Interview: Andrew McMahon

In 2005, everything was going right for Andrew McMahon. He was getting ready to release the first album of his solo project, Jack’s Mannequin, and had a tour to prepare for. However, on June 1st, everything changed.

Diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, he was forced to cancel all of his upcoming shows and shift his focus from the new album to his health. Already filming the making of the album with his personal video camera, Andrew began to document all areas of his treatment, from the every day check ups of the doctors and nurses to the injection of medication into his spine.

Now healthy and three years in remission, Andrew is releasing a documentary entitled “Dear Jack” which chronicles his struggle with Leukemia and features the very same footage that he recorded in his room at New York Presbyterian Hospital. “Dear Jack” will be released on November 3rd on DVD and screened in theaters in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles in an effort to continue to raise money for the Dear Jack Foundation, Andrew’s own non-profit organization that was created in 2006 to help fund research for a cure.

Andrew was gracious enough to sit down with ForTheSound.com in anticipation of the film’s release.

How did Corey Moss and Josh Morrisroes approach you about the film?

Actually, we approached them. Originally, we had a couple of different guys who started kind of the first rough draft of it. Actually, one of the guys, Jacob Marshall, is the drummer for the band Mae. I’ve done a lot of the stuff for Mae over the years, who I happen to be good friends with as well… So those guys came to me and said, “You know… we think this could be a really powerful story and something worth telling.” Then we looked at the footage and tried to put something together, so they sort of did the rough initial draft of the movie and then from there, we got to Josh and Corey, who I’ve known for years… doing some Something Corporate stuff. Corey had been cutting clips together for us while working for MTV. They did kind of one of the first clips of me, that was seen on MTV, doing Jack’s Mannequin stuff for a piece that Kurt Loder introduced. And we just really liked his style and we asked him to come in and come help compile all of this stuff together.

Of all the people that could have done it, why choose Tommy Lee to narrate the film?

Well, I think a lot of it had to do with the role that Tommy Lee had been playing in my life up until that point. I think that Tommy and I were especially close during the making of the first record. He was the drummer on the first album and I worked quite a bit in the studio with him, as well. So we were kind of trying to find somebody that put in there, obviously, the idea of having some of a celebrity voice and somebody who brought in with him a little more attention to the film. My mind immediately went to Tommy. One, because he’s got a great voice and a really recognizable voice, and two, because he was definitely a part of the story up to that point.

Have you watched the film in its entirety since it’s been finished?

Yeah, we got the final edit actually about three weeks ago and then in the process, I might actually have the color-corrected, audio mixed version. But yes, I have definitely seen the final edit since it’s been completed.

Is it hard for you, on an emotional level, to watch some of the footage again?

It was definitely harder at the beginning. I think one of the reasons in taking a look back to…  put the finishing touches on it is that I certainly struggled being objective in the early days when we started with the edit… I sort of lacked the objectivity to sort of sit and say here’s what needs to be cut. I think it really wasn’t until a couple of months ago when me and Josh and Cory got together and we watched the movie together and it was the first time we’d done that. And finally, I think for the first time, I was objective enough to sit down and criticize from a more analytical standpoint. That said, of course, you know, you watch something like this and it certainly brings you back there. There’s a bit of muscle memory that will kick in. And yeah, it can be a little bit disconcerting. But at this point, I’m far enough away from it that at least I can appreciate it.

In the trailer, from what scenes we’ve been able to see in it, one of the main focuses is that you’re really adamant about putting forth Everything in Transit. Why was it so important to you that the album be released?

Well, I think for me, you know, that period of time in my life and I think for the creative type that I am, getting sick was sort of the tail end of this moment where I think for the first time I broke away from my band, and from my girlfriend, and from my family, from all of these sort of elements in my life that I think I’ve been very attached to and sort of stepped out on them and onto my own. And I think that Transit was really the artistic manifestation of all of that. You know, it was sort of proof that it had happened, I guess, and I think that when I was diagnosed, it was obvious that I didn’t think it was going to take me down necessarily, but it was very real… very solid proof to the fact that whether I was going to be here or not was kind of still up in the air. And I think it was important to me to have it and have that moment for myself where I could probably say I’d been attempting (something) on my own that I was really behind and passionate about. And in a lot ways, I think it gave me something to come back to, knowing that the record was out and knowing that to really get out there and push it, I had to get well. I think it was sort of a little bit of a motivator or a huge motivator for me to fight and beat the cancer and get right back to music.

And you recorded “The Lights and Buzz”, which was the first thing you recorded after the stem-cell transplant, right?

Yes, it was the first recording after the transplant. I did a version of “Holiday From Real” in the month leading up to the transplant and I did kind of a song called “There, There, Katie,” as well. But “Lights and Buzz” was kind of the first song back in the studio after all that.

Looking back on that, and your first performance of the song, how big of a milestone was that for you?

You know, it was a milestone in the sense that it had been really difficult to write music during my recovery and that was sort of something I had written largely in my head in the hospital. I had the words to the song, I had the melody for the chorus and all of that. It was important, but I really don’t know that I viewed it as a milestone at that time… to get back into the studio, like anything, to get back on the stage after something like that… it was definitely an important thing.

On The Glass Passenger there are a lot of songs that obviously stem from your treatment like “Caves,” “The Resolution,” and “Swim,” but there are others that are independent of that theme. Was that something kind of done intentionally?

Music comes to me in mysterious ways, so I can’t say that I really ever intentionally craft anything one direction or another. I mean, sometimes when you’re finishing a record, you kind of have enough perspective to say “I really need to write this kind of a song” or something. With Passenger, I think truthfully, if there was any intention in a lot of moments along the way, I would really try to avoid that subject if anything. (Laughs) I thought in the early stages of writing the record that it was avoidable somehow and truthfully, it wasn’t until deeper into the record that I really got into songs like “Caves” and “The Resolution.” I think that sort of happened in the moment where I realized that you can’t sort of avoid that kind of subject matter. It’s a part of what the past few years have been for me, so in that sense, I think my greater intention was to avoid that subject matter. I sort of only answered the call when it just came to me. Then I had to think about it.

You spoke of “Caves,” which is the epic track of the album. Was it a song you really want to perfect, considering the length of it, the change in structure, and the subject matter of it?

There’s a lot of those kinds of songs that I think, on every record or every other record, pops up kind of like that. You know, this sort of big moment or long song or whatever. It just sort of happens naturally. Again, I think most of the material that… manifests itself in a way of talking about the recovery. Your being on the other side of it and how it affected me, I think “Caves” is really the one song that put me and put the listener into the hospital room. Again, it was a mysterious thing that was one of those songs that I woke up in the middle of the night… and that melody was in my head and I just sat down and it sort of came out. As soon as I was writing it, that kind of second bit popped up into the second half of the song. I write it when it comes. There’s really not a lot of method to it or intention behind everything that goes into a song that’s driving me. Yeah, it was important to me that I got it out there and the fact that I had a song that spoke so honestly about the topic.

Do you think that when you start work on your next album, whenever that is, you will give yourself a little more lyrical freedom because a lot of what was building up inside of you because of your treatment and your experience with Leukemia is a little bit far behind you at this point?

Yeah, I think that there’s no question that having the record out and having the documentary out has sort of put the exclamation point on this chapter of my life. I don’t think I’ll be singing about the same thing on this (next) record as what I was singing about on the last record in the sense that I wasn’t singing about the same thing on this record (“The Glass Passenger”) as I was on “Everything in Transit.” So I definitely think that it’ll take a much different turn and there will be a larger amount of freedom involved because I don’t think there will be that same elephant in the room that I have to reference to get past it. So I definitely see an opportunity for a lot more freedom with it.

You just finished up the tour for “The Glass Passenger” with The Fray and started on the new solo tour and promotion of the film. Is there any particular reason you chose to bring such an important group of shows to college campuses like my own?

The solo shows aren’t college-campus related, we’ll probably be playing full band. I’m not sure which school you’re at, but usually the college shows will be full band as a result of the college we show up at. As far as doing the solo tour, I think that there are a couple of reasons behind doing the big solo. One, obviously it’s to promote the movie, which is a pretty personal thing, and I thought maybe this would be an opportunity to do something like this and present the band in a different scenario after doing The Fray tour recently. Maybe doing something small, a little more personal. That and we’re trying to raise funds for research and for the foundation. In that sense, we wanted to keep it light and keep it inexpensive so we could generate more money for the foundation.

Speaking of colleges, there are a slough of your fans who are currently in college, like myself, who have listened to your music in some form from fifth, sixth, or seventh grade, on through college and grad school. How does it feel to know there are a lot of people out there who have essentially grown up listening to you?

It’s probably one of the things I’m most proud of, as a result of being in a band. I don’t think it was something I really anticipated starting out. You don’t even think about that kind of thing when you’re dreaming about being on a stage. Every time, somebody comes up to me after a show, and it happens to me regularly, and says “I’ve been listening to you since you were in Something Corporate and I was eighteen years old…” I’ve grown up listening to music, you know what I mean? I wrote a lot of the songs that people first clued into my music when I was fifteen or sixteen years old and now I’m twenty seven. To see that it actually translated to people and their own lives enough that they didn’t walk away from my music at a certain stage and they stuck with me through two bands. And it’s a pretty powerful bond that I’m blessed to have.

And because you have this massive outreach to different people of all different ages and of different walks of like, what do you hope that “Dear Jack” accomplishes? Is there a message that you hope people who see the film will walk away with?

Yeah, there are a couple of things. In a big way, I think we’re really hoping that this will generate money. Part of what we’re trying to do here is raise money so that we can make a difference and affect research and this is a great tool for that. When Jacob (Marshall) and Benji (Brownell) first came to me about the movie, what they felt that it had the power to do was to show people in a similar situation that there is a reason to have hope and there is something on the other side of all of this. I think that point, when this whole project started out, that meant the most to me was that we could tell a story that had a happy ending that looked like it could have gone either way. My hope is that people can find that thread of hope within the film and, whether it relates to their personal lives as far as an illness is concerned or some other major roadblock, that it is just the nature of life. You’re gonna be in the middle of your universe and everything is gonna be going well, but then something massive is going to come and knock you down. The point being, the best thing to deal with any of that is to try and get back on your feet as quickly as possible and keep your mind in a positive place. Hopefully, people get that kind of positivity out of the movie.

Is there anything that anyone said to you in treatment that you found really helped you get through it more than anything else… that if someone who is reading this interview is going through the same thing, you would want to pass onto them?

Breathe. Breathe. You know, I think that was the most important… that single word and action that was probably the most important thing that I learned in the process. When all else fails, deep breaths. As many of them and for as long as you can do it. I know it sounds maybe sort of hokey, I’m not really sure, but it’s the one piece of advice when I talked to sick people who found me because of our sort of common experience. I think it was really when I learned that it’s just like you’ve got to breathe deep and you’ve gotta focus on the positive. And that’s what will kind of empower you to push through the hard days.

How is everything going with the Dear Jack Foundation?

It’s going really well. I just finished up doing the Light the Night walk. Right now, for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, we’ve got a pair of shoes. We partnered with Macbeth Shoes and they’re coming out in November. They’re donating portions of the proceeds from the shoe back to the foundation. We’ve got the movie coming out, which is exciting, and should hopefully be a good source of revenue, as well. We’re excited. It seems like this year is kind of bigger than ever and we’ve already pushed through the $60,000 mark with the Light the Night walk and still have another couple of months to hopefully get that $100,000 mark that we hit last year. In a down economy, I’m surprised we’ve be able to generate as much as we have and I’m pretty excited about that.

We wish you, at For The Sound, the best of luck and really appreciate you taking the time to sit down with us.

It’s my pleasure.

Is there anything else you’d like to say to our readers and your fans?

Just thanks for listening and thanks for being out there. We’re always trying to make new music and new stuff for you guys to hear, so I appreciate the support.