Jack Johnson on surfing, mircroplastics and the environmental impact of musicians touring
The singer-songwriter talks microplastics and reusable pint cups following the release of his new album.
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Your support makes all the difference.Jack Johnson may be best known as a multi-platinum, singer-songwriter with three number one albums to his name, but he has also dedicated much of his career to environmental causes, long before they became a mainstream concern.
“Growing up here in Hawaii I have definitely seen both sides of the spectrum,” he explains from his home in the archipelago, a wall of hanging guitars visible behind him.
“It is a place where the natural environment has definitely had a profound effect on me growing up and spending so much time in the ocean and hiking in the mountains near my house.
“A lot of my favourite memories of being a kid are being surrounded by nature and sometimes with my family, sometimes with my friends, but always amongst this ocean that can make you feel really small.
“There is so much power that comes in and comes onto our shores all the time.”
Johnson, 47, recently released his eighth album, Meet The Moonlight, a terse reply to the modern age of social media echo chambers and misinformation.
The 10 tracks were produced by Blake Mills, whose previous credits include Alabama Shakes, Perfume Genius and Jim James, and looks towards moments of calm positivity in an often confusing world.
In support of the record, Johnson, who with his strong jaw and supremely relaxed demeanour became a staple of the Noughties, is embarking on a tour that will take him through America and Australia.
But there was a point at which he considered never going on the road again.
“There was a time where I questioned whether I was going to go back out on tour, just knowing the realities of what a large environmental footprint touring does have,” he admits.
“Obviously, for me as an individual, completely stopping touring would have the most positive effect.
“But when I really think about it, focusing on the industry I am part of and doing the best I can to make changes, because I know I am not the only person out there doing shows, so these venues are going to continue to have bands filling them every night.
“If we can work with a venue and start, for instance, a reusable pint cup programme and then we find out that venue keeps doing that after.
“Because a lot of times we will try out a new practice and then come back a few years later and the venues will tell us they are applying it to all the shows since we’ve been there.
“And so then it has this ripple effect.”
Running his buses and trucks on biodiesel is one way to reduce the impact on the environment and a step in the right direction.
“By the end of the tour, we do all the calculations and we do carbon offset programmes,” he reflects. “But again, that’s not the answer.”
Johnson says this only mitigates the negatives – and he wants to expand on the positives.
He does this by working with about 10 local non-profit organisations in every venue he plays.
Some money from the concerts will go to the groups, which can also use the event to sign up younger fans.
He hopes that long after they leave, the local community continues to take part in river and beach clean-ups, build rooftop gardens and more.
Johnson founded the Kokua Hawaii Foundation with his wife Kim in 2003, two years after the release of his debut album, Brushfire Fairytales.
Through it he supports environmental education in the schools and communities of Hawaii.
Last month, he performed a live-streamed concert at a venue in his home town to raise money for the foundation.
And recently they have been focusing on creating a farm space for school children.
“We do environmental education, mostly in the public schools in Hawaii,” he offers.
“We do community events and things like that, as well.
“But, more recently, we acquired an eight-acre, farm parcel and we’ve been developing a learning farm for kids – for anybody, really.
“We do family work days and things like that but it will be a field trip destination for kids as well.
“So, that’s really exciting. That’s a lot of what the fundraising is going towards right now, is the learning farm.”
Johnson was born and raised on the north shore of Oahu island, the third-largest of the Hawaiian islands, and has been surfing since he was a child.
This informed his love of nature and the sea, and fed into his activism.
“To be honest, as a kid, when you are going surfing you are running so fast to the ocean that I would have stepped right over the high tide line,” he says with a laugh.
“I don’t think I used to notice it. But I don’t think it was as bad either. Just knowing that the plastic production every year is growing exponentially, I imagine it has gotten worse.
“But I’ve noticed it getting even worse in the last 10 years since I’ve been more hyper-aware about it – doing beach clean-ups and actually going back to the same beaches.
“I’ve definitely seen more plastic on the shoreline than even 10 years ago.”
He describes the islands as a filter in the Pacific Ocean where the microplastics drifting on the waves are caught by their windward shores.
“If you go to most east beaches and, especially, if you find a little bay that can catch things, it is like a really colourful build-up of plastic all over the beach now,” he says.
“Sometimes if you dig down into the sand it is actually becoming part of the make-up of the sand, and the microplastics are becoming like grains of sand.
“When I see that, growing up as a surfer and seeing the beach getting more and more colourful, it makes me want to do whatever I can at our shows to try and eliminate the single-use plastic.”
Meet The Moonlight is out now. More information about the Kokua Hawaii Foundation can be found online.