hellwoman
02-23-2008, 03:33 PM
Saving the Earth, one tune at a time
SIMON HOUPT
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
February 23, 2008 at 8:58 AM EST
NEW YORK — For a laid-back Hawaiian guy who ambled his way from making surf movies to a spot as a leading purveyor of easygoing acoustic pop, Jack Johnson speaks with a surprising sense of urgency. Last October, when he lit out from his Oahu home for a one-week publicity tour that brought him to New York, he dragged himself down to the lobby bar of the Bowery Hotel early one morning, where out tumbled a stream of feelings and thoughts about the state of the world. This, without benefit of coffee.
Johnson, 32, evidently has a lot on his mind; his new album, Sleep Through the Static, which has sat atop the Canadian album charts for the two weeks since its release, is run through with anxiety. Not that you'd know it from the music itself, a slightly more produced, fatter and occasionally electric version of the stripped-down sing-along campfire style he's been offering since his 2001 debut, Brushfire Fairytales.
But Johnson is a committed environmentalist and the lyrics for the opening number, All at Once, are braided with hints of a planet on the verge of collapse. That tune segues into the title cut, a hip-hop-influenced number that is as clear an attack on the United States' recent military misadventures as you're ever likely to get from a surfer dude: "Who needs please when we've got guns? / Who needs peace when we've gone above," Johnson sings in the chorus.
Sitting here now, sporting three days of stubble and bloodshot eyes from jet lag and last night's late drinks, Johnson explains that songwriting is for him normally a laborious process. "I usually write one verse and it sits around for a year sometimes, or months, and then I'll write another verse to a whole different melody, and then I'll realize they're talking about the same thing and I'll put 'em together."
The song Sleep Through the Static, however, was written in about 10 minutes. "I just sat there and wrote two pages or so," explains Johnson.
"When I write a song like that, it's just goin' off a feel. I'm not the type of person who could explain to you the politics of this war and exactly why it's the way it is, but I get a certain feeling just from the bit of newspaper articles I read about it, or the conversations I have with friends, that we've gone too far in this particular war, just to even enter that war was to go too far."
At the same time, the song is an indictment of those citizens who would choose, as Johnson says, to sleep through the static.
"We're in a culture where we don't really need to see what we do - whether it's bombing another country or it's simple things like using plastic bags at the store and you use it for three minutes and then all of a sudden it's sitting in a landfill for 2,000 years, or whatever it is. You don't have to see those repercussions."
The environmental issue is the one closest to Johnson's heart. The studios where he recorded the album, both at home and in Los Angeles, are fuelled by solar power, and when he goes out on tour this year he will seek to make it as green an endeavour as possible. (Promoters buying carbon offsets, merchandise made from organic materials etc.) He and his wife administer the Kokua Hawai'i Foundation, which supports environmental education in his home state through funds raised at an annual Earth Day concert. Lately, Johnson has taken to visiting schools to sing to kids about the merits of "the other three R's" - reduce, reuse and recycle.
Johnson's career didn't begin with aspirations to spread any message beyond the need for good times. At first, his musical tastes were rougher: In his teens and early 20s, he listened to a lot of Nine Inch Nails and Fugazi, and played in a punk band. But in time, he found himself returning to the style of music he played when he first learned guitar, at age 14.
After graduating with a degree in film, he spent some time making surf movies and travelling through the Pacific and Indian oceans. When he wasn't filming, he would kick back on the boat and compose wordless songs that would serve as a soundtrack. After a while he and his friends decided to release the music itself on CD. "When we got into it, we had a real goal, and it was to sell maybe 20,000 to 30,0000 [albums]. The surf movies we'd made had sold about that many, so we kind of figured there was that built-in audience.
"When it went beyond that, it was bizarre, and it kept growing and growing and growing, and it really seems unrealistic and a huge surprise to all of us."
Even as it has gone way beyond that - Johnson's total album sales now reach over 15 million - he has apparently stayed humble. As he is speaking, a waiter wanders over and asks if he needs something. "I'd like a mochachino, maybe?" Johnson says politely. Informed there is no chocolate syrup in the house, he shrugs and opts for coffee. When the waiter delivers the bill to Johnson rather than his manager or publicist over in the corner, Johnson pauses to take care of the matter, ensure there is enough of a tip, and thank the waiter.
It is a manner that plays well with families: Two years ago, Johnson gained a whole new audience when he wrote the soundtrack for the animated film Curious George. He tested the songs with his own focus group, playing every number for his then two-year-old son. "He'd either want to dance, really get into it, or just be like - a blank stare, and walk out of the room," Johnson chuckles. "And I'd have to get back to the drawing board."
Johnson and his wife, whom he met at college when he was 18, now have another son, and when he sets out on tour later this year - he is headlining both the Coachella festival and the new All Points West fest - the family will be coming along. Family is very much on his mind right now. On the second day of this week-long publicity burst last fall, he is already missing his wife and children, and thinking about his 19-year-old cousin, Danny Riley, who is dying of a brain tumour back in California. Riley sang backup on one of the new songs, and Johnson says another tune, While We Wait, is obliquely about him.
"A lot of the record's about letting go," he explains, citing a couple of the more apolitical tunes. "Whether it's letting go of somebody you've been with for years and you're just trying to walk different ways, or just letting go of somebody you love that has to pass away. Or even just letting go of my kid, letting him swim, and how much to let go. I think we can't hold on to time, it keeps moving."
Two weeks later, Riley died. Johnson dedicated the album to his memory.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080223.wxjohnson23/BNStory/Entertainment/home
SIMON HOUPT
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
February 23, 2008 at 8:58 AM EST
NEW YORK — For a laid-back Hawaiian guy who ambled his way from making surf movies to a spot as a leading purveyor of easygoing acoustic pop, Jack Johnson speaks with a surprising sense of urgency. Last October, when he lit out from his Oahu home for a one-week publicity tour that brought him to New York, he dragged himself down to the lobby bar of the Bowery Hotel early one morning, where out tumbled a stream of feelings and thoughts about the state of the world. This, without benefit of coffee.
Johnson, 32, evidently has a lot on his mind; his new album, Sleep Through the Static, which has sat atop the Canadian album charts for the two weeks since its release, is run through with anxiety. Not that you'd know it from the music itself, a slightly more produced, fatter and occasionally electric version of the stripped-down sing-along campfire style he's been offering since his 2001 debut, Brushfire Fairytales.
But Johnson is a committed environmentalist and the lyrics for the opening number, All at Once, are braided with hints of a planet on the verge of collapse. That tune segues into the title cut, a hip-hop-influenced number that is as clear an attack on the United States' recent military misadventures as you're ever likely to get from a surfer dude: "Who needs please when we've got guns? / Who needs peace when we've gone above," Johnson sings in the chorus.
Sitting here now, sporting three days of stubble and bloodshot eyes from jet lag and last night's late drinks, Johnson explains that songwriting is for him normally a laborious process. "I usually write one verse and it sits around for a year sometimes, or months, and then I'll write another verse to a whole different melody, and then I'll realize they're talking about the same thing and I'll put 'em together."
The song Sleep Through the Static, however, was written in about 10 minutes. "I just sat there and wrote two pages or so," explains Johnson.
"When I write a song like that, it's just goin' off a feel. I'm not the type of person who could explain to you the politics of this war and exactly why it's the way it is, but I get a certain feeling just from the bit of newspaper articles I read about it, or the conversations I have with friends, that we've gone too far in this particular war, just to even enter that war was to go too far."
At the same time, the song is an indictment of those citizens who would choose, as Johnson says, to sleep through the static.
"We're in a culture where we don't really need to see what we do - whether it's bombing another country or it's simple things like using plastic bags at the store and you use it for three minutes and then all of a sudden it's sitting in a landfill for 2,000 years, or whatever it is. You don't have to see those repercussions."
The environmental issue is the one closest to Johnson's heart. The studios where he recorded the album, both at home and in Los Angeles, are fuelled by solar power, and when he goes out on tour this year he will seek to make it as green an endeavour as possible. (Promoters buying carbon offsets, merchandise made from organic materials etc.) He and his wife administer the Kokua Hawai'i Foundation, which supports environmental education in his home state through funds raised at an annual Earth Day concert. Lately, Johnson has taken to visiting schools to sing to kids about the merits of "the other three R's" - reduce, reuse and recycle.
Johnson's career didn't begin with aspirations to spread any message beyond the need for good times. At first, his musical tastes were rougher: In his teens and early 20s, he listened to a lot of Nine Inch Nails and Fugazi, and played in a punk band. But in time, he found himself returning to the style of music he played when he first learned guitar, at age 14.
After graduating with a degree in film, he spent some time making surf movies and travelling through the Pacific and Indian oceans. When he wasn't filming, he would kick back on the boat and compose wordless songs that would serve as a soundtrack. After a while he and his friends decided to release the music itself on CD. "When we got into it, we had a real goal, and it was to sell maybe 20,000 to 30,0000 [albums]. The surf movies we'd made had sold about that many, so we kind of figured there was that built-in audience.
"When it went beyond that, it was bizarre, and it kept growing and growing and growing, and it really seems unrealistic and a huge surprise to all of us."
Even as it has gone way beyond that - Johnson's total album sales now reach over 15 million - he has apparently stayed humble. As he is speaking, a waiter wanders over and asks if he needs something. "I'd like a mochachino, maybe?" Johnson says politely. Informed there is no chocolate syrup in the house, he shrugs and opts for coffee. When the waiter delivers the bill to Johnson rather than his manager or publicist over in the corner, Johnson pauses to take care of the matter, ensure there is enough of a tip, and thank the waiter.
It is a manner that plays well with families: Two years ago, Johnson gained a whole new audience when he wrote the soundtrack for the animated film Curious George. He tested the songs with his own focus group, playing every number for his then two-year-old son. "He'd either want to dance, really get into it, or just be like - a blank stare, and walk out of the room," Johnson chuckles. "And I'd have to get back to the drawing board."
Johnson and his wife, whom he met at college when he was 18, now have another son, and when he sets out on tour later this year - he is headlining both the Coachella festival and the new All Points West fest - the family will be coming along. Family is very much on his mind right now. On the second day of this week-long publicity burst last fall, he is already missing his wife and children, and thinking about his 19-year-old cousin, Danny Riley, who is dying of a brain tumour back in California. Riley sang backup on one of the new songs, and Johnson says another tune, While We Wait, is obliquely about him.
"A lot of the record's about letting go," he explains, citing a couple of the more apolitical tunes. "Whether it's letting go of somebody you've been with for years and you're just trying to walk different ways, or just letting go of somebody you love that has to pass away. Or even just letting go of my kid, letting him swim, and how much to let go. I think we can't hold on to time, it keeps moving."
Two weeks later, Riley died. Johnson dedicated the album to his memory.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080223.wxjohnson23/BNStory/Entertainment/home