One of pop-rock’s most notable piano men, Andrew McMahon of Jack’s Mannequin, is back to the ivories, wrapping up a summer tour with Guster and gearing up for the release of the band’s third album “People and Things.”
Jack’s Mannequin and Guster’s summer tour is circling the Columbia area, having played in Myrtle Beach Wednesday night and coming to Charlotte Friday and Charleston Saturday.
“From city to city, there are a lot of similarities. From place to place, world to world, people just want to come out and listen to music,” McMahon said. “There aren’t any dramatic differences in the crowds, maybe just the accents.”
The two bands, who have come together for the monthlong tour, first met playing Denver’s Mile High Music Festival in 2009. Sharing a similar musical sound, and in turn a certain core group of fans, the tour has struck a chord for alternative and pop-rock concertgoers and also revealed the two bands’ undeniable compatibility.
McMahon joins Guster on stage, backing with piano, for their encore, and Jack’s Mannequin plays a cover with the Boston-bred rockers each night.
But the tour, which sold out Central Park’s SummerStage, keeps things interesting with little twists and turns in each night’s musical lineup.
“We don’t play the same set every night, which is kind of a saving grace,” McMahon said. “Of course, there will be some of the same songs overlapping from night to night, but I tend to find when you rearrange them a little bit and tweak from day to day, that’s where you get that feeling of spontaneity.”
Jack’s Mannequin, identified by a more upbeat, poppy, piano-driven sound, has two full-lengths under their belt — 2005’s “Everything in Transit,” and 2008’s “The Glass Passenger.” Featuring their most famous singles “The Mixed Tape,” “Dark Blue” and “The Resolution,” they have found a niche, and impressed with a familiar, yet distinctly identifiable sound.
On the heels of their third album, “People and Things,” due out Oct. 4, it has been exactly three years — the same gap of time that has fallen between each of their three releases.
“I’m just slow. I started the record in a similar fashion as I started the other two, kind of beginning with the piano and vocal, and then building the track around it. But, it just didn’t feel right,” McMahon said.
And, when the feeling wasn’t right, McMahon pulled out the ultimate overhaul to perfect his music and vision.
“Where I think this record wanted to come out last summer, I sort of took the leap of faith and started over, and in September of last year, we began recording again,” McMahon said. “It’s just the twists and turns the creative road takes you on, and I certainly hope that when it comes to the next record, we aren’t making you guys wait a few years again.”
The album’s first single “My Racing Thoughts,” which is available for download on iTunes, adopts a sound somewhere between “Transit” and “Passenger” on first listen, harkening back to the catchy, pop-driven singles from the first and relying on the slowed-down, more alternative latter.
“I think both [albums] were largely studio efforts. I would write a song, sit down with the piano and sing, and then we built the band around the elements, whereas I think with this record, we actually did it in a much more traditional way,” McMahon said. “We brought the band into the house, learned all the songs together and went into the studio and laid down our basic track live and did our own production from there. I think fans that have seen us on the road, seen us on tour, will find that the album is a pretty honest representation of what we do live.”
The album also departs from the traditional Jack’s Mannequin practice, bringing in some outside songwriting and musical collaborations, including Matt Thiessen from Relient K, for a few of the songs.
“Historically, I’ve written everything — 100 percent. On this record, I feel like so much of the music was about these shared experiences and all these people in my world,” McMahon said.
And those shared experiences reveal some of the growing pains, and the realization that McMahon and many of his friends are all approaching age 30 and a whole new chapter in life.
“You start really thinking about things and your life in a different way,” McMahon said. “My friends are getting married and moving in with their partners and all these different things, and a lot of the songs on this record are about late-night conversations with those friends about this time in their life, and some of the aspects of that that I don’t think are regularly visited in the light of day.”
With the album’s release just two months out, McMahon and Jack’s Mannequin are closing out the summer with Guster and gearing back up for “The People and Things Tour,” which kicks off in October.
Visit Jack’s Mannequin’s website at jacksmannequin.com for tickets to their Guster and solo tour dates, as well as to preorder “People and Things.”