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photos: Moe Horta

Andrew McMahon is a happy guy. Not only does he have three beloved musical projects under his belt - Something Corporate, Jack’s Mannequin and Andrew McMahon and The Wilderness – as well as a recent single aptly titled “Happy,” but the soft-spoken singer also just exudes positivity on a level unlike most.  

Considering all the turmoil McMahon has faced in his career – being diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2005, for one – it makes sense why the passionate piano player has a fresh outlook on life. However, sitting down with the successful songwriter, you can tell his joyfulness is less about McMahon’s own feelings and more about the happiness he brings to others.  

“What we do is actually about bringing joy to people,” McMahon tells The Noise. “There's a lot of fuckin’ weirdness in this world, always. And so, to get to focus on moments that are about joy and singing together, and to do it on the biggest stages possible, is pretty cool after being in this business for 25 years.” 

Radiating with pure bliss as he and his bandmates geared up for Jack’s Mannequin’s first festival appearance in over 10 years, The Noise dug deep with McMahon minutes before his momentous performance at Arizona’s Innings Fest.  

Covering what it feels like to be back with Jack’s Mannequin again celebrating 20 years of their adored debut Everything In Transit, as well as the most recent Something Corporate reunion, McMahon was delighted to open up sharing, “I think the goal is just to experiment and to also focus on the ‘why’ of this. For me, in this moment, it's finding places where as many people can get together and have a great time.” 

To read more with Andrew McMahon, be sure to see below. Afterward, make sure to grab tickets to catch Jack’s Mannequin out on tour here. 

You're no stranger to Innings Fest. You played here two years ago with The Wilderness. How does it feel to be back, this time with Jack’s Mannequin? Which is your first festival appearance in over a decade. 

ANDREW MCMAHON: It's exciting. We did like a little warm up show after rehearsals back in Venice in like a 200-person club. But that was a few weeks ago, so I'm nervous because this is going to be really the first big look for Jack’s in a mixed audience of people who may or may not know who Jack’s mannequin is. So, I always get anxious, but I'm excited. I feel like, you know, the band and I have been looking forward to this year for a while and I think it's going to be fun to kick it off here. 

How did that surprise Venice show go? Announcing it the same day as the 20-year tour must have been fun. 

It was great. I was terrified. I'm internally insecure so the idea of putting a show on sale the day of the show, I was like, “Please don't make me do this.” But I was convinced otherwise, and it was great. It was a tough time because it was when the fires were going on in LA, so we weren't really sure [how it’d go] but we raised a bunch of money for fire victims from that gig. And I think people were kind of glad to have a little respite from all the craziness, and we did a two-hour long set where we were able to pull out tons of deep cuts and things that honestly never really made it into Jack's Mannequin sets originally. So it was cool to do. 

How did it feel getting to play those songs considering it’s been so long since you’ve gotten to play them? 

It was great. I mean, for me, I think the cool thing about having so much time [pass] since we put out recorded music has given me the ability to really, like, talk to fans and hear what songs they missed when we were actually touring. I mean in a festival set, it will lean heavy on the big tunes because we want people to get those and not feel like they missed a chance to hear some of those. But yeah, getting to sort of dig into the catalogue a little bit and make contact with tunes that I think I was almost too insecure to play back then, because they didn't have the same gravitas as maybe some of the bigger record songs, was really, really nice. 

Everything In Transit represents a very specific and transformative point in your life. How does it feel looking back and can you believe it’s been 20 years already? 

Yeah, I mean, what's cool is like, we're definitely going to lean on Transit because it's this 20-year [anniversary]. But we are going to pull stuff in from the other records as well. But yeah, I mean, reliving all this stuff, truthfully, it strikes a chord. This was like a very transformative and also very tumultuous moment in my life that this music is attached to. We'll see how it plays out over the course of this year. I think a part of doing these reunions with Something Corporate, and now with Jack’s, has been to be in the moment where I've got my feet pretty solidly on the ground in a way that I didn't have when I was in both of those projects. And so, it's kind of getting to sing the songs with that perspective and also be able to celebrate them in a way that maybe I wasn't as equipped to because I was, you know, dealing with a lot of shit in my personal life and was also just so blindly ambitious that I had a hard time really appreciating just how great it was to be in the band in that moment and see these faces of people singing. So, to get to do that now, is going to be really cool. 

Speaking of celebrating, Jack’s Mannequin did a handful of 10-year anniversary dates for Everything In Transit back in 2015. Now for the 20-year mark, you guys are going all out with stops all over the US as well as Canada, Japan and more. How does it feel to be doing a bigger run this time?  

It feels right. I mean, you know, largely the reason we did both the Something Corporate 10-year and the Jack’s 10-year was because fans wanted it, right? Like, these fans are why I have a job, why I've been able to survive and succeed in three different projects. So, we did [the 10-year tours] but they were very pared down. You know, I think that Jack's run we maybe played ten shows. This, I think, is just as much for the band and I as it is for the fans. And I think, you know, I'm not doing it for the sake of like, “Oh, this is the reunion moment, you should do it.” I'm doing it because I finally am in a place where I think there's such a reverence now for what my bandmates and I built that maybe time has given me the ability to fully lock in with and appreciate. So, to get to do it on a broader scale -- and play in Japan and Australia and do most of North America -- is going to be sort of a joyful celebration of this thing that we did. 

And then no big deal, the Red Rocks show on this tour where you’ll be playing with all three projects... 

My anxiety level goes up a little bit every time I hear the words Red Rocks, but yes. [laughs] 

Where did that idea come from? Did you have to talk to other bands and everyone was on board? 

It was my manager. So my management C3 is based in Denver and they brought the idea to me. And I was like, “Fuck no, there's no way we're gonna sell 10,000 tickets in Denver.” Like, that'll be the biggest show I've headlined by double, you know. And they really believed in it as a concept. I played Red Rocks twice supporting other acts and it is a truly magical place to play. And I fought them on it, and they were just like, “This is why you have us, trust us. This going to be important.” And originally, the offer was for two of my bands. You know, it was like “Just pick any two bands and you'll get the offer.” And then I was like, “Well, if we're going to do this, let's make it a night where anybody who’s hopped on this journey at any stage can really see what I see when I'm on stage or when I play with any of these guys.” Which is, like, it's a whole story, right? And, there's collaborations across all these projects with each of these guys and every band and every person that played in those bands is a driver for why this thing still exists and why people are still here seeing these shows. I felt weird not having everybody on stage together and it's going to be a lot of work figuring out how the set runs and I really want it to be collaborative. I want to have moments where everybody from all three projects is on stage playing together. Like, I think that is what's going to make it truly unique. And so, we're going to have to figure out how to do that. We did a little test run on the cruise that I just took out. We had a night where everybody was on stage together and we all collaborated on tunes and it was really beautiful. So yeah, it's gonna be a lot of work, but I think it will -- you know, I knock on... earth seems good -- that it feels like it's pointed towards being one of the more special nights in my career and in the lives of all of us who’ve played these songs.  

It must feel pretty special to do the Something Corporate reunion shows last year, which was already great, but now you’re topping that with this Jack’s tour and the Red Rocks show. Continuing to get these even bigger moments in your career all these years later must feel pretty special.  

Yeah, well, I also think it's the kind of thing that just that time and reflection is affording me to be in this position where it's like, so much of my career has been about pushing forward and what's next -- and that's still very much in my purview -- but I think it sometimes was to the detriment of the projects that I left behind. And so, to be in a moment where I'm like, really just feeling so grateful that I've been able to do this for so long and have just another layer of affection for everybody who's been a part of that ride. And then to get to share these moments together as a group, is like, it's healing in a way. And it's also so much fun, you know, like it really is. And I think that that's also a big shift cause like, what we do is actually about bringing joy to people. You know, there's a lot of fuckin’ weirdness in this world, always. And so, to get to focus on moments that are about joy and singing together, and to do it on the biggest stages possible, is pretty cool after being in this business for 25 years. 

Yeah, and it doesn’t hurt to have an excuse to hang out with all your friends in one spot. Who's gonna say no to that? 

You said it. 

You said it's always good to push forward, but sometimes it’s also good to look back and be reflective. Going back to the Something Corporate shows, was that something you ever anticipated would happen again? 

I always made a point when people asked to never say never, right? I mean, I think, especially as I got into starting The Wilderness and having that turn into the behemoth that it became, [Something Corporate] got a little further away. You know, post-COVID and kind of coming back to playing shows and putting out records, there was definitely a moment for me, even in my writing, where a lot of what I was experiencing was this sort of gratitude for where I come from and where my roots were -- you know, the roots I had laid with all of these bands. And so, the Something Corporate thing kind of happened in this very like, I hate to use a very overused word, but it was really organic. I invited them out to my 40th birthday show, which was in Anaheim at the House Of Blues. They were already coming to my party in Vegas the next day. So I was like, “What if you guys just came up and played like six songs as a surprise?” And the feeling on the stage was so electric and there was so much like, you know, just the magic of sharing a stage with guys that you learned to play in a garage with as a kid, it was just palpable. And so, that just started this conversation. Like, “What if we did it? Where would we do it?” And then it was like When We Were Young Fest, so then we booked that and we booked a side show and it sold out in like two seconds and I was like, “Okay, what if we did like another one?” And so we booked a New Year's Eve show and then at that point, we saw the demand for that. We were like, “We should go do this.” Every time we got off stage, the experience of being on stage was just like five guys looking around with just plastered grins across all of our faces. And I think in that moment we were just like, “Why not enjoy that feeling a bunch more times?” And yeah, so it's sort of led to this like pencil sketch of an outline for the years to come where it was like, "You know what, I'm just going to step inside of this sort of reverence for my history and hopefully in that process start unwinding what it is that makes this so special that keeps me wanting to move forward into the future.” 

Speaking of the future, not to look too far ahead, but with Something Corporate checked off last year, Jack’s this year, do you know what 2026 might look like for you? 

I don’t honestly, which I kind of enjoy. I think the beauty of the weirdness of traversing back into the past is that it's actually keeping me very present minded. And it's like, “No, this is what I'm doing right now.” And I think that if I just keep kind of putting one foot in front of the other and enjoying these moments, whatever comes next, that path will start getting some light. 

It's probably refreshing to have options to interweave between different projects. 

Totally. I think the goal is just to experiment and to also focus on the “why” of this. And like, for me, in this moment, it's finding places where as many people can get together and have a great time. To me, that seems like a worthwhile mission and we're fulfilling that right now. We're going into big rooms with people smiling and us leaving it all on stage every night and being around people that I love. Keeping that energy into whatever’s next, that's really the goal.