When Jack Johnson first decided to find out if his band was living a post-college life outside of Santa Barbara, a famously chill Hawaiian surfer dude came to Colorado and said he was a mighty I got the answer. It’s been over 20 years and he’s living his best life. Along with his four companions, the same ones he first met, the muted blue-eyed singalongs that make up his soul, his wife, his three teenagers, and his extended family band. I am touring the country with my family. We seriously do our best to save our oceans. He is one concert at a time.
Right now, he’s sold 25 million records and his soul medicine songs are streamed over 60 million times a month. Johnson is kind of like Hakuna Matata, and I’m so grateful for how it all started…and he’s still going.
“Colorado holds dear in our hearts because the first tour we did was there,” Johnson said Saturday from a tour stop in Austin, Texas. I’m thinking of loading it up and driving the four of us to play spots all over Colorado, I remember playing with Breckenridge, Durango, Boulder, Denver and many others. , we were really asking ourselves “can we do this?” Are we a band that can tour?
A Colorado club crawler gave Johnson and his pals the answer they wanted. “I think Colorado is our origin story,” he said.
The band will return to Colorado this week. It is the place where, if not the birthplace, the adolescent burgeoning. Johnson is back in the states for the first time in five years with concerts at Fiddler’s Green Amphitheater on Wednesday and Thursday as he tours to support his eighth album, Meet the Moonlight. I’m here. The album is like a surfer catching the perfect wave after the weirdness and isolation of the pandemic.
“It doesn’t sound cliché or cheesy, but one of the things I really love most about making records is people I can spend time with for the month or so,” Johnson said. “I was playing with pretty much the same people from the beginning, so I rolled the dice on this one and worked with people I didn’t know very well.” Engineer Joseph Rosi). Mills has recorded with top names such as Conor Oberst, Fiona Apple, Alabama Shakes, Dawes, John Legend, and Broadway royalty Cynthia Erivo.
Johnson specifically wanted Mills to help him develop his guitar skills. “I really liked this idea of playing with someone I looked up to as a guitarist and songwriter, and I learned a lot from him,” Johnson said.
Hawaii native Jack Johnson, who lives in Denver, says there are beaches with colorful sand. This is because small pieces of plastic that cannot be cleaned are part of the sand’s composition.
Most songs on the new album began with two mics and two guitars, with Johnson and Mills facing each other, staring at each other’s hands. “Then build something on top of that,” Johnson said. “I really like the way it came out. Listening to it, you can hear not only the process of gradual building of the music, but also this new friendship growing.”
Before every concert, Johnson tries to remember to be in the moment and to be with the people who came to see his show. And there are nights when other distractions come to mind,” he said. “But almost every night, I do my best to make sure that all those who decide to spend this night playing music with us truly understand what it means.”
It hit Johnson just the night before in Austin. He was playing his signature, seminal and ubiquitous 2005 hit, “Better Together.” The song has now been performed live hundreds of times and has become a staple of his first dance at a wedding.
“Suddenly, I heard cheers, and I looked around and someone in the crowd had just gotten engaged,” Johnson said. It was a really young couple and then we talked about how great it was that our song meant so much to these people throughout their lives together now.
The song upholds the simple message that love is the answer to most questions on our minds. It’s Johnson’s love song to his wife, but hearing it new after these bitter years isn’t a bad reaction to all the toxicity that’s dividing friends and family in an increasingly hostile world.
“While the song is meant to be a romantic song, when played at a nonprofit or other gathering, it has a distinctly different intent: how strong we are as a community when we come together,” Johnson said. rice field. “…well, except for the bridge, because that part of the song is about waking up next to her wife and how pretty she looks.”
Speaking of anthems, the new song “Open Mind” seems like a non-political commentary on where we are now as divided people. Johnson asks in the song.
“I really like that song, and oddly enough, we haven’t played it live yet,” he said. I’m going to try to prepare for it.”
Since at least 2008, Johnson has used his rising fame to draw attention to the worsening global environmental catastrophe, but he has made sure that every concert, including his own, leaves a large environmental footprint. We fully admit it.
His green initiatives include eliminating single-use plastics, i.e. banning the use of plastic bottles. Fans are instead encouraged to bring an empty container that can hold filtered water at some of the water stations on site. There is a bike attendant program to encourage cyclists. Behind the scenes catering is completely farm-to-table. Venues are encouraged to source only local, organic food to support local farmers.
The tour will designate a “Village Green” area at each concert venue, providing a space for 10 area non-profits to connect with concertgoers on local environmental issues. In Denver, $1 from every ticket purchase will be donated to a carbon offset project, plus $1 will support one of Colorado’s 10 designated environmental nonprofits.
“We will do whatever we can to make this tour more environmentally friendly,” said Johnson. “And when our show is over, you can physically see the difference. Festivals that don’t take these things into account will see a sea of plastic later.” there are very few left.”
Jack Johnson said of his efforts to go green at his concerts:
He candidly admits that the best way for Johnson to minimize his environmental impact is to not tour at all. His fans might say, “Banana pancakes!” (And in this context it becomes synonymous with “fiddlestick”).
“We feel that trying to make many of these proposed changes permanent at the venues where we play would be a better, longer-term improvement,” he said. “Sometimes these changes don’t feel like the biggest thing in the world, but when they’re made at every show, they make a huge difference.”
Johnson’s greatest pride, he said, is in his shows helping create potentially lasting connections between concert-goers and local nonprofits. During his 2017-18 tour, Johnson’s concerts brought his $1.9 million donation to his 315 nonprofits. “Whenever we leave the city, we leave the nonprofit in better shape than we arrived in town,” Johnson said.
There were other measurable results. According to its 2017-18 tour data:
- More than 225 local farms were supported as part of the “Farm to Stage” catering program. Over 36,000 single-use plastic bottles have been eliminated.
- Over 70,000 reusable cups sold, eliminating 200,000 plastic cups
- Over 9,615 gallons of recyclable trash and over 1,370 gallons of compostable food waste collected
- Over 15 million pounds of carbon waste offset
For Johnson, it all comes down to being grateful for the life he’s been able to live.
“When we come together as friends and think that our lives are based on music…” Johnson said. “I feel like we’re the luckiest group of friends in the world.”
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