Mraz wants his Good turn to inspire others..
Singer donates album royalties to aid Black Lives Matter
With the world in lockdown mode to help stop the spread of COVID19, it’s an extremely difficult time for most artists bringing out new music because it’s hard to get the word of mouth going without being able to tour.
But Grammy award winner Jason Mraz should have no problem spreading the word about his new upbeat album considering his massive following on social media.
He’s got a staggering 5.5 million followers on Twitter, a cool 12 million fans on Facebook and a further 1.4 million curious souls keeping up to speed with him on Instagram. Oh, yeah, and let’s not forget, his Youtube channel has almost 3 million subscribers, too.
And like his new album’s title Look For The Good, it’s easy to find just that in this down-to-earth superstar who has very generously decided to donate all profits from the album to non-profit organisations fighting the good fight as part of BLM.
Also, Jason has quite literally put his money where his mouth is too, by donating his own $250,000 advance on royalties from the record label.
“I am proud to stand in solidarity with and be of service to Black Lives by donating all of my earnings from sales and streams of my new LP,” he said.
“My personal engagement with philanthropy has never been motivated by a press opportunity. But I am announcing my contributions publicly in hope of inspiring other creators and business leaders to do the same – to share the wealth, to share the profits, and to acknowledge that life is only great when it’s great for everyone.”
In fairness to the guy – seeing as he put his blood, sweat and tears into making the album – it’s ridiculous to even think about trying to accuse him of making a big song and dance about his generosity, as if it’s all just to cash-in for some so-called “cheap publicity”.
Besides, Jason knows all too well about how difficult it really is to struggle out there in the real world. Before hitting the big time, the American singer-songwriter had to work his fair share of s **** y jobs – literally.
“I was working as a janitor at an elementary school. It was nasty. There was cleaning up Kool Aid, and birthday cake, and just gross things that kids make – which wasn’t all peas and carrots!” he said in this exclusive interview with the Irish Daily Mirror.
Jason also worked for the United States Postal Service, which was another type of crappy job that has been forever immortalised in Charles Bukowski’s semi-autobiographical novel Post Office.
“I was a clerk delivering mail to mail carriers inside the post office. I had to be there at ‘dark o’clock’ in the morning, about four-thirty, sometimes four am, to start sorting the mail,” he recalled.
“And that was a drag because I wanted to be a musician. I wanted to be a rock ‘n’ roll-er. I wanted to be up till four in the morning; I wanted to stay up all night – not have to go to bed at nine o’clock because I had to get up at dark and go to work. So, that sucked.”
The 43-year-old, who grew up in Virginia, first started playing around with the guitar in his teens, but it wasn’t until after winning a scholarship to go to university when he finally got his first very own acoustic six-stringer and took music more seriously.
He recalled, “In my senior year of High School, I had a friend who started showing me some chords. And I thought, ‘Oh that’s how you do it! Ok, these are chords’.
“And then when I got to college, a friend of mine had a new guitar and was getting rid of an old one and I said, ‘Wait! Let me have that guitar’. I wanted to try practicing those chords.
“So, I was finally able to bang on (a guitar) and have some fun. I was a late learner, I wish I had started at a younger age.”
But then, instead of cracking open the schoolbooks, Jason dropped out and headed west on a road trip in the late ’90s and ended up becoming a roadie in San Diego.
Jason put’s his free spiritedness down to the profound effect his parents’ divorce, at aged only five, had on him.
“And not necessarily in a bad way. Because my parents where still loving, and when they got remarried I ended up with four parents instead of just two, so I was lucky in that case. Eight grandparents. So, I felt I ended up with a bigger family,” he explained.
“But, looking back, my parents worked really hard and we didn’t have the constant togetherness, the constant affection that makes for a healthy upbringing.
“But what it did give me was a lot of time to myself to be creative, which turned me into a kid who, much like in any divorced home, I packed a suitcase at 18.
“I always had a suitcase packed since I was five-years-old, I would go to my dad’s on the weekend, back to my mam’s during the week – a suitcase, back and forth.
“So, when I turned 18 it felt natural to keep my suitcase and keep going places. And now that I was free to get out of my home, I was just going to go and travel the world.
“And because I never had that constant family dynamic and that affection, I didn’t feel that I should even stay home. I didn’t even feel like I should continue to do that because my family were divorced and had their own (new) families. I said, ‘Great! I’m going to go have my own family somewhere’.
“So I think that (the divorce) did have an effect on me, that’s not necessarily a negative effect, but it certainly influenced who I became and how I chose to live my life, yeah.”
Jason, who started out on the long and winding road by playing at coffee houses in San Diego in the early noughties, met his future wife Christina Carano (inset) – surprise, surprise – when ordering a cup of Java in 2007.
“She was a coffee shop owner and
‘‘
I am announcing my contributions publicly in hope of inspiring other creators and business leaders to do the same
I was a customer. I went in to get a coffee and a smoothie – and she was the one behind the counter making those delicious beverages and her kind service and kind smile won me over,” he said. The happy couple married in 2015. But how long was it before Jason knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her?
“Oh, I still don’t know!” he said, laughing. “But it didn’t feel very long, probably instantaneous. But I was cautious a little: ‘Let’s just wait. Let’s calm down’. So, it probably took a couple of years before I said, ‘Oh, you know what? Let’s really do this, try this thing’.”
Jason – who came out as bisexual in 2018 – was supposedly seeing a guy when he first started dating Christina in 2011. But, as we known all too well, you certainly can’t believe everything you read online. “Ah, the timing is a little off. Yeah, when I met my wife I wasn’t dating anybody else at the time,” Jason told me.
Jason was understandably nervous about discussing his sexuality in the open “love letter”, as Billboard put it, when he came out during Gay Pride
Month in 2018. “I’m bi your side,” he revealed in a lovely poetic note to the LGBT community.
How does he feel looking back on it all now?
“So grateful, because I totally understand why there are so many closeted gays, because society’s just not kind, or society can certainly amplify an unkindness when it wishes to,” he reflected.
“So, I was a little nervous: ‘How’s my family going to feel? What are they going to think of the news? Or what are they going to think of me, having growing up hearing not nice things said either in my family, or in my community, about people who are different, or specifically LGBT?’
“So, finally, coming out was actually more of a relief. And one of the cosmic jokes in coming out is: nobody really cares! But we put so much pressure on ourselves because of how much hatred we’ve seen in society, historically.
“At least that was my experience. I put so much pressure on myself to not speak out, not come forward in my youth, because I was scared. But nobody really cares. So I’m glad I did. And my parents love me even more for it, which is great.”
Jason comes across as an open book and – unlike many other big stars – is clearly comfortable candidly chatting about himself. But, even though we could talk all day about his fascinating personal life, it would be unfair not to ask him something about the new album…
“The album itself is a collection of reggae songs that span a variety of reggae genres from vintage reggae like Rocksteady to more modern Hip hop reggae kind of feeling,” he said.
“The album is ‘Peace’/ Love’/’happiness’/’good Vibes’ – all the same things that I’ve been singing about for years, trying to keep those messages going because, no matter what’s going on, a pandemic or not, we, as humans, are always facing the potential of uncertainty in life that makes life scary. There’s always been various issues that need addressing.
“So, I’ve tried to comfort myself through song. This album also started to address some things, such as equality, but I do that subtly on the album – still putting an emphasis on the positive, the ‘Peace and Love’… how to look for the good in each situation.”
One thing’s for certain, Jason – whose Czech surname Mraz means “frost” – is definitely not a cold fish and is more a half-glass full type. You can definitely feel the love on his new album. Go check it out.
■Jason Mraz’s new album Look For The Good is out now via BMG.