Waves of success for Jack Johnson

By MIKE HOULAHAN

There are two constants in Jack Johnson's life - music and surfing.

Luckily, he is good at both. It means they subsidise each other. The self-penned tracks he wrote and recorded for his acclaimed surf movies helped to establish his music career. And that burgeoning music career now means he can surf the world as he tours with his band.

"I was surfing at Bondi before this interview," says Johnson who is about to tour New Zealand.

"There was a great break out there today: it doesn't always get up like that. We came down early for a friend's wedding, and since then we've been surfing and hanging around before starting the tour."

Johnson's laid-back lifestyle has been under threat, thanks to the success of debut album Brushfire Fairytales and its follow-up On And On - both of which have topped the New Zealand chart.

He had been about to call closing time on the On And On album tour and head off on a long holiday away from the music business, but he heard the Southern Hemisphere calling.

"We'd decided to take a pretty long break come New Year, but we thought we should probably come back to New Zealand and Australia one more time because it's somewhere we really care about. And hopefully we'll be able to keep coming here.

"Sometimes when I'm touring I'm stuck in a bus and then hotel rooms all the time, whereas whenever I come here I don't come off a month of touring and feel like I've been burnt out - I feel like I've been at home. I get to surf every day, I get to wear sandals and a pair of trunks every day - it doesn't feel stressful."

Johnson can partly blame one of his best friends, Ben Harper, for his sometimes stressful lifestyle. The two had never met before Harper came to town for a concert and Johnson randomly met the rocker's producer J.P. Plunier - a fellow surfer.

Plunier invited him to the show, where Johnson met Harper. That was where he thought the story would end, but for the intervention of an acquaintance who gave Plunier a copy of one of Johnson's tapes. Impressed, Plunier passed it on to Harper.

"A few months later I got a chance to record with J.P. and Ben came in and played on the session, then invited me on tour," Johnson says, still sounding bewildered about the whole thing.

His tone is more understandable when he explains he had never played live before being asked to tour the States with Harper three years ago. He'd never even sung for a bigger audience than a few friends around a campfire, so was petrified for the first few shows.

"I'm just so grateful for the support he's given me every step of the way, which has extended more and more. We've just become bigger and better friends," Johnson says.

The pair played New Zealand earlier this year, but Johnson is filling halls in his own right this time. And he's following in Harper's footsteps by bringing along a friend, Donavon Frankenreiter, whose record he has just produced.

"He fitted right in: he knew the importance of mandatory five o'clock surf breaks," Johnson says.

Johnson's studio is at his Hawaii home, and his account of how he and bandmates Adam Topol (drums) and Merlo Podlewski (bass) made On And On sounds more like a summer holiday than the making of the "difficult" second album.

Topol and Podlewski relocated their lives to Hawaii, sessions were structured around the tides, and tracks were laid down when the vibe felt right.

"Usually I go into studio when I feel I have enough songs for a record," Johnson says.

"There's no stress, I'm not trying to write there. When I get to the studio it's just to put the songs down on the tape. I like it to be a friends and family atmosphere, have everything relaxed.

"This is your life and you can get real serious about your music and think you have to lock yourself away from the world to write your record. That might be an okay way for some people to work, but for me it would seem like I'd lost a year of my life."

Ultimately, Johnson wants to make records people can put on at barbecues, or on in the car when on a road trip with friends.

"You kind of have to record it in a similar setting, with friends around offering their two cents. I like having friends telling what they like or don't like about my music - ultimately that's what the music's for, for friends to listen to together."

Then there's the fun of playing that music to friends. That's what Johnson feels happens when he comes to New Zealand, and why he will happily crank up the frequent flyer miles coming back Downunder. "Before we came to New Zealand the first time, we started getting word the album was doing well and that got us excited to come down," Johnson says.

"Other places we've gone once or twice and played shows and nothing really happened - you don't get anxious to get back to those places because you don't feel any connection.

"With New Zealand, right off the bat it felt like there was an energy pulling us there.

"Once we came and played it got stronger, and we're always keen to come back."

Performance

Who: Jack Johnson

Where: St James Theatre

Where: tomorrow night

- NZPA