iRocktography: See what music looks like

Lead singer is Andrew McMahon, he’s solo now and also previously performed with Something Corporate who formed back in 1998, more of a pop/punk/rock feel, closer to Yellowcard, All Time Low or Simple Plan. No big hit songs but they made their mark and managed a few tracks that attracted fans, “If you C Jordan”, “Punk Rock Princess” and “I woke up in a car”

iRocktography: See what music looks like

iRocktography: See what music looks like

iRocktography: See what music looks like

Next he was with Jack’s Mannequin, more of an alt/rock style, piano driven, closer akin to a spiced up Ben Folds Five, with Dashboard Confessional and Jimmy Eat World thrown in the mix. Again no mega hits but “the Resolution” made the charts and “My Racing Thoughts” were a couple of standouts. The band garnered plenty of attention when their songs appeared on the TV series One Tree Hill.

iRocktography: See what music looks like

iRocktography: See what music looks like

iRocktography: See what music looks like

McMahon started writing his own songs. He did not expect the songs to be released. McMahon took a more therapeutic approach in writing these songs, resulting in a more personal and intimate testament of his songwriting. McMahon stated in an interview that they dealt with

“coming home, and having home be way different than I had remembered it […], abandoning a lot of people, and things, that I had normally been so attached to […], exploring and being okay with myself, and not having to make excuses for who I am, and accepting who I am.”

Although he just planned on recording these songs, they began to take shape collectively. He paid for the production out of his own pocket, which ultimately led to a record deal with Maverick Records. Wikipedia

iRocktography: See what music looks like

iRocktography: See what music looks like

iRocktography: See what music looks like

According to AbsolutePunk.net, McMahon had this to say about the new album, “I consider ‘People and Things’ a relationship record. My goal with many of the songs was to strip away the flowery language and sentiment attached to newer love and replace it with starker, less blinded language about more binding love. In the time following the last Jack’s album the people in my world were moving in together, getting married, trying to find quote unquote ‘real jobs’ and reconciling new lives that looked a lot less like youth than some of us cared for. Marriage is a bit of a beast to tackle in a pop record but when I wrote ‘My Racing Thoughts,’ it became clear how powerful and loaded a subject this kind of love is and somewhere in that moment I began to lock into the broad concept for the writing sessions to come.”

iRocktography: See what music looks like

iRocktography: See what music looks like

iRocktography: See what music looks like

In another unrelated interview, McMahon established “this album should be different than the previous few. The first (Everything In Transit) was about breaking up, the second (The Glass Passenger) was about getting sick and recovering from it. I hated that album at first, until we wrote this one (People and Things) and I then realized how proud I am of all of my work. This album will be much more ‘cheery’ than the last one(s).

iRocktography: See what music looks like

iRocktography: See what music looks like

iRocktography: See what music looks like

Their first album, titled Everything in Transit, was released in August 2005 and received a positive response from fans and critics alike. A summer tour was scheduled to support the record release, but was canceled after McMahon was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and received a stem cell transplant from his sister Kate. McMahon says his battle with cancer played into his decision to name his latest project Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness

Dropping the name Jack’s Mannequin a couple years back and is no embarking on a solo career with Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness. I’m not a huge fan of his earlier stuff, not big on the pop/punk genre, but love his recent work, especially “Cecilia and the Satellite”, his latest single, wonderful song, check it out…