The Montclarion Interview - April 17th, 2008

By Bernadette Marciniak
Source

It's hard to believe that just three years ago, Andrew McMahon was lying in a hospital bed fighting for his life against leukemia. Despite the subtle frailty of his slim and slightly huddled shoulders, a Jack's Mannequin virgin would think he's a rookie when he performs. You can still see the glimmer of pride in his eyes when his devoted fans sing along and know every word to his songs. He belts each of his songs with such passion that you would think it was his first time on stage.

And with the upcoming release of Jack's Mannequin's second studio album, The Glass Passenger, it's a good thing McMahon still has this type of energy.

In a recent interview with The Montclarion, McMahon took us through the new album, some of his experiences from the past three years and what's to come in the near future. This will be a good one, folks.


The Montclarion: So, Andrew, congrats on the new album.

McMahon: Oh, thank you! Don't congratulate me yet. It's not out yet.

Soon, right?

Yeah, no, there's no official release date yet. It'll be end of August, beginning of September probably. I hate to string people along, but the truth is, it's not done yet. It's close; it just has to be mixed, and the guy I'm mixing it with isn't available until the middle of May, so the reality is just that you have to get it out to press and radio and all that stuff, two or three months ahead of the release. So we won't have a finished product until the end of May.

Okay, so how much of the album would you say is completely finished?

Most of it. Almost entirely. I mean, I always hold out hope, up until the mix is done, that maybe another song pops up, and I'll go into the studio and do it, but the record as it stands right now is pretty much done.

So I know that you scrap a lot of material. Are you 100 percent satisfied with what the result is looking to be, or is there anything else you would still want to change [on Glass Passenger]?

No, I'm pretty close to 100 percent. For me, I've gotten to a place where until I'm sitting with the 10 or 11 or however many songs it is mixed and mastered, playing it in my head, sitting with headphones, and doing it, I won't ever know if I'm 100 percent, and for me, the mix is a huge part of it. We've been working on these songs for over a year now. So you know, there are so many layers, we still have to kind of go through that. Just to go through that final presentation is a huge part of it. Yeah, but I mean, I think there's no question that a lot of these songs are the best that I've written, and for that I'm happy. It's been a strange period of time in my life to try to capture on record. So maybe to some extent, I'll never be totally satisfied in that sense, but I'm really proud of what we've accomplished so far.

You said in a recent interview with Alternative Press something to the effect of being afraid that your artistic creativity might be hindered because of your marriage and the music might not come as easily.

I think I was afraid of that beforehand. When you're out there and you're single, and you're just kind of a satellite doing your thing and running around, not necessarily romantically speaking, but just in general, and not being accountable to another human being, you can kind of go on tangents that you may not be allowed to go on so much when you're shacked up or something to that effect. That said, I have a pretty amazing wife who's pretty accepting of the fact that I'm sort of partially out of my mind ... Part of what I've learned in the past couple years, and from the past year especially, is to try and maintain that edge, to keep moving forward and not get too comfortable in any one spot. But you know, everything in life, all the good things and the bad things, come with their own set of challenges. I think a lot of people wouldn't say it, but I think that's what a lot of us worry about … I think it's sort of the weaker artist who feels the need to completely destroy their relationships and their lives on a regular basis to be inspired. And I'm trying desperately not to be that guy, because I was that guy, and I ended up a sick man in the hospital as a result of it. I try and learn and keep myself accountable and learn that art is not always something that you have to find in the terms of reckless abandonment.

Any sort of new sounds we should look forward to hearing [on The Glass Passenger]?

Yeah. I mean, I would say the whole thing is just a big experiment ... this record sounds completely different from [Everything in Transit]. I think there are always going to be threads that probably maintain some sort of similarity in my writing and my presentation; you know, I think with The Glass Passenger, the approach was so different from the Jack's Mannequin side of things that the first record was sort of conceived in a studio and without a lot of musicians around other than myself and my producer, so we really kind of pieced everything together, and it was sort of one of these things where we were flying drum tracks in from other sessions and cutting up samples and things like that just to get the songs in a state that we could hear them and be excited about them, and then we brought in musicians after the fact. On this record, my band, they were all just a phone call away, so when we got going on something, it was just like, "Hey, come down and play this drum track," and so in that sense the approach was much more organic as far as the music was concerned, and I think it left us taking a lot more chances on the parts, and I think the musicianship on this record is quite a step up just because we had musicians in the room with us when we were conceiving the songs. And, yeah, I mean, I think in general, every time I do a record, enough time seems to have lapsed, influences change, approaches get forgotten and found, and new things kind of come about.

How often do you find yourself writing really great one- or- two line lyrics that you have to toss out because they don't go with the rest of the song?

All the time. I say I encounter poetry and words that move me a lot more often than music.

Really? So for you, the words are almost more powerful.

I think for me to really enjoy a song of my own and for me to even move forward, it's gotta say something that's going to speak to me in the long-term, yeah … Without the words causing me to grow in some respect or pushing me beyond whatever I've done in the past or just connecting me in a way that I said something that I need to say, there's really no song.

So I know that you never went to college. Do you ever regret it?

Haha, right. I've done a lot of dates in colleges, but I've never actually attended ... Regret probably wouldn't be the word. I would still probably like to go. I think there's no question that for me, with my playing music professionally, it was the only thing that I wanted to do since I was nine years old. I think that college didn't really interest me at all when I was in high school, when I was focused on the band and whatnot. And I think now as I get older, I see my friends who really enjoyed college ... I see that, and I obviously thirst for knowledge like anybody else does ... in some ways or another, living on a tour bus and going and playing college shows and partying every night, you get that side of the experience, if not a multiplied out version of that experience, but just to be in a class and be getting information that I don't have is something that I hope in the future I can find time for and do and learn from that.

Do you have any idea what you'd want to study?

Probably political science is my guess. Or music. You know, for me, that's probably what will be in the caveat to me actually jumping into college at some point … to study music more in depth.

So you're doing this small college tour now. Any plans for a bigger tour after Glass Passenger is released?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Do you know who you'd be touring with yet?

There are a few things floating around that I can't exactly say. In the next couple weeks, those things might get pinned down, but it might be a little bit longer before we find out or before we actually even mention. But, yeah, then of course there are plans to get on the road and headline and do a large proper tour.

Do you like doing the college tour better or the bigger ones?

I mean, I like doing the college shows a lot. I'd always prefer doing shows where everyone can get in and [the shows] are promoted in a large capacity, but the college shows are a really awesome way to sort of make extra connections … It targets a more specific demographic. When you do that, a lot of the time you have greater penetration in the market because you have a group of people who see each other regularly, or share similar experiences on a regular basis. And if they share a good experience at one of your concerts, it's going to help grow your base. And I think college kids are like high school kids - really invested in their music. But of course when you play a show that is geared at high school, college kids, everything, on the perimeter you have a show that's a little bit more well-rounded as far as the support you get from the crowd.

What would you say to the aspiring college musician?

I would say play often. And try and get out and just see an audience, whatever audience that is, on a regular basis. If [the musician's] aspiration is to be in a band, on tour and on the road and whatnot, my suggestion, to anybody in a band not just college students, is to actually just play your hometown and whatever town you're living in. Find a gig; find a venue; get your friends out. You're gonna find out quickly if people want to come back. But, it's so hard to give counsel to anybody in the music business, especially with how f**ing disastrous the music business is right now. You know what I mean? It's like you gotta have a huge amount of killer instinct, a lot of ambition and a lot of perseverance. And I think if you have those things, and you have the talent to back it up, or at least a level of connectivity with your audience, you can still get through. It's hard, you know. It's never easy doing anything on that kind of a scale that involves so much rejection. And there's always the "stay in school" thing, but I never really subscribed to that philosophy.

Well, you never had a chance to!

Yeah (laughs). I never showed up.