I was born and raised on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii. At 17 I was the youngest invitee to make the finals at the Pipeline Masters. A week later my career as a pro surfer ended when an accident at the Pipeline put 150 stitches in my head. So, I turned to music and have since released 5 albums, selling over 8 million records to date. In my downtime I direct and star in surf movies. I give most of the profit from my tours to charities. I also do cool stuff like record my albums using nothing but solar power…

Hawaii’s North Shore – it’s fine..

Oh, sorry, you caught me daydreaming that I was Jack Johnson for a minute there. Yep, Jack’s back with another collection of tunes that are annoyingly hard to dislike. In fact, the same can be said about Jack Johnson himself. If he rattled out his CV like that in real life, you’d have every right to assume that old Jacky boy was a bit chuffed with his lot, sun radiating from his ass as perfectly formed miniature Pipeline barrels shoot out of his main chap. But oh no, not Jack, he may be an over-achiever, but he also leads a humble life, making the most of his good fortune to be a force for good in the world. This man is basically the exact opposite of Cristiano Ronaldo.

Critics of his music say that it’s all a bit middle-of-the-road. Many reviews categorise it as “soft rock”. I’m sure there’s not a band in the world that would categorise their music as soft rock, including Jack Johnson, who to my mind holds a pretty unique position in the music spectrum. It’s not edgy, it’s not controversial and it doesn’t make you want to stake your claim as the rightful owner of the dance floor. No, Jack Johnson sounds good at braais, or when the sun is setting at the end of a perfect summer’s day, or when your head is hurting on a Sunday morning. It tells you to try entertaining some positive thinking and to try not be such a greedy, materialistic, selfish tool the whole time. This music may work well in the background, but then, so does Bob Marley – and no one has more cred than the king of reggae himself.

Jack Johnson’s “To The Sea”

Jack pretty much sticks to his usual formula in his latest release, To the Sea. The songs contain their usual little pearls of wisdom, enhanced of course by the blissed-out melodies that have a way of flowing out of the speakers and filling the room with an indefinable warmth. The production is ever so slightly more edgy than on previous releases, with electric guitars featuring far more heavily than before – there’s a cool little guitar solo on title track, To the Sea.

No Good With Faces is a melancholic number with Jack proclaiming that he’s “too tired to try”, then giving himself a good talking to in the chorus with the lines, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves now, there’s no need for rain, it’s our own parade, let’s not be afraid of our reflections…” There’s more emotional depth to this album, which may have something to do with the passing of his father, to whom the album is dedicated. This may be Jack Johnson’s greatest achievement – he maintains an endearing vulnerability. Such as in the paranoid outburst At Or With Me – “Are they laughing at or with me… Is there something telling you, you can’t trust anyone in this town”.

You have to admire the way this guy knows his strengths. He knows his music is not going to rock your socks off, but he also knows that sometimes you want to keep your socks on, put your feet up and chill the hell out. Sometimes it’s best just to “stop upsetting yourself, upsetting your thoughts, upsetting this world that you’re standing on”. Thanks Jack, that’s not bad advice. I give this album 4 stars out of 5 for being great at what it does. But also because I secretly want to be Jack Johnson.