Jason Mraz: My music says "Everything will be OK"
You almost can't listen to a song by Jason Mraz without thinking of lazy summer days at the beach. Possibly because that's where he spends a lot of HIS free time. Our Ben Tracy tracked him down:
From "I'm Yours":
"Well, you done done me,
and you bet I felt it.
I tried to be chill,
but you're so hot that I melted.
If music had a season, Jason Mraz' songs would be the soundtrack of summer.
From "Make It Mine":
And I am finally there,
And all the angels they'll be singing
Ah la la la ah la la la I la la la la love you.
His tunes tend to be breezy and carefree, kind of like the guy who writes them.
"A lot of artists write the song about the dark place," said Tracy. "And you seem to write about how you get out of the dark place."
"Definitely," said Mraz. "I certainly don't want to bring an audience into that dark place and say, 'Come with me on a journey while I bum us all out,' and then hope that my next song gets us out. No, it has to happen within one song. If you're going to go to a sad place, for me I gotta get out of it before the song's over."
His albums have sold seven million copies, and while Mraz dabbles in melancholy he never lives there, even when the topic is dead serious, as with his hit, "The Remedy (I Won't Worry)."
"I wrote 'Remedy' about my best friend in high school," Mraz said. "His name is Charlie Mingroni. Right about the same time I was writing my first record, he was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a rare bone cancer. And he was born July 4th, and so I was triggered by the fireworks going off at Disneyland off the freeway and I immediately started rapping the verse."
'I saw fireworks from the freeway,
behind closed eyes I couldn't make 'em go away.
You were born on the 4th of July,
freedom ring,
but something on the surface it stings.
Something on the surface it kinda makes me nervous.
Who says that you deserve this?
What kind of God would serve this?
We'll cure this dirty old disease.
If you've got the poison, then I've got the remedy
The singer still likes to return to where his life in music began, playing coffee shops in Southern California. That exposure led to his first record deal, and a 2002 album aptly titled, "Waiting for My Rocket to Come." It carried him out onto the road, where he built his fan base.
But it was his song "I'm Yours," from his third album, that in 2008 sent his career into the stratosphere. It spent 76 weeks on the Hot 100 charts, a record at the time.
"I kept thinking, 'Okay, any minute now this is gonna be over and I'm gonna go back to the coffee shops,' and I still think that!" he laughed. "It's been ten-plus years on the world stage, and I still think that I'm gonna go back to the coffee shop someday."
I keep my life on a heavy rotation
Requesting that it's lifting you up up up and away
And over to a table at the Gratitude Cafe.
Mraz has earned a reputation as a songwriter who knows how to turn a phrase, and then turn it on its head. His skills have earned him two Grammys Awards, including one for his "Lucky" duet with singer Colbie Caillat.
You'll find those Grammys at Mraz's home near San Diego, in his "awards room," which also serves a less laudatory purpose -- the bathroom.
"It's a little bit of embarrassment hanging them on the wall, and yet the bathroom is the place that just about everybody needs to visit at least once when they're here, so then they're forced to be surrounded by our accolades!" he laughed.
He prefers to be surrounded by nature. Mraz is a regular at a surf spot near his home, and self-confident enough to let us record him in a series of wipeouts. He calls surfing his version of recess -- and surf culture is a big influence on his music.
"The fact that surfing serves no point, really, I think that brings to my music a sort of carefree, 'everything is going to be OK' kind of quality," he said. "Because when you're out in the water, that's how you feel: 'Everything is going to be OK.'"
Jason Thomas Mraz was born and raised in Mechanicsville, Va. He says he had an idyllic childhood despite a major upheaval at home: his parents divorced when he was four.
"It had a huge impact," he told Tracy. "I remember at a really young age saying, 'Well, when I get married it's only gonna happen once. And it's gonna be for life.' And so I decided I wouldn't get married young, I would wait and I would find someone. And when I got married it would be once."
The 37-year-old says he's finally found that person, but wants to keep their relationship private.
But he unabashedly sings about love on his new album, which he emphatically titled "Yes!" He's tweaked his sound by teaming up with the all-female folk group Raining Jane. They are also touring together.
What's it like to be the only boy in the band? "I love being the only boy in the band!" Mraz laughed. "It's probably the greatest decision I've ever made in my life. Everything's very clean. Everyone goes to bed early. I put the toilet seat down. I use the air freshener," he laughed.
Did the women of Raining Jane back that up? Yes, they described him as "So courteous. He's so thoughtful, generous. Brings us green juices. Makes smoothies in the morning. Definitely always smelling fresh."
Mraz is a devoted vegetarian and grows much of his own food in a garden on his property.
"I'm a gentleman farmer," he said. "It's what you would call someone who has a small farm who still has a day job, but loves to grow and loves to produce a crop."
He has 300 avocado trees, more fruit than he could ever eat. Which is why you can thank him for some of the guacamole at Mexican fast food chain Chipotle. He sells his avocados to their San Diego restaurants.
Mraz says the stage is one of his favorite places to be, but even with more than a decade of success in the music business, he still doesn't always feel worthy of his fame.
"Like even right now, here we are having a conversation about my life!" he said.
"Not how you would choose to spend this day?"
"Just, you know, I don't see my colleagues at the coffee shop doing it this way, and so I feel a little strange. I feel a little unworthy. I feel a little 'Why me?'"
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