blast readers might not be familiar with your Dear Jack Foundation. Can you just give a little bit of information about its history and what you want to do with its future?
AM: The foundation was basically started when I realized, as I was getting better, that there was still this sort of passion and energy from my fans to be involved and to support my interest in raising money and raising awareness for leukemia and other blood cancers. I had been involved in a charity and cancer research foundation and a couple other charities and it seemed to me with the amount of money we were raising for other charities, that maybe if we got the ball rolling and started our own foundation where essentially we could collect money and distribute that money to various charities that are affecting positive change in the area of cancer and specifically blood cancer. It was something I was passionate about and it would hopefully keep my fans interested so we started the Dear Jack Foundation. It’s been going for two or three years strong now. We raise hundreds of thousands of dollars largely through (events) and walks, we toured in 2006 where we donated all the proceeds. I think it was like $70,000 we were able to donate. Obviously any money I make off the documentary will be donated to the Dear Jack Foundation. That’s the big thing that we have going on. We’re also doing a Jack’s Mannequin show with Macbeth (Footwear) this year, it will come out in the fall. They’re donating 5 percent of their proceeds from the shoe to the Dear Jack Foundation which we’re really excited about. We doing a “Swim” bracelet that will come out on this next headlining run. $2 from every bracelet sold will go towards the foundation. So we’re just starting to try to find even some passive ways — fans buying merch at the merch booth — that a percentage of those proceeds will go to the charity. So, you know, dearjackfoundation.com, the page still has to be updated, it hasn’t been updated in a little bit, but we plan about getting that much more active with it this year and hopefully continuing to raise a good amount of money every year.
BLAST: I know that you’re a big fan of covering songs from bands like Tom Petty and The Verve at your shows. Give me your favorite songs that you like or would like to cover.
AM: We’ve been doing Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” which has been a lot of fun. One that I’d love to bring back, but we’ll see if it happens, is “Changes” by David Bowie. We did that a couple tours back. We just did it a few times. It was pretty cool. I’m trying to think of some of the obscure covers we’ve done. We did “Kids” by MGMT. That was pretty fun. The cover thing is always great. It’s something that usually evolves out of like a sound check or something like that and we’re like, “Hey, let’s give this a shot.” Right now there isn’t a cover on the books just yet. I mean obviously now having two records to play through and an hour and a half a night to get through what is more than an hour and a half of music can be challenging because then you have to wedge covers in and then people get pissed that you didn’t play the song they wanted to hear. Any of the ones I just mentioned will make their way out on this next tour and maybe we’ll have some time to work out a new one, but I haven’t really thought of one just yet.
BLAST: You need to go on tour with someone with a violin again so you can cover “Bittersweet Symphony.”
AM: Did you see that? Where you there for that Yellowcard/Something Corporate event with Sean (Mackin) on stage? That was a lot of fun. I loved doing that one.
BLAST: Originally you had said Jack’s Mannequin was going to be your side project to Something Corporate, but you just came out with Jack’s sophomore album. Is Jack’s Mannequin now your focus and what’s going to happen with Something Corporate?
AM: I mean I think it’s no secret that Jack’s has become my main focus. I’ve been doing it - pretty much breathing it - for 24 hours a day for several years now. I think it’s what I’ll continue to do. Something Corporate: it’s my first band. They’re my dear friends. They’re still my dear friends. I love the dudes to death and I love the music that we created. We definitely got to a point I think where the creative was about to suffer because we weren’t really getting along, to be perfectly honest. We get along a lot better now that we don’t run a business together 24 hours a day and live and eat and sleep and breathe in each others’ company all day long. For me, our kind of democracy is a tough thing. I think that to make really good stuff, you need to have a vision and you need to not have that vision polluted by politics and by fighting and things like that, and frankly that’s what we were starting to arrive at. And that’s I think what happens with most bands and that’s why most bands don’t play for 30 and 40 years, you know what I mean? I think that’s why these reunion tours are such a huge deal, because bands break up eventually, you know? But that said, we intentionally put Something Corporate on hiatus because I think we were mature and we were responsible and we wanted to at least preserve the potential to do something in the future. Do I think that that something will be, you know, will be a world tour and a brand new record and all that, I would probably be lying to say yes. But I think that there’s a chance that we will get together and do some reunion shows and maybe put together a great package of our favorite songs from the past and a bunch of B-sides that we haven’t released and material that people haven’t heard yet. That’s the kind of thing, at least for me, envision of Something Corporate. I mean, you’ll have to ask the other guys what their opinions are but you know, I think in my head I think that’s the most logical and sensible approach to Something Corporate next step.
BLAST: If you do go on a reunion tour, you’ll have to make your way to Boston.
AM: Boston was always good to Something Corporate, so we’ll have to make our way back to play for you guys.
BLAST: Of all the albums, Something Corporate and Jack’s Mannequin, which are you closest to?
AM: Which album am I closest to? I’d say from some respects Everything In Transit, to be honest. The place that it held in my life at that point, it was really the only thing I had in a lot of ways. I was sort of this free-floating thing at that point. There was so little assurance. Something Corporate had crushed and was so successful and frankly we were probably on our way to the next thing being huge, but instinctually (sic) I think I knew and the rest of the guys knew that if we went and make a record it wasn’t going to be as good because we weren’t getting along. So Everything In Transit was this huge awakening for me. It was like making music with this immense freedom and this ability to just say, “Hey.” It really was just the freest I’ve felt, not just musically but personally. I didn’t care about poor and spending all my money to make the album. It was like, nothing else mattered at that point but just trying to make songs that were fair and representative of what was going on at that time. So in that sense, it sort of was this sort of blistering, idealized period in my life, you know. Frankly, it was a pretty painful and hard time to do this but the underlining current was just: “Music will pull you through. This music is going to stay no matter what.” Obviously everything that transpired during the finishing and release of that record with me getting sick and all the bizarre references throughout the album to hospitals and doctors and sort of this bizarre foreshadowing that existed throughout that record, it was hard not to feel like I was writing my death in that album. I think in a lot of senses, whether I think it’s the best record is maybe a different story, but I think it’s the closest I’ve ever felt to a body of work.
BLAST: When you were coming up with the name Something Corporate, did it ever occur to you it would have the same nickname as the liqueur, Southern Comfort?
AM: Yeah, I mean, well, no. One, no, I had not even thought of it for a second, and frankly, never in our whole life. People used to call us SoCo. It kind of bothered us, because we were like, “What the fuck is that about?” You know what I mean? [laughter] So no, that was just something kids started abbreviating the name and started calling us “SoCo.” That was like a nickname penned by the fans and sort of perpetuated by them which is fine, it’s sort of the way these things go. Sometimes people have their perspective on how they want to address you and that was sort of out of our hands at that point.
BLAST: Your “Set-List Creation” video has become Andrew McMahon-lore by this point in time. When you’re performing, is it very close to the preordained set-list or do you improvise?
AM: Well I mean, yeah, the video’s just hysterical. That has just come back at me more times than any other piece of video or anything that’s been shot. I tend to stick to the set once I’ve written it. From tour to tour, sometimes we play a very similar set; sometimes we change it every night. I have a feeling on this next headliner that the first couple songs might be the same every night, because with the lighting and stuff you want to be able to create a certain intensity when you pay that much money for lighting and all that stuff, but I imagine on this tour just because we have two records worth of material and what not that we are in kind of a unique position to change it up and keep it fresh every night as we travel from show to show. Sometimes if we come out and do an encore, I’ll call out what they call “audibles” and we’ll change the set from there. When we did the small club tour in the fall when the record came out, there were a lot of audibles. We would come out for the encores and a lot of times the encore would end up being 45 minutes because we would just be having fun and we would just be playing whatever in a 500, 600 person club and we would just kind of dick around and have fun. But yeah, generally speaking, once I write the set we stick to it. There’s four other dudes on the stage and sometimes trying to holler out new songs and have everybody change guitars and different tunings and things can be a real pain in the ass.
BLAST: What’s your favorite song from The Glass Passenger to perform?
AM: That’s hard, you know. That’s one of those things that changes since it’s such a new record. I love playing “Crashin.” “Spinning” and “Crashin,” those are really fun live. Hmm, let’s see, what is another good one I’m really digging playing…
BLAST: Well, what is your favorite of all your songs to perform?
AM: God, what is at this point my favorite of all my songs to play? You know, we’ve been opening the set with “Crashin” lately and it’s just such a fun song to start the show off with. It’s got such a vibe and stuff. I’m really enjoying doing that one live. I’m trying to think of everything that we do. It’s funny because I was thinking of this the other day and I actually remember having the answers and now I’m like totally blanking on it. “Bruised” is always a fun one because people kind of go apeshit during that song and that’s always kind of fun to see people reacting on that level to anything. Like I said, it changes from night to night. A lot depends on the audience and their reaction. There will be nights where we do “Caves,” and we’ll do the first half of “Caves” and you can hear a pin drop in the house and it’s super intense and that can be the one. And there are nights where you got to do a song like that or a quiet song where you’re really ready to connect to a crowd and you’re ready to do this thing and all of the sudden you can hear the bartenders throwing old beer bottles into the trash and you’re just like, “Oh shit, there’s no vibe on this at all.” I kind of concede to the audience on that stuff and a lot of times that’s what ends up deciding what is my favorite or not that night.
BLAST: At this point in your life, are you completely sick of hearing about “Konstantine”?
AM: It will always hold a special place in my heart. People say I hate that song because I won’t play it or anything but it’s just like, “No it’s just really long and really slow and really not written for a band to be playing.” We love to have a Something Corporate song most nights on a headliner but, you know at the same time, the problem with “Konstantine” is, as I said, that song might as well have its own zip code or something. “Konstantine” might as well have its own band name. It is what it is. It is this entity unto itself and unfortunately, if I ever play it, I’ll have to play it forever, every night. If it weren’t such a big deal for me to play “Konstantine,” then I probably would play it. But the truth is, as soon as I bring that song out one time, I will never be able to walk through a venue, no matter what band I’m playing with or no matter where I’m at, and not have people chant and cheer for it. I appreciate the fact that people love the song and that it means a lot to them, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to go play a 10 minute ballad from a Something Corporate record every night while I’m on tour with Jack’s Mannequin. That’s why I don’t do it.
By Terri Schwartz
Source
Blast got an opportunity to talk at length with Jack’s Mannequin front man Andrew McMahon about the group’s new album, working with Stephenie Meyer, the Dear Jack Foundation and the future of Something Corporate.
BLAST: Where did the content for The Glass Passenger come from?
ANDREW MCMAHON: Gosh, it was sort of this weird limbo period, to be honest. I was recording a lot of The Glass Passenger while I was touring everything in transit. Obviously it’s no secret that I had fallen ill around the time that Everything In Transit was finished and was coming out. So pretty much it took me several months to kind of recover from that and deal with all the things that went along with that. And then of course you know, I wanted to get back on the road and really make sure that people had heard Everything In Transit, so I started really working that record and touring tons of dates a year to support “Transit,” while kind of concurrently starting to write and record The Glass Passenger. So there was sort of this strange limbo period where I had my hands in a lot of things and was doing a lot and obviously still trying, while my body was bouncing back, I was still sort of dealing with some of the stress and trauma that goes along with, you know, having recovered and gone through what I had dealt with and getting sick, so, that’s where the content came from, in a lot of respects; that sort of inner-personal struggle of trying to find my place in the world after a pretty traumatic event and in a lot of ways trying to use the music to propel me forward and to get me past this.
BLAST: Are you going to continue writing more mature songs or do you prefer writing similar to your earlier, lighter songs?
AM: I was 17, 18 years old when I was in Something Corporate, you know. Obviously by the time we had put it on hiatus I was turning 21 and becoming an adult and all the things that go along with it. I guess mature is a word. I’ve always, since I was nine years old and started writing songs, have written songs about what I’m dealing with at that point in my life. When you’re 17, you’re writing songs about what it’s like to be in love at 17 and what’s really more relevant at 17 than love: getting into relationships and then breaking them off and the pain of that and all that stuff. Not to say that that stuff isn’t very relevant too, but obviously the approach, when you start getting older; now I’m 26, I’ll be 27 in the summer, it’s like … I write songs from the perspective of a 26 year old now, not a 16 year old. So yeah, I think I’ll continue to grow hopefully and continue to write songs that represent who I am, not songs that intentionally hearken back to some old sentiment, I guess.
BLAST: So what are the songs that you’re writing now about?
AM: The songs I’m writing now about … it’s kind of hard to say. I haven’t really gone in and recorded too much. I went into a recording session recently that was kind of groovy. We ran a bunch of old material we had an accumulated over the course of four or five years. Two of the songs very well may make a new record, but those are obviously older tracks. I think now a lot of these songs are sort of angled around love and about relationships, but I think from a very different perspective. I think that in a lot of ways about real love and what goes along with that and what goes along with you know really being committed to someone and something and sort of how that can be idealized, but sometimes that ideal isn’t always the reality and sort of trying to approach that and analyze it from that level which is sort of the first time I’ve really gotten to do that because obviously The Glass Passenger was about something very different.
BLAST: Are you experimenting with any new sounds?
AM: The sounds I find myself gravitating towards now more than ever are really rich, warm and natural sounds. I think the studio for me is always my second home if you consider I tour anywhere from six to 10 months a year. I’ll spend the remaining months in the studio, regardless of whether I’m recording for an album or just trying to work out some new material and stuff. I find myself sort of slowly gravitating away from the more rigid recording structure, not to say avoiding pro-tools all together or things like that, but I think pro-tools have created this safety net for a lot of bands and a lot of artists to not accomplish and not achieve the sounds on their own and I think my perspective, especially after having been on the road for so long, in these past few years playing with a really talented band, I think you’ll find me going into studio recording more live and recording with less effects and you know less processing and all of these things and really kind of focusing on nailing the sounds and nailing the take and really kind of making it about the magic of the take instead of spending months and months and months and month working on the song and working in the effects. I think I’m kind of getting away from that style.
BLAST: You must have had an interesting end to 2008 — you kind of got sucked into Twilight-mania.
AM: Yes I did sort of, didn’t I? (laughs)
BLAST: Tell me a little bit about working with Stephenie Meyer on the making of the “The Resolution” music video.
AM: It was one of these things where I had a friend of mine who had notified me, this is probably months before I got involved with Stephenie, that Stephenie was a fan of Jack’s Mannequin and that she had made reference to Jack’s either on her website or in the thank you’s in one of her books as being an inspiration for a character or whatever, we were on a play list or something like that. I heard this and at that point didn’t really know much about “Twilight” and while it was obviously a huge phenomenon throughout the country and probably the world and what-not, I don’t think it had quite broken the surface yet. As the months wore on, obviously I was sort of realizing how big a deal this whole thing was and about the same time we were searching for video treatments for “The Resolution” and frankly hadn’t really found one that we clicked with. It was sort of a frustrating process and I was trying to kind of sort it out and we started talking; myself and the label, we started talking about, “Is there anything we could do that would be different and cool and clever that might invigorate this process, and maybe it isn’t just going to video treatments, maybe we reach out to the musicians from another band we like or we reach out to film directors or actors or other people we know?,” that sort of thing. In that conversation, I was like, “Well you know, this woman who writes these books that have sold millions of copies is a purported fan of Jack’s Mannequin. Maybe we could reach out to her. She’s an author, I’m sure she could come up with something cool.” And then of course, it was sort of a pipe dream, I guess, in a sense. I mean I wasn’t really thinking of it on the grander scale of how huge she really was. Sure enough, we reached out, and she was like, “Sure, that sounds great,” and she sent in three treatments and we loved one of them and she ended up coming out and co-directing the video for us.
BLAST: How involved was Stephenie in the process of filming the video?
AM: It wasn’t like she was behind the camera, you know, she’s an author. There was this guy named Nobel Jones who is a director and she was on set the whole time, she obviously wrote the treatment, and she and Nobel collaborated quite a bit as far as the execution of her vision and how she wanted it to look. She was definitely there and approving shots and giving her opinion of certain shots as we went along, so she was definitely a part of the production and the directing of the video, sure.
BLAST: When you were making “The Resolution,” were you thinking mermaids?
AM: (laughs) No, and that’s almost why I picked her treatment more than anybody else’s, you know what I mean? Like, especially when I think my story and what people perceive and, frankly, what is a legitimate perception of what that song is about, we started getting a lot of treatments that I think were just very literal, and what I loved about Stephenie’s is that it was creative. I mean, I loved the metaphor, I loved that she made it more sort of this bizarre kind of love story. There’s the water rising and representing the kind of love that you can’t escape sort of thing and there’s the mermaid at the end. The mermaid sort of freaked people out in the treatment, but I was like, “Let her do her thing. She obviously has done well enough for herself; I’ve got a crazy feeling it’s going to be okay.” And I think they nailed it. But was I writing about mermaids? Definitely not.
BLAST: Bands like Muse and Blue October, who Stephenie’s expressed interest in, have written songs for the movies. I know you wrote “Meet Me At My Window” for “Superman Returns.” Would you be interested in doing something like that for the future “Twilight” movies?
AM: Yeah, of course I would. But that’s like one of the biggest trench wars in the entire music business, just people trying to get their artists on future “Twilight”s or things like that, you know. I tend to find, when it comes down to things like that, where it’s just a bloody bath over everybody trying to force their way in the door and figure it out that I tend to shy away from it. But I would love to have a song featured in (”New Moon”), no question. I don’t tend to written from a writing assignment standpoint, I write what I feel in my day-to-day life, and if there’s something from that that inspires the person putting the soundtrack together enough that they want to use it, then god, of course I would be totally honored, you know? Whether or not I’ll go sit down and pen a song with “New Moon” in mind is maybe a different story.
BLAST: The “Dear Jack” documentary is slated to come out this summer. Do you know any more details about its release or what we can expect from it?
AM: I don’t. I’m in a little bit of a transition in my business world and everything period right now where we’re starting to find out and figure out what the best way for that to come out is. It’s sort of just this thing that the people who put the documentary together got anxious and threw a trailer out very early; a lot earlier than I would have liked to have it come out because I wasn’t sure when the movie would be released. I’m not 100 percent still when it will be released and when I do know, obviously we will send out a press release and everyone will find out. For me, it’s a powerful film; it’s something that means a lot to me. It’s also, it’s touchy for me at the same time and I just want to make sure that it’s handled appropriately and it’s not exploited in a strange way, so we’re still trying to find a home for it and the right sort of distribution angle. My hope is that it would come out sometime around (September), I think that would be sort of the most sensible time for it to come out and you know be able to use that sort of pivotal time for fundraising and those things to release the movie and call attention to it.
BLAST: Some Blast readers might not be familiar with your Dear Jack Foundation. Can you just give a little bit of information about its history and what you want to do with its future?
AM: The foundation was basically started when I realized, as I was getting better, that there was still this sort of passion and energy from my fans to be involved and to support my interest in raising money and raising awareness for leukemia and other blood cancers. I had been involved in a charity and cancer research foundation and a couple other charities and it seemed to me with the amount of money we were raising for other charities, that maybe if we got the ball rolling and started our own foundation where essentially we could collect money and distribute that money to various charities that are affecting positive change in the area of cancer and specifically blood cancer. It was something I was passionate about and it would hopefully keep my fans interested so we started the Dear Jack Foundation. It’s been going for two or three years strong now. We raise hundreds of thousands of dollars largely through (events) and walks, we toured in 2006 where we donated all the proceeds. I think it was like $70,000 we were able to donate. Obviously any money I make off the documentary will be donated to the Dear Jack Foundation. That’s the big thing that we have going on. We’re also doing a Jack’s Mannequin show with Macbeth (Footwear) this year, it will come out in the fall. They’re donating 5 percent of their proceeds from the shoe to the Dear Jack Foundation which we’re really excited about. We doing a “Swim” bracelet that will come out on this next headlining run. $2 from every bracelet sold will go towards the foundation. So we’re just starting to try to find even some passive ways — fans buying merch at the merch booth — that a percentage of those proceeds will go to the charity. So, you know, dearjackfoundation.com, the page still has to be updated, it hasn’t been updated in a little bit, but we plan about getting that much more active with it this year and hopefully continuing to raise a good amount of money every year.
BLAST: I know that you’re a big fan of covering songs from bands like Tom Petty and The Verve at your shows. Give me your favorite songs that you like or would like to cover.
AM: We’ve been doing Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” which has been a lot of fun. One that I’d love to bring back, but we’ll see if it happens, is “Changes” by David Bowie. We did that a couple tours back. We just did it a few times. It was pretty cool. I’m trying to think of some of the obscure covers we’ve done. We did “Kids” by MGMT. That was pretty fun. The cover thing is always great. It’s something that usually evolves out of like a sound check or something like that and we’re like, “Hey, let’s give this a shot.” Right now there isn’t a cover on the books just yet. I mean obviously now having two records to play through and an hour and a half a night to get through what is more than an hour and a half of music can be challenging because then you have to wedge covers in and then people get pissed that you didn’t play the song they wanted to hear. Any of the ones I just mentioned will make their way out on this next tour and maybe we’ll have some time to work out a new one, but I haven’t really thought of one just yet.
BLAST: You need to go on tour with someone with a violin again so you can cover “Bittersweet Symphony.”
AM: Did you see that? Where you there for that Yellowcard/Something Corporate event with Sean (Mackin) on stage? That was a lot of fun. I loved doing that one.
BLAST: Originally you had said Jack’s Mannequin was going to be your side project to Something Corporate, but you just came out with Jack’s sophomore album. Is Jack’s Mannequin now your focus and what’s going to happen with Something Corporate?
AM: I mean I think it’s no secret that Jack’s has become my main focus. I’ve been doing it - pretty much breathing it - for 24 hours a day for several years now. I think it’s what I’ll continue to do. Something Corporate: it’s my first band. They’re my dear friends. They’re still my dear friends. I love the dudes to death and I love the music that we created. We definitely got to a point I think where the creative was about to suffer because we weren’t really getting along, to be perfectly honest. We get along a lot better now that we don’t run a business together 24 hours a day and live and eat and sleep and breathe in each others’ company all day long. For me, our kind of democracy is a tough thing. I think that to make really good stuff, you need to have a vision and you need to not have that vision polluted by politics and by fighting and things like that, and frankly that’s what we were starting to arrive at. And that’s I think what happens with most bands and that’s why most bands don’t play for 30 and 40 years, you know what I mean? I think that’s why these reunion tours are such a huge deal, because bands break up eventually, you know? But that said, we intentionally put Something Corporate on hiatus because I think we were mature and we were responsible and we wanted to at least preserve the potential to do something in the future. Do I think that that something will be, you know, will be a world tour and a brand new record and all that, I would probably be lying to say yes. But I think that there’s a chance that we will get together and do some reunion shows and maybe put together a great package of our favorite songs from the past and a bunch of B-sides that we haven’t released and material that people haven’t heard yet. That’s the kind of thing, at least for me, envision of Something Corporate. I mean, you’ll have to ask the other guys what their opinions are but you know, I think in my head I think that’s the most logical and sensible approach to Something Corporate next step.
BLAST: If you do go on a reunion tour, you’ll have to make your way to Boston.
AM: Boston was always good to Something Corporate, so we’ll have to make our way back to play for you guys.
BLAST: Of all the albums, Something Corporate and Jack’s Mannequin, which are you closest to?
AM: Which album am I closest to? I’d say from some respects Everything In Transit, to be honest. The place that it held in my life at that point, it was really the only thing I had in a lot of ways. I was sort of this free-floating thing at that point. There was so little assurance. Something Corporate had crushed and was so successful and frankly we were probably on our way to the next thing being huge, but instinctually (sic) I think I knew and the rest of the guys knew that if we went and make a record it wasn’t going to be as good because we weren’t getting along. So Everything In Transit was this huge awakening for me. It was like making music with this immense freedom and this ability to just say, “Hey.” It really was just the freest I’ve felt, not just musically but personally. I didn’t care about poor and spending all my money to make the album. It was like, nothing else mattered at that point but just trying to make songs that were fair and representative of what was going on at that time. So in that sense, it sort of was this sort of blistering, idealized period in my life, you know. Frankly, it was a pretty painful and hard time to do this but the underlining current was just: “Music will pull you through. This music is going to stay no matter what.” Obviously everything that transpired during the finishing and release of that record with me getting sick and all the bizarre references throughout the album to hospitals and doctors and sort of this bizarre foreshadowing that existed throughout that record, it was hard not to feel like I was writing my death in that album. I think in a lot of senses, whether I think it’s the best record is maybe a different story, but I think it’s the closest I’ve ever felt to a body of work.
BLAST: When you were coming up with the name Something Corporate, did it ever occur to you it would have the same nickname as the liqueur, Southern Comfort?
AM: Yeah, I mean, well, no. One, no, I had not even thought of it for a second, and frankly, never in our whole life. People used to call us SoCo. It kind of bothered us, because we were like, “What the fuck is that about?” You know what I mean? [laughter] So no, that was just something kids started abbreviating the name and started calling us “SoCo.” That was like a nickname penned by the fans and sort of perpetuated by them which is fine, it’s sort of the way these things go. Sometimes people have their perspective on how they want to address you and that was sort of out of our hands at that point.
BLAST: Your “Set-List Creation” video has become Andrew McMahon-lore by this point in time. When you’re performing, is it very close to the preordained set-list or do you improvise?
AM: Well I mean, yeah, the video’s just hysterical. That has just come back at me more times than any other piece of video or anything that’s been shot. I tend to stick to the set once I’ve written it. From tour to tour, sometimes we play a very similar set; sometimes we change it every night. I have a feeling on this next headliner that the first couple songs might be the same every night, because with the lighting and stuff you want to be able to create a certain intensity when you pay that much money for lighting and all that stuff, but I imagine on this tour just because we have two records worth of material and what not that we are in kind of a unique position to change it up and keep it fresh every night as we travel from show to show. Sometimes if we come out and do an encore, I’ll call out what they call “audibles” and we’ll change the set from there. When we did the small club tour in the fall when the record came out, there were a lot of audibles. We would come out for the encores and a lot of times the encore would end up being 45 minutes because we would just be having fun and we would just be playing whatever in a 500, 600 person club and we would just kind of dick around and have fun. But yeah, generally speaking, once I write the set we stick to it. There’s four other dudes on the stage and sometimes trying to holler out new songs and have everybody change guitars and different tunings and things can be a real pain in the ass.
BLAST: What’s your favorite song from The Glass Passenger to perform?
AM: That’s hard, you know. That’s one of those things that changes since it’s such a new record. I love playing “Crashin.” “Spinning” and “Crashin,” those are really fun live. Hmm, let’s see, what is another good one I’m really digging playing…
BLAST: Well, what is your favorite of all your songs to perform?
AM: God, what is at this point my favorite of all my songs to play? You know, we’ve been opening the set with “Crashin” lately and it’s just such a fun song to start the show off with. It’s got such a vibe and stuff. I’m really enjoying doing that one live. I’m trying to think of everything that we do. It’s funny because I was thinking of this the other day and I actually remember having the answers and now I’m like totally blanking on it. “Bruised” is always a fun one because people kind of go apeshit during that song and that’s always kind of fun to see people reacting on that level to anything. Like I said, it changes from night to night. A lot depends on the audience and their reaction. There will be nights where we do “Caves,” and we’ll do the first half of “Caves” and you can hear a pin drop in the house and it’s super intense and that can be the one. And there are nights where you got to do a song like that or a quiet song where you’re really ready to connect to a crowd and you’re ready to do this thing and all of the sudden you can hear the bartenders throwing old beer bottles into the trash and you’re just like, “Oh shit, there’s no vibe on this at all.” I kind of concede to the audience on that stuff and a lot of times that’s what ends up deciding what is my favorite or not that night.
BLAST: At this point in your life, are you completely sick of hearing about “Konstantine”?
AM: It will always hold a special place in my heart. People say I hate that song because I won’t play it or anything but it’s just like, “No it’s just really long and really slow and really not written for a band to be playing.” We love to have a Something Corporate song most nights on a headliner but, you know at the same time, the problem with “Konstantine” is, as I said, that song might as well have its own zip code or something. “Konstantine” might as well have its own band name. It is what it is. It is this entity unto itself and unfortunately, if I ever play it, I’ll have to play it forever, every night. If it weren’t such a big deal for me to play “Konstantine,” then I probably would play it. But the truth is, as soon as I bring that song out one time, I will never be able to walk through a venue, no matter what band I’m playing with or no matter where I’m at, and not have people chant and cheer for it. I appreciate the fact that people love the song and that it means a lot to them, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to go play a 10 minute ballad from a Something Corporate record every night while I’m on tour with Jack’s Mannequin. That’s why I don’t do it.
Friday, 1 May 2009
AZTeen Magazine Interview - March 2009
By James Grant
Source
Andrew McMahon has been around the block. A survivor of Luekemia and lead singer of the two major bands, Jack’s Mannequin and Something Corporate, McMahon knows what it’s like to struggle. In 2004, while taking an extended break from touring with Something Corporate after releasing their second major record, McMahon started Jack’s Mannequin as a side project, putting out their first record, Everything in Transit in 2005. Within the following years, Jack’s Mannequin blossomed due mainly to the support of McMahon’s fan base. In September of this 2008, Jack’s Mannequin released its second album, The Glass Passenger, which has climbed to number eight on Billboard’s top two-hundred. Teen writer James Grant grabbed an opportunity to interview McMahon over the phone, and ask him many question pertaining to not only his life, but also his music.
James Grant: Well to start off, can you just say who you are and what you do for a living?
Andrew McMahon: Yeah, I’m Andrew McMahon and I play piano and sing for Jack’s Mannequin.
JG: So Andrew, what is it that you love about music, and playing it as a part of a band?
AM: What I love most about music is its ability to be a universal communicator. You know, for me there’s a personal element to music, and there’s a public element to music. The personal element is kind of using the song to get to the bottom of whatever it is you’re trying to get to the bottom of. You know, and then you take that into sort of a more public realm and actually get to use that connection to make a further connection is what I’ve always loved about music.
JG: I remember reading in your blogs once that, “if all else fails, dye your hair black”. (AM laughs) It was a while ago, but recently you’ve been growing out your hair in the whole lumber jack kind of fashion. Does that mean anything as far as how your life’s been going?
AM: (laughing) It was a lyric, and the lyric sort of came from that period of time when my hair was dyed black. There was sort of a reference to that in “Sleazy Wednesday”, a B-side we did for the record. But yeah, I have this thing when I tend to be freaking out or trying to figure out what my next step is where I usually start by either cutting or growing out my hair (laughs). There are some times that it can be an indicator to some extent but at this moment that the situation of my hair is more just from lack of time to pay attention to it. But I’m definitely planning on a hair cut when I return home in the next couple of days.
JG: (laughs) Well that’s good to know. So when you write a song, do you have to be in a sad mood to write a sad song or a happy mood to write a happy song. Is there any specific mood you have to be in or does it just come to you?
AM: It’s more of a gut thing, you know, you have this thing sort of arise as I do, like when I’m having something just clicks that makes me feel like I just have to write a song. I don’t know how to explain it, other than that. Sometimes it can be a lyric or a melody, or something or a set feeling, like maybe you’re having a bad day, or you’re having a really good day, you’re just some sort of thought window somewhere? The way I kind of do it is, like I said, if I find a set of words that conjures up some sort of feeling, you know, I find myself sitting at the piano just to try and sort of connect that feeling to a set of words and a set of melodies. It’s really sort of an intuition, I’m not sure where it comes from; it’s almost instinctual or something.
JG: Do you usually write the lyrics first and then the music to fit them, or vice-a-versa?
AM: Generally speaking, all at the same time. A lot of the time I’ll sit down and write some lyrics or source out some lyrics after I’ve written a song, you know what I mean? Like if I’m looking for a little bit more juice or want it to be a stronger lyric, a lot of the times I’ll sit and refine a lyric once it’s written. But generally speaking, it’s kind of a combination of sitting at the piano and working out the melodies and the words and the chord structure kind of almost simultaneously.
JG: What’s the greatest thought that’s ever crossed your mind?
AM: The greatest thought that’s ever crossed my mind? (Laughs) Oh my god I don’t know about this-
JG: (laughs) Ever.
AM: (laughing) Yeah, ever. I don’t know, I think in the context of the time that I was sick, I think things in a lot of ways became a lot more clear to me and I think I had a lot of quote unquote ‘great thoughts’ in that period of time in my life just because I think you start realizing maybe more what life is about when you’re facing your potential end. So I don’t know, I think for me, some of the greatest realizations that I made, or the greatest thoughts I had were that all people and things seem to be connected to one another. And to lead a good life, you have to sort of take care of not only yourself but all the people and things around you, you know, to have a truly great world working for you. But I don’t know if I’ve had that many great thoughts (laughing) So, I’m not sure!
JG: So I take it that’s kind of why you got “the river is everywhere” from Siddhartha tattooed on your wrist?
AM: Yeah, absolutely. You know, for me, I know it kind of breaks down to, sort of in some respects, a load of kind of existential bullshit, you know, that whatever at least could be interpreted and such. But for me, I think there’s a real truth to the ideas of karma and you know, the fact that what you put into the world comes back to you. And that can be a good and a bad thing, depending on what you’re putting out, you know, and in that sense, I keep it on my wrist to remind me that we are all sort of connected.
JG: Interesting- this is kind of a whole different realm, but have you noticed any immediate effects on the band from being played on the radio more often? I mean, I was on my way to school the other day, and your song, “The Resolution”, came on and it was kind of surprising because I’m not really used to hearing Jack’s Mannequin on the radio.
AM: Have I noticed any…what?
JG: Like is anything different, you know, because from Everything in Transit, there weren’t a lot of songs featured on the radio since it was more of an underground record…
AM: Yeah, you know, it kind of differs from market to market. On Everything in Transit, “The Mixed Tape” probably got played half as much, but the stations that played it played the shit out of it, you know what I mean? So in that sense, you know, there were markets that got a lot of love off of “The Mixed Tape”. On this one, obviously, my radio department at the label has done a much better job getting the song out there. But to be honest, I don’t really feel like anything is any different. (laughs) You know, we’re actually out, playing these shows for radio stations right now. Even in the shows themselves, there’s really not that much that’s changed. I mean, obviously in your own headline show, it’s going to be YOUR show so that is different. You know, at the same time it’s not like we’ve had a hit or anything major at this point, so there isn’t what I consider that ‘mass exposure’ that might make things change, possibly, you know what I mean?
JG: Yeah, I got you. What’s the story behind the asterisk, or the star, that’s kind of the logo of Jack’s Mannequin?
AM: Well, you know, it was from when I was doing the first record. I was definitely drawing and sketching a whole lot, and I sort of adopted that asterisk as, in that same sense that the asterisk’s on my tattoo, and I think the tattoo and everything even came before the name, Jack’s Mannequin, and the place where my head was in at that point was very much that, this idea that everything passes through some central location. I love the asterisk in that sense, that it’s like the lines are reaching out everywhere, but they all pass through, you know, one nucleus. And that’s kind of where it all came from.
JG: Cool! This is kind of a two-part question, but what advice would you give to teenagers in general, and then the teenagers who are looking to go into music as a career?
AM: I mean, for teenagers in general, I don’t even know that I’m the best guy to cover that territory (laughs). I mean, for people in general, you do your thing, and you do it to the best of your ability, and try to be yourself, that’s probably the hardest thing that teenagers deal with. For the teenagers in bands, I’m probably a little more well-versed in that: I would just say, you know, diversify your influences, and ALWAYS be practicing and ALWAYS be playing live. You know, don’t get so caught up in this idea of recording, you know, your hit record while you’re in a local band, because there’s always time for that. The most important thing you can do as a young band is learn how to be good at playing together, and constantly getting better live. You know, because I still think that the greatest indicator of whether, especially whether a band is good or not isn’t their records, it’s their performances. You know, nowadays with digital the way that it is and people feeling so anxious to get their music up online, I think a lot of times bands start focusing on like, “how can I get my demo done??!?”, before they even play the show to indicate whether anyone would want to buy their demo. So I think that’s something that a lot of bands have lost sight of and I think that’s the most important thing.
JG: Yeah… So how do you tour with a baby grand piano? I mean, is there a different piano in every different location? How do you lug that thing around?
AM: Generally speaking, if we’re on a proper tour, we travel with it in a trailer or a truck with our band, and you take the legs off and you take the pedals off every day, and you just put the body of the piano into a road case, and the rest of the tour essentially another road case. And you know, every morning the stage hands and my crew roll it over and put the legs and pedals back on, get it tuned up, and that’s how it goes.
JG: Sound like a pretty rough production!
AM: Yeah, it’s not an easy production. And before that I was on an upright back in the Something Corporate days, and we would just lug it around and we’d each grab a corner and we’d lift the thing up ourselves, (laughing) you know what I mean? It is what it is, you make the concessions for your sound accordingly, I guess, and the piano is a big part of what we do.
Source
Andrew McMahon has been around the block. A survivor of Luekemia and lead singer of the two major bands, Jack’s Mannequin and Something Corporate, McMahon knows what it’s like to struggle. In 2004, while taking an extended break from touring with Something Corporate after releasing their second major record, McMahon started Jack’s Mannequin as a side project, putting out their first record, Everything in Transit in 2005. Within the following years, Jack’s Mannequin blossomed due mainly to the support of McMahon’s fan base. In September of this 2008, Jack’s Mannequin released its second album, The Glass Passenger, which has climbed to number eight on Billboard’s top two-hundred. Teen writer James Grant grabbed an opportunity to interview McMahon over the phone, and ask him many question pertaining to not only his life, but also his music.
James Grant: Well to start off, can you just say who you are and what you do for a living?
Andrew McMahon: Yeah, I’m Andrew McMahon and I play piano and sing for Jack’s Mannequin.
JG: So Andrew, what is it that you love about music, and playing it as a part of a band?
AM: What I love most about music is its ability to be a universal communicator. You know, for me there’s a personal element to music, and there’s a public element to music. The personal element is kind of using the song to get to the bottom of whatever it is you’re trying to get to the bottom of. You know, and then you take that into sort of a more public realm and actually get to use that connection to make a further connection is what I’ve always loved about music.
JG: I remember reading in your blogs once that, “if all else fails, dye your hair black”. (AM laughs) It was a while ago, but recently you’ve been growing out your hair in the whole lumber jack kind of fashion. Does that mean anything as far as how your life’s been going?
AM: (laughing) It was a lyric, and the lyric sort of came from that period of time when my hair was dyed black. There was sort of a reference to that in “Sleazy Wednesday”, a B-side we did for the record. But yeah, I have this thing when I tend to be freaking out or trying to figure out what my next step is where I usually start by either cutting or growing out my hair (laughs). There are some times that it can be an indicator to some extent but at this moment that the situation of my hair is more just from lack of time to pay attention to it. But I’m definitely planning on a hair cut when I return home in the next couple of days.
JG: (laughs) Well that’s good to know. So when you write a song, do you have to be in a sad mood to write a sad song or a happy mood to write a happy song. Is there any specific mood you have to be in or does it just come to you?
AM: It’s more of a gut thing, you know, you have this thing sort of arise as I do, like when I’m having something just clicks that makes me feel like I just have to write a song. I don’t know how to explain it, other than that. Sometimes it can be a lyric or a melody, or something or a set feeling, like maybe you’re having a bad day, or you’re having a really good day, you’re just some sort of thought window somewhere? The way I kind of do it is, like I said, if I find a set of words that conjures up some sort of feeling, you know, I find myself sitting at the piano just to try and sort of connect that feeling to a set of words and a set of melodies. It’s really sort of an intuition, I’m not sure where it comes from; it’s almost instinctual or something.
JG: Do you usually write the lyrics first and then the music to fit them, or vice-a-versa?
AM: Generally speaking, all at the same time. A lot of the time I’ll sit down and write some lyrics or source out some lyrics after I’ve written a song, you know what I mean? Like if I’m looking for a little bit more juice or want it to be a stronger lyric, a lot of the times I’ll sit and refine a lyric once it’s written. But generally speaking, it’s kind of a combination of sitting at the piano and working out the melodies and the words and the chord structure kind of almost simultaneously.
JG: What’s the greatest thought that’s ever crossed your mind?
AM: The greatest thought that’s ever crossed my mind? (Laughs) Oh my god I don’t know about this-
JG: (laughs) Ever.
AM: (laughing) Yeah, ever. I don’t know, I think in the context of the time that I was sick, I think things in a lot of ways became a lot more clear to me and I think I had a lot of quote unquote ‘great thoughts’ in that period of time in my life just because I think you start realizing maybe more what life is about when you’re facing your potential end. So I don’t know, I think for me, some of the greatest realizations that I made, or the greatest thoughts I had were that all people and things seem to be connected to one another. And to lead a good life, you have to sort of take care of not only yourself but all the people and things around you, you know, to have a truly great world working for you. But I don’t know if I’ve had that many great thoughts (laughing) So, I’m not sure!
JG: So I take it that’s kind of why you got “the river is everywhere” from Siddhartha tattooed on your wrist?
AM: Yeah, absolutely. You know, for me, I know it kind of breaks down to, sort of in some respects, a load of kind of existential bullshit, you know, that whatever at least could be interpreted and such. But for me, I think there’s a real truth to the ideas of karma and you know, the fact that what you put into the world comes back to you. And that can be a good and a bad thing, depending on what you’re putting out, you know, and in that sense, I keep it on my wrist to remind me that we are all sort of connected.
JG: Interesting- this is kind of a whole different realm, but have you noticed any immediate effects on the band from being played on the radio more often? I mean, I was on my way to school the other day, and your song, “The Resolution”, came on and it was kind of surprising because I’m not really used to hearing Jack’s Mannequin on the radio.
AM: Have I noticed any…what?
JG: Like is anything different, you know, because from Everything in Transit, there weren’t a lot of songs featured on the radio since it was more of an underground record…
AM: Yeah, you know, it kind of differs from market to market. On Everything in Transit, “The Mixed Tape” probably got played half as much, but the stations that played it played the shit out of it, you know what I mean? So in that sense, you know, there were markets that got a lot of love off of “The Mixed Tape”. On this one, obviously, my radio department at the label has done a much better job getting the song out there. But to be honest, I don’t really feel like anything is any different. (laughs) You know, we’re actually out, playing these shows for radio stations right now. Even in the shows themselves, there’s really not that much that’s changed. I mean, obviously in your own headline show, it’s going to be YOUR show so that is different. You know, at the same time it’s not like we’ve had a hit or anything major at this point, so there isn’t what I consider that ‘mass exposure’ that might make things change, possibly, you know what I mean?
JG: Yeah, I got you. What’s the story behind the asterisk, or the star, that’s kind of the logo of Jack’s Mannequin?
AM: Well, you know, it was from when I was doing the first record. I was definitely drawing and sketching a whole lot, and I sort of adopted that asterisk as, in that same sense that the asterisk’s on my tattoo, and I think the tattoo and everything even came before the name, Jack’s Mannequin, and the place where my head was in at that point was very much that, this idea that everything passes through some central location. I love the asterisk in that sense, that it’s like the lines are reaching out everywhere, but they all pass through, you know, one nucleus. And that’s kind of where it all came from.
JG: Cool! This is kind of a two-part question, but what advice would you give to teenagers in general, and then the teenagers who are looking to go into music as a career?
AM: I mean, for teenagers in general, I don’t even know that I’m the best guy to cover that territory (laughs). I mean, for people in general, you do your thing, and you do it to the best of your ability, and try to be yourself, that’s probably the hardest thing that teenagers deal with. For the teenagers in bands, I’m probably a little more well-versed in that: I would just say, you know, diversify your influences, and ALWAYS be practicing and ALWAYS be playing live. You know, don’t get so caught up in this idea of recording, you know, your hit record while you’re in a local band, because there’s always time for that. The most important thing you can do as a young band is learn how to be good at playing together, and constantly getting better live. You know, because I still think that the greatest indicator of whether, especially whether a band is good or not isn’t their records, it’s their performances. You know, nowadays with digital the way that it is and people feeling so anxious to get their music up online, I think a lot of times bands start focusing on like, “how can I get my demo done??!?”, before they even play the show to indicate whether anyone would want to buy their demo. So I think that’s something that a lot of bands have lost sight of and I think that’s the most important thing.
JG: Yeah… So how do you tour with a baby grand piano? I mean, is there a different piano in every different location? How do you lug that thing around?
AM: Generally speaking, if we’re on a proper tour, we travel with it in a trailer or a truck with our band, and you take the legs off and you take the pedals off every day, and you just put the body of the piano into a road case, and the rest of the tour essentially another road case. And you know, every morning the stage hands and my crew roll it over and put the legs and pedals back on, get it tuned up, and that’s how it goes.
JG: Sound like a pretty rough production!
AM: Yeah, it’s not an easy production. And before that I was on an upright back in the Something Corporate days, and we would just lug it around and we’d each grab a corner and we’d lift the thing up ourselves, (laughing) you know what I mean? It is what it is, you make the concessions for your sound accordingly, I guess, and the piano is a big part of what we do.
Buzzine Interview - April 2009
By Louis Elfman
Source
Twenty-six-year old singer/songwriter Andrew McMahon has already had his share of life experience, well before the age of 30: a successful rock career with Something Corporate which led him to start Jack’s Mannequin. Shortly before the release of their first album, he was diagnosed with acute leukemia. After a full recovery and a very successful second album, The Glass Passenger, McMahon is back on the road on a worldwide tour, having just completed the European leg.
Source
Twenty-six-year old singer/songwriter Andrew McMahon has already had his share of life experience, well before the age of 30: a successful rock career with Something Corporate which led him to start Jack’s Mannequin. Shortly before the release of their first album, he was diagnosed with acute leukemia. After a full recovery and a very successful second album, The Glass Passenger, McMahon is back on the road on a worldwide tour, having just completed the European leg.
Louis Elfman: How does it feel to be stateside again?
Andrew McMahon: Ah, it’s nice. I won’t lie — it’s been a whirlwind for sure, but we’re doing good. It’s nice to be home for a minute and getting some sleep and resting a little bit.
LE: How did the first leg of the tour go?
AM: It was amazing — getting to see so much of the world in a short period of time was pretty incredible, and the shows definitely exceeded our expectations. We went to Australia for our second time, and the crowds were huge and were really responsive, so it was nice to see our work from the first trip over there paying off. It was our first time in Germany and the UK, but the shows were super fun. I was surprised to see it was probably like 300 kids in the German shows, and then around 600 or 700 at the UK shows, and a lot of fun — all of them.
LE: How is the US tour looking? Are you looking forward to it?
AM: Yeah, absolutely. It’s going to be fun — having two records to pull from now and having had the second record out for a while. I think we’re pretty comfortable with it and in a position now to make a different set night to night to night, because we have a lot more material to go through, so I think that’s going to make it a lot of fun.
LE: Speaking of the latest album and playing it live, obviously there’s a lot of deeply and painfully emotional stuff that you experience that you put into the album. Playing that live, does it feel like you’re sort of rubbing the nerve raw every time, or do you feel that it helps you come to terms with it all?
AM: Yeah, I suppose there is a little bit of that for me, and it’s been this way even before getting sick and all — just the idea…if you write a song and it deals with something heavy or whatever, does it come back when you play it? Truth is, for me, that’s never really how I perform. It’s not like method acting or something, when you’re trying to get yourself in character. I think there are definitely artists who do that sort of thing, which I think is really respectable. For me, I’ve always played shows with the energy for that show. I’m trying to play to that crowd and to that moment, so it doesn’t really come back and haunt me, in that respect. Probably talking about it regularly — it’s still a regular part of conversation in my life; if nothing else, there’s a bit of catharsis there as well.
LE: When it comes to the songwriting process, have you been doing any songwriting on the road, or have you just let that sit so you can focus on the tour?
AM: I tend to let it sit while I’m on tour, and that’s really kind of true in general. It’s hard to find time because I’m not a guitarist and I don’t have a tune that I’ve just got lying around on the bus while we’re driving. The piano element of it makes it a little bit harder on tour. Sometimes, when we’re headlining, I’ll be able to take time during soundchecks to work things out, but I definitely write every time I come home. Whether I write something that I’m in love with that I’m going to record or not is a different story. I’m usually always near a piano and working ideas out throughout the day. It’s those sorts of things that end up on records and those sorts of things that you end up recording that kind of pop up again while moving along through tour and coming home.
LE: Any immediate projects on the horizon that you’re thinking of — not necessarily a new album, but anything fans can look forward to?
AM: Yeah, I’m always working on a bunch of stuff in hopes that some of it pans out. At the moment, I recorded some music that was intended to go along with the Dear Jack movie — this documentary that circles around this whole period of time, the second to last record at least. I went in and recorded some stuff for that and ended up really liking a couple of the songs and thought maybe I’ll withhold a couple for the next record. So there’s a bunch of little ideas like that floating around, and I’m constantly writing. I think there will be some music component with the Dear Jack movie. We’ll probably start working on new music as soon as I get back from this tour.
LE: So later in the year you’ll start working on it — after the summer?
AM: Yeah, I’m always trying to go in the studio and make new music when I’m home. I’m going to cross my fingers that a new record comes more quickly on the heels of this record than the past couple of albums I put out. Changing from Something Corporate to Jack’s Mannequin was such a huge shift, and obviously the health issues and all that stuff… I’m actually anxious to work on an album at a normal pace and try to get in the flow of putting out records a little bit more regularly here.
LE: Speaking of Something Corporate, you guys are on “hiatus,” and although it was pronounced indefinite, do you think, at this point, it’s pretty much over?
AM: I don’t want to say anything 100% for sure, because if I’ve learned anything, that’s when it comes back to you full circle and you’re ready. For me, creatively speaking, I see myself as happy in this narrative that I’m in for making new music and committing on that level. We have so many great fans and we have so many people out there that would love to see a Something Corporate concert, and I know I’d like to play one, so I think in that sense, I wouldn’t say it’s indefinite because I think we’ll probably end up getting together and doing some shows. My hope is that that scenario finds its way to the front of all our minds in the near future, and we can do it.
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
The Lantern Article - April 22nd, 2008
By Molly Gray
Source
McMahon was diagnosed on June 1, 2005, shortly before the release of the band's first album, "Everything in Transit." Four years later, he is touring with the band promoting their latest album, "The Glass Passenger," which he began writing while he was in the hospital undergoing treatment.
"It's a pain in the ass," McMahon said, referring to the process of creating a record while suffering through cancer, but it was something he felt he had to do.
"With 'Passenger' there really wasn't a lot of options," he said. "I knew what I had to do and it was a lot of hard work, but it was worth it and it was the way it had to be done."
But even so, he didn't want to make it entirely about his sickness and exploit the struggle, he said.
"It was tricky, trying to find the balance of dealing with the aspect of having been sick," McMahon said. "I'm a pretty autobiographical writer so it was a bit of a push and pull trying to figure out how much of that I wanted to disclose."
McMahon admitted that he ended up writing a lot more about his struggle with cancer than he originally intended. It seemed almost out of necessity, that he needed to address his sickness in order to write himself out of a hole. The best songs ended up being the ones he wrote about cancer, he said.
Songs like "Caves and The Resolution" on "The Glass Passenger" are obvious tributes to that period of McMahon's life, and they express a sense of determination that is easily seen in his demeanor on and off stage.
"I tried my hardest to kind of make it about the aftermath and maybe more of the re-acclimation to the world post-being sick as opposed to actually being sick," McMahon said.
When people listen to the album they should feel a sense of "hope in hopeless places" that can be applied to any situation or any struggle that you find yourself in, he said.
"For me the theme wasn't just about being sick, it was, in a lot of ways, just about the record itself," McMahon said. "The idea of just feeling like I had a huge mountain to climb and just climbing it."
Now, four years after he was first diagnosed with leukemia, Jack's Mannequin is headlining a college tour in preparation for its tour with The Fray this summer.
McMahon said that although it seems like it would be difficult to perform the songs written about his struggles, it has never been a problem for him.
"I think certain artists maybe have to re-access the emotion of a song to play it, and there are certainly some songs that I will do that with," he said. "But for me it's so much more about performance and trying to execute that it doesn't really devaluate the meaning of the track to me."
In fact, he said, some songs that they play have come to mean something completely different for him than when he originally wrote them. He called it a rebirth of his sentiment toward the meanings of the songs.
Along with touring, McMahon is also planning several benefit concerts for his charity, the Dear Jack Foundation. The foundation, which McMahon began in July 2006, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding cancer research.
"The way that we are set up is like a conduit, we facilitate other's charities through out charity," McMahon said. "The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has proven to be one of our biggest partners."
The band did what was called "Light the Night" walks with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and raised more than $100,000, McMahon said.
Other beneficiaries of the Dear Jack Foundation include the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation, the Regents of the University of California and the ULCA stem cell transplant program.
He said he started the charity because it seemed like many people didn't know where or how to donate.
"At the end of the year if someone says, 'I want to donate to a charity,' and they know that the dude in a band they listen to has one, then we would be there for them to do so," McMahon said.
As for what's next with Jack's Mannequin?
McMahon and the guys are working on writing a new record that they hope to record once they are done with touring in the next few months. McMahon has no idea what the theme of the record is going to shape into, but the band has been taking a very "bare-bones" approach in the studio lately with just piano and acoustic instruments, he said.
"Part of me is really tempted to just walk out on a huge limb รข€¦ and do something that I've always want to do, which is really flesh out the songs and make sure they are great songs and then sit and orchestrate a record rather than just go in and rock one out," he said.
Jack's Mannequin and McMahon are looking forward to long successful careers as musicians in the pop scene.
"If performing like this is all there was until the end, I'd be psyched," McMahon said.
Source
Jack's Mannequin frontman expresses faith and determination after battle with cancer
Jack's Mannequin frontman expresses faith and determination after battle with cancerJack's Mannequin frontman expresses faith and determination after battle with cancerSitting Indian-style on a leather couch in the back of his tour bus, Jack's Mannequin frontman Andrew McMahon gave no indication that he is a leukemia survivor.McMahon was diagnosed on June 1, 2005, shortly before the release of the band's first album, "Everything in Transit." Four years later, he is touring with the band promoting their latest album, "The Glass Passenger," which he began writing while he was in the hospital undergoing treatment.
"It's a pain in the ass," McMahon said, referring to the process of creating a record while suffering through cancer, but it was something he felt he had to do.
"With 'Passenger' there really wasn't a lot of options," he said. "I knew what I had to do and it was a lot of hard work, but it was worth it and it was the way it had to be done."
But even so, he didn't want to make it entirely about his sickness and exploit the struggle, he said.
"It was tricky, trying to find the balance of dealing with the aspect of having been sick," McMahon said. "I'm a pretty autobiographical writer so it was a bit of a push and pull trying to figure out how much of that I wanted to disclose."
McMahon admitted that he ended up writing a lot more about his struggle with cancer than he originally intended. It seemed almost out of necessity, that he needed to address his sickness in order to write himself out of a hole. The best songs ended up being the ones he wrote about cancer, he said.
Songs like "Caves and The Resolution" on "The Glass Passenger" are obvious tributes to that period of McMahon's life, and they express a sense of determination that is easily seen in his demeanor on and off stage.
"I tried my hardest to kind of make it about the aftermath and maybe more of the re-acclimation to the world post-being sick as opposed to actually being sick," McMahon said.
When people listen to the album they should feel a sense of "hope in hopeless places" that can be applied to any situation or any struggle that you find yourself in, he said.
"For me the theme wasn't just about being sick, it was, in a lot of ways, just about the record itself," McMahon said. "The idea of just feeling like I had a huge mountain to climb and just climbing it."
Now, four years after he was first diagnosed with leukemia, Jack's Mannequin is headlining a college tour in preparation for its tour with The Fray this summer.
McMahon said that although it seems like it would be difficult to perform the songs written about his struggles, it has never been a problem for him.
"I think certain artists maybe have to re-access the emotion of a song to play it, and there are certainly some songs that I will do that with," he said. "But for me it's so much more about performance and trying to execute that it doesn't really devaluate the meaning of the track to me."
In fact, he said, some songs that they play have come to mean something completely different for him than when he originally wrote them. He called it a rebirth of his sentiment toward the meanings of the songs.
Along with touring, McMahon is also planning several benefit concerts for his charity, the Dear Jack Foundation. The foundation, which McMahon began in July 2006, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding cancer research.
"The way that we are set up is like a conduit, we facilitate other's charities through out charity," McMahon said. "The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has proven to be one of our biggest partners."
The band did what was called "Light the Night" walks with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and raised more than $100,000, McMahon said.
Other beneficiaries of the Dear Jack Foundation include the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation, the Regents of the University of California and the ULCA stem cell transplant program.
He said he started the charity because it seemed like many people didn't know where or how to donate.
"At the end of the year if someone says, 'I want to donate to a charity,' and they know that the dude in a band they listen to has one, then we would be there for them to do so," McMahon said.
As for what's next with Jack's Mannequin?
McMahon and the guys are working on writing a new record that they hope to record once they are done with touring in the next few months. McMahon has no idea what the theme of the record is going to shape into, but the band has been taking a very "bare-bones" approach in the studio lately with just piano and acoustic instruments, he said.
"Part of me is really tempted to just walk out on a huge limb รข€¦ and do something that I've always want to do, which is really flesh out the songs and make sure they are great songs and then sit and orchestrate a record rather than just go in and rock one out," he said.
Jack's Mannequin and McMahon are looking forward to long successful careers as musicians in the pop scene.
"If performing like this is all there was until the end, I'd be psyched," McMahon said.
Monday, 6 April 2009
FemaleFirst Interview - March 12th, 2009
By Ruth Harrison
After hearing Jacks Mannequin were heading to the UK for a string of live dates, I was determined to get my hands on the hottest piano player ive ever seen - Andrew McMahon - and grill him on life in the spotlight. After all, he’s been through so much to get to where he is today, safe in the hearts of thousands of fans.
How have you enjoyed your UK tour?
It’s good, my wife is here tonight and after we’ve been here we’re going to fly to Paris for a break. But I’m loving being in the UK, I’ve been itching to get out here for years now and with Something Corporate we came out here quite a lot and then on the Jacks record I’d tried really hard to get out here but with the events of me being unwell and trying to really focus on getting the record going in the States we didn’t get chance to come so it means a lot that we’re here now.
What has been your all-time favourite gig to date?
You’ll think I’m bullshitting you but there is one obvious one which was a Something Corporate show which we did at the London Astoria. When we came here I really wanted to go back there but then they told me; “There’s no more London Astoria.” so it’s a little depressing!
You released your last record, The Glass Passenger, last year, how did you find the reception?
It’s been out for about five or six months now and it was seemingly good but I don’t make a point to go trawling fan sites or things of that nature. I try to keep my head uncluttered by that sort of thing but perception-wise it seems to have come across well and it’s selling well and now we’re getting the chance to introduce people to it around the world!
Can you sum up your music in just five words?
Melodic Piano-Driven Rock n’ Roll. Can I have rock n roll as one?
Yeah, I suppose! So is there a certain process you go through when writing?
I hate to call it a process, I think usually you end up finding yourself having a guy feeling as an idea needs to get out and that can come from a certain feeling emotion or feeling or even something you see walking down the street. There’s always something that motivates me to go and sit down at the piano and put my hands on the keys and just start making noise to see what comes out! It’s not rocket science, it’s definitely more instinctual.
And if someone was going to listen to you for the first time, what one song would you advise them to listen to?
That’s a good question! I think there’s a track of our last record called Dark Blue that has become a banner track and persists as a fan favourite and sum’s up a lot of the elements of what we do as a four-piece rock band. It has the earnestness and the sentiment of a lot of what we do.
Why do you think people should spend £10 on one of your CD’s or a ticket to your gig?
I think in anything I do I try to be honest and we all get up there with a lot of energy and I have an amazing band that back me up and we try to put on a good rock concert… my goal isn’t to beat up the competition, haha! [FF: We like that!] It’s not really my style, haha, but if you want to come watch a rock and roll concert then I think we’re a pretty good band to catch.
What three bands would you have to headline your dream festival?
Oh gosh, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Id say The Beach Boys, but they’re not really knocking around much these days… oh and the Chilli Peppers or something along those lines.
If you could only listen to one CD for the rest of your life, what would it be?
I’ve been asked this many times and I always change the answer, but I think it could be Wildflowers by Tom Petty. It’s one of his solo records and is one of my favourite records; it’s pretty dynamic.
And if you could join any band for a day, which would it be?
I guess it would be a band that needs me so it wouldn’t be one with a piano player! I’d like to sit in with the Flaming Lips, it sounds like fun. They always put on a fun show.
So now we want to ask you three non-musical questions…What is one thing you always wanted as a child but never got?
I have a good answer for this actually; I always wanted one of those Power Wheels cars. They were little kid cars that actually had motors in them and went about 4 or 5mph, they had Jeeps and Ferraris. I asked for one every year until I was too big to fit inside.
I used to want one of those with the holes that you could run along with your feet!
I thought everyone had one of those? Unlucky! You should talk to your mom about that, or steal one… it brings a new meaning to car jacking!
What was the most terrifying moment of your life?
I was in a car accident when I was 16. I was driving a car with my mother and rolled it one and a half times on the freeway, it was in the rain and we were upside down on the road. I would say that’s the most terrified I’ve ever been, it was my first real brush with death.
If you could take over a foreign country tomorrow, what country would it be and what would be your first law?
In these times? Jeez, I don’t know! It would be easy to say the US at this point but we’re hoping our man’s going to do a good job! If I was to take over the US though I would call for Campaign Finance reform so that no longer would politicians be able to receive money from any other source other than themselves.
I think that’s the biggest problem in politics, the fact that our politicians are basically owned by major corporations, I think it’s a terrible element of our political system.
We ask everyone we interview to come up with a question for the next person we interview and Emma Deigman wants to know; “If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you want to be?”
Oh wow, I would like to be in Bali in the middle of the jungle.
And can you come up with a question for the next person I interview?
Have you ever had an In and Out burger?
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