Interview: Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness Talks “Zombies On Broadway”, Home vs. Tour Life, and Living in the Present

By: Curtis Sindrey –

Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness.

Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness is back with his new album, Zombies on Broadway, out February 10th via Vanguard Records.

Having been diagnosed with cancer in New York in 2005, McMahon found himself wanting to return to the city to battle some demons leading to the creation of Zombies On Broadway. Its lead single, “Fire Escape”, shares the tale of McMahon’s experience in the city that never sleeps, and in our new interview McMahon details the influence the Big Apple had on the making of Zombies, along with how balances home vs. tour life, and more!

The video for “Fire Escape” is heavily influenced by New York City. How did the concept come about?

It was just sort of a hair brained idea from me and this creative partner I’ve been working with on and off. Mostly been doing stage visuals and stage production for us on the last record.

It started with the tour when we went out with Weezer for the summer. We carried around on tour, those inflatable car salesman people things, and as we realized we were gearing up to do a video, I said “Well you guys should probably do a video too, we’ve been having so much fun doing stage productions, so I said why don’t we just bring these things to life, give them names and have them bath each other, make a baby” and then the rest was history.

How has writing and recording in New York inspired and influenced this album?

Well I think anytime, for me I can change location and tap into different energies and you know hang out with different friends. Sort of surround myself in new stimulates, it changes what comes down on the page and what ends up in the speakers. It’s kind of a cheap trick in a sense but it’s one that I’ve found has worked for me over the years. And I think having so much of my life that’s the backdrop of Southern California. This has been an experiment that I’ve wanted to run for a lot of years and was glad to be in a position to do so.

Yeah, you have a lot of history with the city and that sort of thing because that’s where you were diagnosed right? 

That’s correct. Yeah I lived in New Jersey for a few years as a kid and so I do have some east coast roots. I was born in Massachusetts and my family and I kind of gradually made our way West. But yeah there’s always been, I think there’s always been a part of me on the east coast. And certainly I have entered part of my heavier larger life moments on the east coast, in New York specifically.

The album cover has a very spacey concept. How did it come to be?

True, true. Well, again I’m really blessed to be surrounded by some amazing creative minds and there’s a photographer who shot the cover and all the rest of the album artwork as well. There’s a guy named Brendan Walter who we happened to work with pretty much from the beginning of the last album. We always aim for playful photo shoots and things that fall under worldly… and had some touch of whimsy to it I guess, haha.

Whimsical?

Yeah. And we, when we ended up booking the shoot, I sort of made the joke “I’m only going to show up if you rent me a space suit”. And they did, haha. Not only did they rent a space suit, they rented a pretty expensive one with a fairly nice helmet that we decided to, you know not waste, with a lot of shots with it. So when Walter sent over and it was literally within a day or two of the shoot, Walter sent over some initial inspiration and I fell in love with what ended up being the cover.

I think largely there’s a part of me that has always felt, you know in some way or another that half of me is in outer space and the other half of me is down here on earth. To have, hysterically I think this record sums up that feeling quite well and to have the cover reflect the perfect full circle of the reflection that’s inside.

The new album is pretty dynamic where it goes from fun and upbeat tracks like “Fire Escape” to more introspective piano-driven moments. How liberating was it for you to be able to experiment?

It was, I mean it was in every way liberating and terrifying. So I think, I don’t know if I’d ever be happy if I weren’t taking chances. So to sort of be in the position that I was put in after the last record. “Cecilia and the Satellite” was so successful and it put me in a place where I could really reach out to collaborations and other artists that I was excited to get in the room with, and do that on so many different occasions. It made to where all I could do was take chances and have fun, play with this sort of freedom I had been given.

But you know of course the flip side to that coin is, as a person who has cultivated a fan base for a lot of years and who cares, you know deeply about how these things are received when they come out. On the other side, you know, you do the art thing first and you’re fearless and then once it all starts to come together. yeah there are these moments where you go, “Oh my gosh, what the fuck are they going to think about this”, haha. And you know, you get a little scared but it was a joy, truthfully it was a total joy. It’s been fun to sort of leak these tracks out one at a time and see the feedback be so positive. You know and start to begin to celebrate like ‘wow’ we did this thing kind of under the cover of darkness, while everyone thought that I was just working on promoting one record. Then to have this one come out so quickly It’s exciting for me.

Andrew McMahon will release his new album, Zombies on Broadway, on February 10th via Vanguard Records.

With the last record and how well it was received and how much mainstream acceptance it got then going into this record, did you feel, sort of, typecast in a way in terms of a certain sound that people were expecting of you?

You know I…if that were the case I think I’ve given up on that notion so long ago. Just traveling from one band to the other so regularly and even within those acts changing sounds so frequently. You know I feel, I feel more comfortable changing things up from record to record than I would keep things the same. I mean I hope not everyone walks into this record like “oh it should sound like this thing”

But I can define the initial shock of a different sound wears off pretty quickly and hopefully with what people find next is the quality of the songs. And hopefully the quality of the experiment, you know. But I don’t think I walked into this with any sort of like “Oh I’ve gotta live up to some sonic expectation or some sort of idea with what the last record was”. You know I hope that doesn’t bite me in the ass, haha. But it wasn’t too big of a worry for me.

A lot of bands are doing anniversary tours for beloved albums, and I’m sure your fans would love a Something Corporate or Jack’s Mannequin anniversary tour. What are your thoughts on artists doing victory lap tours with old albums?

I…I mean I did or I think I did a close enough version to that, that I would consider doing where we did, I don’t know maybe nine or 10 shows. As Jack’s Mannequin we did some reunion dates around Everything In Transit and you know it was a blast. I had a really good time and I think 10 shows for me is about as much as I could stomach for that. Haha. I don’t mean that in a bad way, like I love that record, I still do some songs from that record every night. I just think you know and I have no issue with it, there are a lot of acts who 10 year anniversary records or 10 year anniversary tours that I would love to see.

But, out of no judgment for that you know I was really careful like to not make it about how much money can I pull out of this thing. When you play rooms the fraction a size of the ones we could sell out if we chose to. I think there’s a thing for me about like capitalizing too hard on nostalgia can make it stuck to be taken seriously as a modern artist. You know, so I always try to walk that line in a very fine way.

When I was in Jack’s Mannequin I was very careful with that, with Something Corporate not to go crazy with that. And I feel the same way now. It’s not to say “Hey don’t do it” but I think for me I want to be putting out modern records, I want to be putting out music now that’s being taken seriously. And I think you can run into some trouble trying to be taken seriously from music you are releasing this year if in the same year you’re cashing checks on nostalgia.

I think every artist has to find their own truth within that and what that means to them. And I think a lot of artists have done quite well and I think you just have to find a way to make it feel authentic, and not have it overshadow the career you’re trying to have in the modern day. Because there are a lot of people who want to be putting songs out right now and they’re not doing victory laps, they’re digging their heels in and making music. I just tried and make my focus about that.

Yeah, nostalgia definitely has an expiring date in that sense where people will know that you’re only in it for the money. 

Well, when you take the money out of it, I just think there’s always going to be people who only like the music they listen to when they were in high school.

So there’s always going to be people who are only into the music that they connected with in a certain period in their life. And I get that, I’m the same way in a lot of ways. But like, I try to wake everyday “try to listen to what’s out today” and I think that it’s really easy to sort of glorify the past. If you are not choosing to live in the present. I think I just really tried my hardest to make my focus about today. And can I write a great song today. And I put out a new record that challenges myself and fans, and make new fans, you know.

Look, I probably won’t be able to keep up with that for the rest of my life but I am certainly going to try my hardest to keep doing that for the rest of my life. So yeah, at 34 it seems like a hard thing for me to want to like go relive my twenties. Like, my twenties were great but I’m having a fucking blast right now. I want to make new things and put out new things but sure if something comes up like I did a benefit show for the Dear Jack foundation this year, and I brought out all the Something Corporate guys and Jack’s Mannequin guys, put on a night of music where all the money went to charity. To me that felt like a really authentic way to relive the good ‘ole days. As a gift to people in need, you know.

And everybody is different I have no judgment for how anybody else wants to view that stuff. I think it’s just put me in a mindset where it’s like, if you face your past and you go “gosh what if they like the old songs better” well yeah, a lot of people are going to. You know, haha. I’m going to focus on the new ones and hope  I can bring around a whole new audience and in 10 years they go, “Man, can you go tour the Zombies on Broadway record” and I’ll go “No man I’m making a new record”. And then just go from there, haha.

Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness’ new album, Zombies On Broadway, features the hit single “Fire Escape”.

In terms of how you approach songwriting, has that changed in terms of when you were in your twenties to how you approach songwriting now? 

I mean it’s always changing, as sort of corny as it sounds there’s no minimum, it’s always very much intact  in the same thing as it was the day when I started writing songs when I was nine. I think I’ve without question, in the past five or six years have become so much more of a collaborator than I use to be. I think that’s something you sort of grow into or don’t. But I find, sort of the shelf life for my excitement and my sort of energy towards what I do has grown considerably.

Like bringing people into the room with me that I think are really talented to work with. I think that side of it has definitely changed, I’m much more inclined to like to open the door to a friend or an artist. Like “Hey let’s work on this together” that is certainly a different approach. Then yeah, I think technology has become much more of a collaborative tool in the studio for me than on the writing side than it had ever had been. Then like we would just finish a song and go into the studio and work on it. Now there’s, now It’s so much easier to just be like let’s put together a really great beat or find an aesthetic that’s inspiring that it’s fun to write again. Or sort of in the studio production and writing at the same time which I find to be fun if your end game is a finished song then when you start in the production space it can make writing come together in a different way which is unique to these last couple of records compared to what I’ve done.

With a track like “Walking In My Sleep”, it talks about living life on the road. Has it been difficult for you to balance both a home and tour life?

Well I’ve been really fortunate that my wife and my daughter have been able to be on tour with me most of the time since my daughter’s been born. I think that it would be really difficult, certainly that song is born of also difficult times. I remember the journal that I took a lot of those words from, where it was like… the lyric in the second verse is “this is me in a bedroom, broken windows, sunlight coming through” that verse in their and a whole bunch of “this is me”.

I remember specifically I was trying to get home and I had this crazy thing happen where like I got booked on one flight and landed in one part of the airport. And I had to get all the way across three terminals in under a minute to make a flight and it was like literally I got two bags, running and I made it. But I remember writing, starting to write that lyric in that moment. Like I wanted to be so badly at home with them that I’m fucking drenched in sweat, running across an airport trying to get there. It seemed like a pretty good metaphor for what that can be especially for this life.

When you’re making a living, sometimes you’ve gotta chance inspiration into far off places. And it doesn’t always coexist well with a subtle life. And yeah it can be tough but it is without question worth the fight and we all have those things. I mean, I think even people who have straight jobs  and are at home, they have a completely different battle and I think we all understand each other on some level.

I really liked your collaboration with Lindsey Stirling. Are there any other artists you’d like to collaborate with?

Oh my gosh, that’s a tough one. The short answer is yes, there’s probably a huge list of them and there’s one or two circling around in the works that would be even silly to mention because you never know how those things will come together. But yeah, I love the idea of collaborating, doing features and finding artists to work with. But it’s so funny how little time I actually find that I have, you know I was lucky with somebody like Stirling, you know we have these mutual contacts that are friends and they were like “you guys should write together” and I was like “fuck yeah, that sounds great”. And you know, it was so fun to do it and Stirling proved to be a really great artist to carry a song like that into the world and I was glad to be a part of it. But hopefully I can do some more of that.

I read that you think of yourself as two people: One in search of peace and the other in search of whatever makes my hair stand up and my heart beat faster. How does that kind of outlook impact you as an artist?

Well it certainly keeps things interesting from day-to-day, haha. I think it’s kind of true for a lot of artists that I know. I mean were not all crazy all the time and were not all grounded all the time. I think in some ways it’s part partial of what makes the artistic mind continue to function and keeping it exciting.

You know this idea that you don’t want things to be the same ever, so you are always searching for these extremes. It informs a lot of how I operate and I’ve tried to sort of historically to get it close to the middle of those two extremes as I can because I tend to find that my life and my world and my personal life functions better when I can walk that line a bit closer to the center. And I would be remiss to not acknowledge the reality and I think there’s something important about when you make things for a living and create things, you have to be truthful. I think that’s a truth that became pretty evident in the course of making this record.

Zombies On Broadway is available for pre-order now.

Andrew McMahon will perform at The Opera House in Toronto on April 4th. Buy tickets here.