People Who Need People

In an interview last year, frontman Andrew McMahon of Pop Rock band Jack’s Mannequin said the band’s mission was simply to get “people fired up for some new music.” That new music arrived in early October with People and Things, the third album from the group led by the piano-playing vocalist McMahon.

That mission has continued with the winter leg of the People and Things tour, as the band continues to share songs from the new album. The concerts on the tour have featured a healthy dose of the new material and McMahon says the songs have translated well to the live stage.

Fans have responded enthusiastically to the People and Things material, which was written and recorded quite differently than Jack Mannequin’s first two albums, the main difference being that it was a genuine group effort.

“Most of the other two Jack’s Mannequin albums came from me in the studio,” McMahon says of his usual, more solitary methods. “Sometimes we’d have to rearrange the songs so we could do them live. With this record, we figured out how it feels, how it works, (with all of us) in a room together. We’ve been on the road playing songs every show for so many years. We have a skill we’ve developed over the years that a lot of bands don’t have. Why don’t we exploit that?”

The songs still originated with the prolific McMahon, but the rest of the band contributed parts to the structures — a bridge here, a line there — and the arrangements came together naturally and as they’ll be heard on stage. McMahon says when the band began playing shows again after People and Things was completed (starting with last summer’s Warped Tour stop in Cincinnati), the plan was to lightly touch on but “not to inundate people with new songs.” The band backed off of that plan while they were rehearsing for the tour because, as McMahon says, “it sounded so good and felt so good” that they ended up playing a few of the then-unreleased songs each night.

Regardless of whether the band is playing songs that are brand new or a half-decade old, Jack’s Mannequin is known for its high-energy, crowd-pleasing shows. McMahon says that comes from a sense of obligation.

“I have a real relationship with fans,” he says. “If I don’t put on a good show or have a show and I feel bad about it, I feel guilty. If we have a bad show, that’s what they take home with them (and) you can’t have that. You do have bad nights, but you have to figure out how to connect with the audience and get through it.”

McMahon (and, as a result, Jack’s Mannequin) was almost not around to foster that dedicated fanbase. Just months before Jack’s Mannequin’s debut album, Everything in Transit, was to be released, he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. On Aug. 23, 2005, the day the album came out, McMahon received a stem cell transplant from his sister, Katie.

McMahon has largely recovered from the disease, but he says it’s never far from his mind.

“It’s kind of one of those things you deal with on a day-to-day basis,” McMahon says. “As I get farther away from it, it is less of a thing I deal with in my head. I thought it would disappear quickly, but it does influence what you think about.”

In 2006, McMahon formed the Dear Jack Foundation to raise funds for pediatric cancer research. A portion of the proceeds from most Jack’s Mannequin shows goes to the foundation.

Though McMahon has been outspoken about his winning battle against the disease, he doesn’t see himself as any kind of hero.

“To the extent anybody finds any inspiration and hope, I relish that, it’s an honor,” he says. “But I try to be clear with people that anybody faced with that situation would do it the same way.”

While McMahon soldiered on as soon as he was physically able, he says getting over the cancer took longer and was likely more difficult than it may have appeared.