ADVERTISEMENT

    Andrew McMahon on Touring in Today’s World, Connecting Through Music & More

    “I’m grateful to be back on the road,” singer-songwriter Andrew McMahon shares during our phone conversation earlier in the week. “And I can feel that coming back from the crowd. You definitely get the sense that people are excited to be back in rooms together.”

    ADVERTISEMENT

    For the first time since early 2019, McMahon returns to Columbus Monday night when his Hello Gone Days tour makes its way to KEMBA Live! – co-headlining with alt-rockers Dashboard Confessional with support from the recently-reunited dream-pop outfit Armor for Sleep.

    While his feet have been firmly planted in California for many years, the former Bexley resident still feels a visceral connection to the city; the beautifully composed track “Ohio” from his most recent studio album Upside Down Flowers recollects some of his childhood memories with brilliant imagery.

    “It’ll be really good to get back to my old stomping grounds”, says McMahon.

    While McMahon’s on-stage performances have perpetually brimmed with tangible emotion, the fact that McMahon will mark a couple of important milestones before this current outing concludes in September will surely add to that momentum.

    “It’s my 20th year on tour, and I’m turning 40 while I’m on this one. I’d say I’m feeling a little wistful and nostalgic, you know? [laughs]” McMahon says.

    Adding to his busy year is a soon-to-be-released new album, which is presently being mixed. Late last month, McMahon announced its lead single, “Stars,” would be released on August 17, but it appears it’s already been added to the live show set list.

    McMahon and I took a few minutes to catch up on the tour’s second stop in St. Louis, and it was evident that the good vibes were plentiful when I asked how things were going thus far.

    “The first night [in Minneapolis] was really beautiful,” he exclaimed. “You never know with co-headlining bills how the crowds overlap, but it far exceeded my expectations. Both Chris [Carrabba, the lead vocalist of Dashboard Confessional] and I were really happy with how the sets went, and it seemed like the audience was there for both of us – which was a good feeling, you know?”

    Grant Walters: It’s really good to talk with you again. The last time we connected was just after you released Upside Down Flowers.

    Andrew McMahon: Wow! Yeah, you know, it’s funny – I didn’t think it was going to be, like, four years from the time I put out my last record until I put out this one. But the world moves in mysterious ways and I’m glad the lights seem to be coming back on a little bit.

    GW: I couldn’t agree more. I’ve loved being in the audience lately for a lot of tours that are picking back up again after they got cancelled or rescheduled back at the beginning of the pandemic. The atmosphere at most of the shows I’ve been to has been really special. Different than before. I’m sure you must be feeling that from the stage.

    AM: I’m feeling it on so many levels. It’s not that I haven’t done some touring during the pandemic – I was out for, like, nine weeks last fall and did some drive-ins and what not. But this is really the first real rock show, full-band tour that we’ve put together since 2019. I certainly feel that doing this bill is adding to that.

    I’ve never been one to look backwards too often in my career – I’m always just sort of pressing ahead. It’s nice to have this moment where a couple of bands I knew growing up and I started out with are on these stages together in this really kind of odd but beautiful moment coming out of the pandemic and everything, you know?

    GW: I’ve been really pleased to see that you’ve had some opportunities to open for Billy Joel, who I know is one of your idols. He was your very first concert, right?

    AM: Yeah, he was my very first concert. Back there in Ohio, too!

    GW: I’ve often discussed my first concert in different conversations I’ve had with people over the years, and I can recall so many moments from it vividly – the sound, the lighting, the audience’s reactions. What do you remember most about yours?

    AM: Oh, I mean, I remember a lot. Years later, what I thought was funny was what I didn’t remember that I just was doing on stage that I’d totally onboarded, you know? It was, like, ‘Oh! That’s where I got all my moves. Okay, I get it!’ [laughs] I mean, I remember just the overwhelming feeling of being in a space that big seeing music that you love so much.

    I have a very distinct memory of breaking out in tears hearing a kick drum in an arena, you know what I mean? Just feeling that low-end energy from a kick. And also my parents standing me up on a chair because I was shorter than the entire audience. Just really having that moment.

    [Billy] really was, when I started playing the piano…my parents gave me his Greatest Hits – that was, like, the first thing they did. They said, ‘You really need to listen to this.’ And he also grew up in Jersey, so that was just part of the fabric of east coast culture. Getting to experience that live – I might have been in the fifth or sixth grade, maybe – it changed me, for sure. It was the moment when I said, ‘Oh, this is what I have to do for a living’. That’s saying a lot when you’re 7 or 8 years old, so it stuck with me, clearly.

    GW: And how wonderful that you now get to give that exact gift to your fans during your shows.

    AM: It’s definitely the thing that just doesn’t get old about this job. And why it’s really not a job. You know, in the daytime – I mean, right now, we’re marooned behind a casino and there’s nothing to do, right? [laughs] But to be able to actually share that energy with people every night, and to get that feedback of people singing along. Yeah, I live for it, man.

    GW: I wanted to ask you about your memoir that came out late last year, Three Pianos. I’ve interviewed a few different artists who have committed their stories to paper, and the range of responses when I ask about that experience have ranged from ‘wonderful’ to ‘terrifying.’ Where does yours fall on that spectrum?

    AM: You know, I think it was everything all at once, you know? It was very sincerely cathartic and therapeutic. I’m somebody who’s been pretty upfront about the fact that therapy has really changed my life over the course of the past, I don’t know, eight or 10 years. But I don’t think I’d really even calculated how much deeper that work would go just by virtue of unpacking it onto a page and reliving memories in such depth that you actually have to put the visual into words.

    There was a lot of it that was really hard process-wise and discipline wise, but there was a lot of emotional terrain that I’d thought I’d traversed that I hadn’t as deeply. So, that stuff was difficult, but it was really essential to, in my opinion, kind of clearing the deck of things. I don’t think we realize how much we actually hold onto stuff. I’m the king of that shit, you know what I mean?

    I thought I had let go of a lot, but writing the book – and living through the pandemic and the discomfort of not having your traditional set of distractions, your profession, and everything else to steer you away from moving through those emotions – did a really great thing for me. It was very healing, and I feel very fortunate that I was able to stumble into it.

    But, man, was it hard work. I was joking with the last person I talked to that I didn’t join a band and not show up to college because I was a disciplined guy [laughs]. You need discipline to start and finish a book, there’s no question about it.

    GW: But now you’ve been focusing your energy on a new record, which I can imagine you must be excited to get out after what I imagine was a lengthy process of writing and assembling it over the past few years.

    AM: Yeah, I’m floored. Within the madness of the past few years, I was writing on and off, and I kind of took some time off around the time I was working on the book. I had been writing a bit on the road as I got back from the Upside Down Flowers tour, and I was gearing up to put out another record almost immediately when everything happened. So, when I got back into the studio near the end of February, I was just excited.

    There were enough songs already around that I was already excited about, and I didn’t feel the traditional stress. I thought, ‘Oh, I already have an outline of what this record will be, and now I just have to make it.’ I worked with Tommy English, who produced ‘Island Radio’ and ‘Brooklyn, You’re Killing Me’ on my Zombies on Broadway record. I think he’s one of the most talented guys out there, and he signed up to do the whole record. And we brought in Jeremy Hatcher, who’s a close friend and he’s played in my band before, and he worked on the Harry Styles record and the Maggie [Rogers] record because he’s a producer and engineer, too.

    And so, the three of us just sort of did the thing that at least I’m not seeing done as much as it used to, which is we got in a room together and stayed there for three months just working the songs as a set rather than running off to this writing session, or that writing session. Or having one guy produce this, and another one finish that. I think this music really benefits from the amount of deep work we were able to do – and just the amount of fun we had doing it, you know?

    GW: I am absolutely certain it’s cliched for me to ask you if there’s a theme or some common thread involved. But…

    AM: I think the music is reflective of…I wanted there to be a thread of where I’ve come from and what I’ve learned to be written into these songs, without being too self-important about anything. The music’s a lot of fun, but I found myself trying to glean whatever lessons I might have learned from 20 years on the road. So, I really did have some intentionality there, and then we just carved into these tunes – some of them got started and produced about a dozen times because we really refined the sound with every new song we added into the mix. I think it’s super adventurous. There’s kind of a…and I don’t want to say psychedelic, because conjures the wrong thought of what I consider psychedelic, but sonically it’s really adventurous. When you put on headphones, you’re going to be able to pick out all these rad new moments if you listen over and over again. It just became this really fun album to craft.

    GW: So, of these life lessons you mentioned, is there a particular one you recognize with the most amount of clarity or assuredness?

    AM: Well…I mean, I’m certainly no stranger to inventing the roadblocks and obstacles I need to get around. I think we all do that, and I think the younger you are the more you probably do it. [laughs] If you’re lucky, when you get older, you start working around that a little bit and figure out how to live a more peaceful existence. I think if anything, especially as I found myself writing certain songs on this record, that was one of the things I found myself reflecting on the most.

    It’s, like…look, I’ve blown up two music projects over the past two years and completely started over at different times. And a lot of that was essential to my growth, for sure. I think some of the ways I did that weren’t always the best, you know? I think I could have been easier on myself along the way, and I think there’s a lot of forgiveness in this new music – not just for other people, but also for the mistakes I’ve made that I’m not proud of, but I’m proud to be on the other side of. So, yeah, I think there’s a certain freeness in this music – ‘Hey, don’t beat yourself up too much,’ you know what I mean?

    There’s a lot of life to be lived if you’re willing to do the work and be a kind person, and there certainly have been times when I’ve been neither of those things, you know, and I’ve paid the price for it. I think it’s really about that. And I’m just really trying to enjoy myself now [laughs] and write the fuck out of a song and make it fun in the studio.

    GW: When you think about your music among the broader community of people that it reaches – in what way do you feel your art is intended, or maybe has the most potential, to accomplish for others? How do you think your music speaks to the world?

    AM: I think for me, I’ve always been an escapist. There are so many ways to make art, and there are so many different types of artists. I feel now more than ever we need artists to get political, but try as I may there’s just been nothing that’s ever really connected with me. I mean, I connect with that kind of music and I’m glad it exists, but where I see my contribution – and where I also see the necessity of music for me as both a write and lover of [it] – is in providing people with a space to truly freak out and feel alive without any of their hang-ups or differences being put on display.

    You know, I think there’s this necessity in our culture right now to find your enemy as quickly as possible and to cut them down. And I get why a lot of that is happening, but I think the beauty of music is that for a couple of hours standing in a room, if you’re lucky, you might stand next to somebody you don’t see eye-to-eye with and sing the same song. And maybe that thread of love and optimism helps temper our less-than-desirable impulses to be at odds with our neighbor. We need neighborly spaces now more than ever, and there seem to be fewer and fewer of them. Music offers that.

    When I’m on stage, I’m seeing people that I know don’t all think the same thing – but at least for a little while they can agree on one thing, and that’s the music. That’s beautiful in my mind.


    Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness brings his Hello Gone Days tour to KEMBA Live! on Monday, August 8, co-headlining with Dashboard Confessional (Armor for Sleep opens). General admission tickets are $39.50, plus taxes and fees. Show is outdoors and all ages. Doors open at 6 p.m. A limited number of VIP packages are available for purchase ($65, plus service fees), which must accompany a paid general admission ticket.

    ADVERTISEMENT

    Subscribe

    More to Explore:

    The Confluence Cast: Grave Matters – Unearthing the North Graveyard

    There is often a complex interplay between preservation and progress. A year into his exploration, Columbus Underground reporter Jesse Bethea continues to sift through the story of how the removal of remains from what was once the North Market parking lot unfolded. From the contentious removal of centuries-old graves to the forensic analysis of unearthed remains, today’s episode navigates the ethical, legal, and emotional complexities surrounding the issue.  In the quest to honor the past while embracing the future, we examine what lies beneath the surface of urban development and confront the ghosts of history that still shape our city today.

    Photos: Two Door Cinema Club Plays to Sold-Out Crowd

    Northern Irish indie-rock three-piece Two Door Cinema Club stopped...

    Photos: Brit-Rock (And More) Invades The Newport

    Post-Britpop radio-hit wonders The Kooks returned to Columbus on...

    Concert Preview: On the Record with Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek

     Bluegrass evergreens Nickel Creek are touring in support of...

    Photos: Pierce the Veil at KEMBA Live!

    The temperature may have plummeted outside, but inside the...
    Grant Walters
    Grant Waltershttps://columbusunderground.com
    Grant is a freelance writer for Columbus Underground who primarily focuses on music and comedy. He's a Canadian transplant, born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and schooled in Vancouver, British Columbia. Grant is also the co-author of two internationally acclaimed books: "Decades: The Bee Gees in the 1960s" and "Decades: The Bee Gees in the 1970s." He has also penned numerous articles and artist interviews for the nationally recognized site, Albumism.
    ADVERTISEMENT