After touring the world and headlining numerous festivals in 2008, Jack Johnson spent most of 2009 hibernating at home in Hawaii with his family and mourning the death of his father. To the surprise of many, including his inner circle of producers and musicians, Johnson also entered to studio to start work on his latest studio album, 2010’s To the Sea. A sharp departure from his usual acoustic-based surf music, To the Sea finds Johnson picking up the electric guitar on a few songs and even channeling his inner Spinal Tap on one track. Earlier this spring Johnson and keyboardist Zach Gill (of ALO fame) spent time with Relix and Jambands.com while in New York for a quick promotional blitz in advance of To the Sea’s release. While working out the live versions of a few of the album’s songs for the first time at Penny Lane studio, the longtime friends discussed their initial meeting in college, how Johnson’s band developed and the dangers of getting too introspective in the studio.
To the Sea is your first album to incorporate heavy doses of electric guitar. What spurred this stylistic change?
Jack: I started playing electric on a few songs on our last tour [2008’s Sleep Through the Static Tour] so I guess that seeped into my songwriting for this album. That was the first time I played electric guitar with this band.
Zach: You used to play electric when we were in college though and always used to listen to music that used heavy electric guitars—like Fugazi.
Jack: That’s true. I’ve always listened to that stuff like Fugazi or even like White Stripes and Radiohead. What we do is pretty light compared to all that, but there’s a couple solos on here. For the song “To the Sea” I got this Fender app that actually has 11 on it like in Spinal Tap. I don’t know if they make more than one of these or if I got some little custom one, but I got this one little Fender app that you can turn up to 11.
Are you writing on acoustic or electric at this point?
Jack: A little of each. Actually, three of these songs began with a drum beat, and then I kind of started making the music up on top of the beat, which is totally backwards compared to what I usually do. Usually, I have the chords and then going from there. So yeah, it’s kind of weird I’ve never even heard them live until today really—of course when I was writing lyrics from the house but I always just pictured the drums. And so I was basically strumming the chords good enough that I could write words but always picturing the drums under it.
You wrote To the Sea during a rare break from touring when you spent a full year at home with your family. Do you feel like this seclusion made your songs more or less introspective?
Jack: Zach and I always joke: “Careful, careful don’t get too introspective” ‘cause I always think there is this danger as soon as you figure yourself out. There is a danger of being that caricature of yourself or as soon as you start believing what other people are saying about you—whether it is good or bad.
I’m not just trying dodge your question—it is just that I just don’t take too much time trying to figure out what’s going on with the record—whether it is outward or inward and all that kind of stuff. It’s hard because nobody really heard the record yet so I haven’t even thought about it much until a friend of mine wrote the bio the other day and he kind of pointed that out as well. So I guess really there is this fine line where you go so far away that it becomes within.
I think about the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through was losing my dad [recently] and when that was going on I was definitely thinking, “OK, I’m not going to do an album for a while” and then I ended up kind of just having a lot of time to be alone like it was real therapeutic for me to go up to my studio and mess around with the four track not thinking I was going to be doing anything with it just to jam out and have fun, be alone. And the next thing I knew I had enough songs and my wife and I started talked about the idea of taking all the kids on the road again, it would be kind of fun. It’s like our excuse, it’s pretty hard planning all those trips, we wouldn’t really do it, we just end up sitting at home, you can’t really justify taking the kids out of school too much. We just decided it would be fun to get on the road again with the family and just decided to put the songs on the album.
How has having a family changed your life on the road?
Jack: It’s totally different. This amazing thing happened where Michael Pollack started bringing our own board with us. Michael Pollack is our sound guy, and I remember we didn’t have to soundcheck anymore. Soundchecking at one time was really great because it’s a time to jam out and figure things out, and it still is a lot of fun to do, but it takes up so much time. Now we have kids on the road Zach has his daughter on the road as well. When we have a day off or an afternoon off, without soundcheck we really have the day off—we don’t show up around dinner time now. Besides just having kids, it’s nice for us to actually see Paris and then play it. I feel like I play such a better show if I actually know where I am, not just geographically, but if I know what the city’s like.
Zach: The vibe inspires you, you know?
You’re not just seeing the backstage catering area—you can sense the vibe of this foreign city.
Jack: Or even on the East Coast—if I go out for a surf, especially in the old days when we were playing the clubs, it was cool because I would go surf at the local beach. I would either borrow a board, or sometimes I would have a board with me. I would surf all day, and then I would come up and play, and when I was at the club there would be a couple hundred people and I would look out and see thirty or forty people who were at the beach that day—I would recognize them because we had a conversation or something. It’s nice to know who you’re playing to. I remember there was this one town, I think it was Charleston, South Carolina, and we were playing this one club a lot. I really got to know the people in that town during the day and played for them at night.
Last time you were on the road in ‘08, you played most of the major U.S. music festivals, including Coachella, Bonnaroo, All Points West, Outside Lands and many others. How did that festival-heavy tour influence your sound and live show?
Jack: I always notice that when I’d open up for a band, by the end of the tour—for better or for worse—I would be moving in the direction of that band because I think a lot of it is subconscious. You see the reaction they’re getting when they’re the headlining band and you start to get pulled in that direction. And it’s not always bad. It’s great as long as you like the band you’re playing for because you start to get influenced by them without even realizing it. You start pulling some of their styles onto your own thing—so at festival you are surrounded by even more bands. Zach’s nodding even though I didn’t make a point there.
Zach: I know exactly what you mean. I was an opener.
Speaking of your time as an opener Zach, this summer your band ALO will open for Jack. Can you give us a quick history listen about how you and Jack first met and how you eventually joined his band?
Zach: We met early on in college, and we kept in touch all throughout post college years. ALO played at Jack’s wedding. He had us learn “Let’s Stay Together,” and we all did. I joined his band in 2004.
Jack: You came in during In Between Dreams because you had time off from what you were doing, and I asked if you could come play piano. I think I just got a piano in my studio. I played the parts and they were cool place holders, but I called Zach to see if he could come play them.
Zach: It was “Sitting Waiting Wishing” and “Good People” and accordion on “Belle.”
Jack: He was playing those couple songs. I always just liked it so much…Zach and I are such good friends. We were born on the exact same day, not even just the same year, we were born on the same day a few hours away from each other. So we really do enjoy being around each other, and I think I speak for Zach when I say that. So it was really nice because, though [drummer Adam Topol] and [bassist Merlo Podlewski] are great friends, we became friends because of the music. And Zach and I just…we share something. We met when we were eighteen years old, first couple weeks out of the house. We were still kids when we met, and kind of grew up together in a lot of ways.
Zach: Jack was the first other person I knew that we had a four track in college.
Jack: Sometimes we would get so inspired we would stay up all night and do these recordings, and instrumentals, and talking. It was so much fun. As soon as I met Adam and Merlo, because there was a thing that started to happen and I needed to get a band together and I had JP [Plunier], who was the guy who produced my first record. He introduced me to Adam, and so there was also this thing of forming something to make something that was going to get heard by people. And it was so great so I appreciate those guys so much because they are so talented. But the thing with Zach is it was like bringing him in the band brought something that was before I ever expected music to be a career type thing. It was bringing that back into the band, having somebody that was like…
Zach: …that understood sitting out on the porch playing for the sake of playing.
Given that these three musicians have grown into a real band, when you are writing for a record do you right with Zach, Merlo and Adam in mind?
Jack: This is the first time I ever done that because, even on Sleep Through the Static when Zach had been touring with us and everything, I still never had thought about it like that. I would just write a song and see where things would fit. And this time around I can honestly say that on a couple songs, in particular, I actually left space for this band. I went in and did the drums, I played a bass line and I started doing this guitar thing and there was space for that so I put that in. And I actually wanted to find an idea on the keyboard, and then Zach came in and made it his own and changed it around, but I wanted to make sure to leave space. Because sometimes after everything is filled up and you try to add keys on top of that, then it’s like you’re just playing long chords because it won’t fit.
Zach: This was fun, with this album too. I like, we had different…it was like November and it was the two of us and Jack playing drums, and the songs kept on morphing into different ways, in an interesting way. It would be crazy to go back and listen to those session.
You have the luxury of recording in your home studio. Since you were at home for so long last year did you space out the recording sessions or jump into the studio for three weeks?
Jack: In the end it was three weeks. I wanted to do a little test run to make sure we weren’t gonna go in and not have enough songs. We kind of got together to make sure there’s enough songs to work on our album and then we actually did this little fundraiser for Kokua Hawaii Foundation, so it was kind of a double header. I went to Zach and said, “Why don’t you come out a week early and just mess around.” So then we went back in and spent a month—basically three weeks—recording. [Engineer Robert Carranza] came back for those sessions. The actual recording of the stuff we kept was in that three week period and then I spent another week doing some vocals and guitar, and then we mixed it in about a week. We also recorded G. Love’s parts on some songs in California.
Zach: It was quick.
Jack: It’s definitely kind of cool too. This is the first time I ever had an album get finished and go to press so quick. Usually, I’ll record in say June or something and then it comes out the following March. And by then you’re kind of thinking I would love to change this and that. And I’m sure I’ll have those thoughts but at least at this point when I’m talking about the album it still feels fresh.
Have you played any of these songs live before going into the studio?
Jack: Yeah “Turn Your Love” we did with [vocalist] Paula Fuga. Paula came and sat in. She played with us at that benefit as well.
Was that spontaneous?
Jack: No she just came in.
Zach: We just started working on it backstage.
It seems like most of your collaborations have evolved organically.
Jack: We had a song that we did together called “Country Road,” and another song called “Give Voice” that she was going to come and sit in that night and play. And Zach and I were thinking we might try one new song to see how it feels. And we thought about that one “Turn Your Love.” And we showed it to her and she started singing along. You got to be careful of Paula because everything she sings on ends up sounding better. She could have easily been on the whole album. Zach was like that too it was funny because I remember when we did those couple songs, he came over for a couple days when he had time, on In Between Dreams for those few songs. We got together for rehearsal and he was gonna come out for a couple songs a night every night. That was the original plan he was going to come on the road and jump out for a section of the set. The same way when [ALO’s] Dan Lebowitz plays with us sometimes. We just have him come up for four or five songs. So that was the thought—and then we started playing and everything we’d try it was just like after since Zach wasn’t officially in the band yet, the real band had a meeting no just kidding. But Adam, and Merlo, and I, the first time Zach wasn’t around we were all hanging out one time everyone started going “I don’t know man everything sounds better with Zach on it.” And then we kept trying more stuff, and everything we played all felt fun again, and it added something fresh for us, and having the backing vocals. Before I always hold back from putting harmonies on albums because I wanted to be able to sing it live and not have it sound totally different. And now I can actually imagine how it will sound with a harmony on it so that’s pretty cool.
Portions of this interview appear in the June issue of Relix. Please click here to order a copy online.
