Walking on Broken Glass

“God, I’m so glad it’s over I can’t even tell you!” Andrew McMahon exclaims as he sits outside of the Asbury Park Convention Hall in New Jersey. He’s about to play for thousands of screaming fans, debuting songs from Jack’s Mannequin’s sophomore album The Glass Passenger—but it’s been one hell of a journey to get here. “We worked on the album for so long,” he says of the two-year process. “It’s the first time I’ve actually burned myself out on the music. It was a labor of love but it was definitely a love/hate labor, too. Of all the songs I’ve had to write in my life, these were the hardest to write. Some came easier than others for sure, but it was a scary project to take on.”
            It’s impossible to talk about the frontman and creative mind behind the Los Angeles-based four-piece without addressing his battle with leukemia, which began at age 22 (There. Said it. Got it out of the way). But while his struggle was somewhat of a public one, so was his triumph. In August 2005, after a grueling physical struggle with the disease, McMahon was able to get a stem-cell transplant from his sister, opening the door to a full recovery.
            However, though his health had been restored, the reparation in his mind had yet to begin. “I use music to sort my brain out and sort through the stuff that weighs on me, and unfortunately in the case of this record, there were so many things from the past that I had not addressed in song and in actuality,” he admits.
            Let’s be clear — The Glass Passenger is not “the cancer record,” and McMahon is adamant about that. It’s his reconciliation, and while fans may not have gone through his specific battle, the songs and their lyrics extend an empathetic hand to those who have had to deal with pain, heartache, despair and the acceptance of it all. “It was easier to strap into this idea or collective consciousness of struggle rather than [have the album] be specific to the struggle,” he explains. “Watching the news every day … it looks to me, from where I’m standing, like a traumatized global landscape right now. Maybe my more finite struggle plays into a much larger one that’s worth writing about.”
            The follow-up to 2005’s lauded Everything in Transit is a musical map of McMahon’s mental recovery process. At the beginning of his writing course, the charismatic pianist had no interest in talking about his ordeal, but as he ran from it, he ultimately found himself staring it right in the face. That’s when the songs started flowing.
            The Glass Passenger offers much fuller sound than Everything in Transit, exemplifying a classic rock maturity infused with McMahon’s signature arcing melodies and blossoming arrangements. Its a deliberate sequence, like a story told from beginning to (open) end, but these 14 tracks did not come with ease.
            Last December, McMahon got in his car to begin a long drive to his friend’s house in Las Vegas. He had 12 songs to sequence and put to his road-trip-worthy test. Then, just 10 minutes outside of L.A., he realized that his work was not done. In an instant, McMahon decided he needed to drive across the country to try and get it right. “I stayed on the road for two weeks and I didn’t nail it once,” he says. “I was like, ‘OK, I guess this means we’ve got to write more songs.’ I came home and that’s when we did ‘Lullaby,’ ‘Orphans’ and ‘The Resolution.’” “The Resolution” is not only the album’s single, but also its benchmark. Contrary to what the title implies, it shows McMahon is still searching for closure with the suggestion that he almost found his way. Lyrically and sonically, the song exists as the ultimate embodiment of hope.
            And then there’s the stark album-ender, “Caves.” “All of the songs you hear leading up to ‘Caves’ are truthfully a bi-product of everything that’s in that song,” he says. “But I also think that it’s the perfect summation of the two years this process was about—the idea of trying to break the glass to get the history off my mind.”
            McMahon turns his head into the wind and looks at the venue, reflecting on the show he’s about to perform. Life—though an often arduous battle—ebbs, flows and implores us to learn from its events with the strength to move forward into the unknown. This is something McMahon understands completely, and despite all he’s been through, he wouldn’t change a thing about his past. “In some ways I wish I hadn’t gotten sick, but in some ways it put the brakes on for me long enough, hard enough and in a way that impacted me enough that I pit just about everything I do in life against that experience and the reality that what we’re doing here is so temporary.
            “I was driven to music, not necessarily because I was inherently some great musician, but because I have this fire to communicate and relate,” he muses. “Music made it possible to draw those parallels between my life and everyone else’s, so I can’t complain right now. Even the most negative things that have happened to me have had some hugely positive impact, and it seems right now, more than ever, people seem to be connecting to what I’m saying—and that’s really all I’ve ever sought to do.”