MP: What is it about what you’re doing right now that you’re most excited about—that you’re most passionate about?
JM: I’m most grateful for my health. It’s taken me a long time to get where I am, to feel as strong as I do in my mind and in my body. It’s through that that I’m able to be present in all my relationships and not get overwhelmed by what could seem like a big task, going all around the world constantly. So quite simply I’ve distilled my mission down to the essence. The only thing I’m really here to do is shine light on people’s lives through music, through laughter and to simply enjoy being with people. And it’s through my health that I’m able to maintain that every single day and keep light in people until I’m actually of service to others.
MP: Did you ever have a problem with your health?
JM: I never really had a problem with it. It’s just not that I never put much attention on it. For the first thirty years of my life I exercised very little, and I smoked cigarettes for ten or twelve years, and I ate junk food. And I began to see some elders in my community’s health decline, and I didn’t want that to happen to me. I never really had a problem with my health, but there would be some tours where I’d get exhausted or overwhelmed…and now I just feel like I have more energy.
I ride a bicycle everywhere I go, the physical strength is obvious, but my mental strength and my capacity to love myself and to love others has definitely expanded. And that’s the one thing I need the most in taking on a life of touring and a life of basically being with hundreds of people every day and not exhaust one’s energy.
So one thing I’m most passionate about is that I’m geared up and ready for another cycle of touring, to go out in the world and be whoever I need to be for someone. For a lot of people they just want to see you or want to take a photograph of that moment. Some people they simply just want to hear you. And others actually have things they want to share and talk with you about. So it’s important for me to be as strong as I can when I leave home so I can hold space for all of it.
MP: I can imagine holding that much space and really connecting with people on a heart level, there’s all this energy always going and that could be hard. What is it that makes you the most vulnerable?
JM: I could experience vulnerability if I just constantly gave myself away without ever taking time out once a day or a couple times a day or whatever it is I need to restore, whether it’s more sleep, or whether it’s going to see a movie or writing something new. I’ll experience vulnerability when I just don’t have any more to give.
Other times, I think more obvious to others, is that I’m most vulnerable on stage. Even though I know which songs I’m going to play, I try and keep it loose and base my stage time more on what the audience is requesting of me. I enjoy going on stage knowing that there’s going to be that vulnerability and that transparency and hopefully things will be realized or accomplished or that confidence will be revealed. I think that’s another element that people like about shows: in addition to hearing the songs that they love, I think there are some people who really get off on connecting with what’s happening right now. Anything that we’re connecting with that’s happening right now, there’s an obvious vulnerability—because we’re just fragile human beings in the middle of a just-now expression.
MP: A lot of artists use their name just for self-promotion, but you’ve chosen to bring awareness and activate people through your art and shift the world. What really inspired you to do that with your foundation?
JM: There are about ten charities right now that have benefitted from my foundation. The foundation at the moment is an endowment, and through the money we raised last year and through the contributions that keep coming in, we just want the endowment to grow and grow and grow. We’d like to get it to at least a million bucks. In the meantime, I’m continuing to serve those ten beneficiaries, I say ten because some years it’s nine some years its eleven, and I continue to serve those whether I give them a donation or I give them a concert or in my time I volunteer or I use my voice. Whatever the case may be the foundation will eventually do that work for us as well, but what I’m waiting for is this “aha” moment where that endowment goes to break ground on a school or a community center or a healing center. I’m not sure exactly what it is. I have a feeling it’s going to be around education and/or healthy food or maybe all of it. But I definitely wanted to get the foundation started because there are so many benefits to doing so, in allowing that money to grow and grow and grow and be there for me when it is time to do that.
The whole reason I did it is simply because I look around my life and it’s hard to believe that music has given me all that I have. Music is such a powerful fundraising tool and it’s so easy for me to share that and it’s such a light. In a song you can shine a light on a topic and with your voice at a concert you can shine a light on an actual issue or a person, you can acknowledge whatever you like with music and people will listen. I felt that foundation was going to be an extension of that. I thought here is a life I’m living where music is giving me tons of attention and plenty of money. I don’t need all of it, that’s for damn sure, and I’ve got more than enough. I’ve got my family taken care of and my life and my health right where I want it to be so why would I hoard anything else? I would rather continue to spotlight those who inspire me. Those organizations that I support have contributed hugely to my life in some way, whether they’ve shaped my life as a man or actually contributed to songs that I’ve written. It’s just normal for me, simple for me, to take that funding and that attention and give it back to them. A long time ago, when I was first starting out, I used to always leave my change on a retaining wall or a planter or a bench. You know, you come out of a store and they give you seventy-five cents change or something, rather than drop it I would always place it in the community. Sometimes I’d flip it into the hat of a busker or give it to a homeless person. But what I most enjoyed was putting it on a windowsill or on a bench seat or somewhere where I knew that the community would get it. I said in doing this I know it’s going to come back to me tenfold and I didn’t think twice about it and I did it for years. And I watched my income go up and up and up and I always credit it to this kind of service, this little sneaky service, this one way that I was giving back to the community.
So the foundation is essentially doing the exact same thing as that. It’s taking this abundance of income that I get through music and redirecting it back into the community.
MP: I just wanted to say on every level thank you for shining and thank you for bringing awareness and inspiring others. What projects do you have coming up in the next six to eight months; do you have a new album?
JM: Yeah the album is kind of taking up the attention this season. I believe it’s coming out in May. It’s called “Love is a Four Letter Word,” {laughter} but it’s a beautiful album, I mean that in jest, because love is everything. If it’s everything, it’s the good and the bad, you’ve got to take it all. So that’s coming and with that will be lots of traveling.
MP: When it’s time to let go, how do you do that?
JM: I think I’d say it’s different each time because it’s not like you learned to do the act of letting go: “OK now I’ve figured it out, that’s how you let go.” It’s not as easy as just opening your hand and watching the items fall out, because with everything you’re letting go, I’m sure it’s going to have a different value to you. And every time you let go you’re going to be a different age or there’s going to be different circumstances. So I think the best way to do it is to simply wish the best for that thing. You just send your love and gratitude to everything that came through the experience and you wish it the best. If you don’t wish it the best, then you’re only holding on to its failure, you’re only holding on to something that needs something from you, whereas if you wish it the best, it’s not about you anymore. It’s about that: that you’re letting go of having the best possible experience you can have regardless of who you are and where you are. I think that can be applied to all things, but it’s easier said than done.
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