 "Photo: Angelica Bonus / Staff Photographer")
 "Photo: Angelica Bonus / Staff Photographer")
Sara Gretina: Let me start off by asking, how do you say your last name? I’ve heard lots of variations.
Andrew McMahon: ‘McMan.’ Like Ed McMahon. I might as well just make it ‘M-A-N’ but it’s my Irish heritage that gave me that one.
SG: Why not tell me a little about the “Dear Jack” DVD, EP and foundation. Which one came first; what inspired the others?
AM: The very beginning of it was a song called “Dear Jack,” which was the namesake of the band, and it was a song I wrote for a friend who was kind of going through a tough time. But he was also — completely coincidentally — a leukemia survivor. So I named the band after him and then when I was sick with the same thing, it was this bizarre — I don’t know if serendipitous is the word, considering — but it was definitely a weird, faded deal. I didn’t put the song out. I’m putting it out with the “Dear Jack” EP that’s going to come out with the [“Dear Jack”] movie. But then when I started recovering and decided I would start a foundation, trying to give back for the sake for that I was here and well, it seemed appropriate to call the foundation Dear Jack. When we started the documentary, that was kind of the working title throughout and it ended up making sense, so we stuck with it. This will probably be the last of anything named “Dear Jack” at this point, but that’s how it all came to be.
SG: You have a little tour going on right now. You have screenings, one tomorrow and then out in California.
AM: All the money from the screenings is going to the foundation as well. And some of my [merchandise] proceeds from this tour will also go back to the foundation.
SG: So what can people expect from the screenings? Will it just be a screening or will it be a show also?
AM: No, no. It’s just a screening, but I’m not actually sitting in the theaters watching the screenings. I thought it would awkward to be in the theater while, one, I’m watching me, and other people are watching me, and then turn around and see me. You know what I mean. It seemed inverted and weird. But I will come out and do a short Q&A with myself and the two filmmakers.
SG: What was it like to work with Tommy Lee on this?
AM: It was awesome. We were working together quite a bit while I was working on “[Everything in] Transit,” which is how Tommy [Lee] ended up factoring into the film and whatnot. Working with him on the music was — I want to say a dream come true — but I don’t even know if I had the forethought to dream that dream. When I was in second and third grade, Motley Crüe was all over MTV. And we loved it. It was great. When we realized we would need a narrator, obviously your instinct is to find someone who’s going to lend some sort of additional credibility to the project or an additional celebrity to peak people’s interest, so immediately — just because Tommy is already in so much of the footage that we were cataloguing — it was like ‘Dude, let’s get Tommy to do it.’ He’s got a big, deep voice, and it’s recognizable and he’s our friend. So he obliged us and came in. Did the voiceover for a day or two. And it was great.
SG: So do you have plans to collaborate with anyone else in your music?
AM: Collaborations are something I’m always open to. I started recording new music — just the beginning, hatching stages — put my toe in the water and see what’s coming next. I did a couple tracks with Steve Ferrone, who’s the drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and he was in Duran Duran. He did drums with us on a couple of tracks, which was awesome. So on this next record, I’ll probably invite a handful of different people to join us in the studio and kind of provide us with their classic qualities that go into making those great records. So there’s some of that. I just recently collaborated with The Academy Is [and] put out a track with them for their record. It’s something I’m definitely starting to get into more and more.
SG: Is there anybody that you dream about collaborating with?
AM: Hmm, in truth, I think it would be awesome to step outside myself, outside my world, and collaborate with someone, like a pop artist. You know what I mean? Write songs for somebody who’s doing something altogether different to kind of challenge myself. I mean obviously, I’m not going to get a gig writing for Madonna anytime soon or something like that, but I could see it being fun to kind of tap into that world.
SG: Why did you choose to come back to the University for a show last night?
AM: They asked us. I made a point probably since the second Something Corporate album broke. It became an effort of ours to play the colleges. When you go to an all-ages gig, it’s always going to be a certain kind of show. When you open up for people in big venues, it’s always going to be a certain kind of show. To do the colleges for us is a good way for to inform people who actively listen to and trade music. It gives us a chance to play to those people and people who haven’t heard the music already. When you end up doing the college gig, it’s a more affordable show and it becomes a campus event, and in that sense, it gives us an opportunity to reach out to people who are online and talk a lot. And that’s good for our base.
SG: So what can students expect?
AM: [A] big a** rock show! (laughs) The whole band will be here and we’ll be partying. Our goal when we go out to play shows is just to play well, to give a good, entertaining rock show, to give people a good rock concert. To try and conceptualize too far beyond that is a step away from what rock music is to begin with. You know? We don’t try to over-think it. Everyone just plugs in and hopefully people are dancing and having a good time, and it’s all said and done.
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