| Jack's Mannequin | |
| Image Upright: | 1.2 |
| Origin: | Orange County, California, U.S. |
| Genre: | Alternative rock, pop rock[1] |
| Years Active: | 2004–2012, 2016 |
| Label: | Maverick, Sire |
| Past Members: | Andrew McMahon Bobby "Raw" Anderson Jay McMillan Mikey "The Kid" Wagner Jonathan 'Dr. J' Sullivan Jacques Brautbar |
Jack's Mannequin was an American rock band formed in 2004, hailing from Orange County, California. The band originally began as a solo project for Andrew McMahon, the frontman of Something Corporate.
The band was signed to Maverick Records and released Everything in Transit in August 2005, peaking at 37 on the Billboard 200.[2] The Glass Passenger was released in 2008 on Sire Records, sold 49,000 copies in its first week, and peaked at number eight on the Billboard 200.[3] People and Things was released October 4, 2011. Shortly afterward, it was announced that McMahon would discontinue releasing music under the name Jack's Mannequin, choosing to release music under his own name henceforth.
On November 30, 2015, McMahon announced that he would reunite Jack's Mannequin for a tenth-anniversary tour of Everything In Transit.
On July 26, 2024, the band posted on Instagram that they will be performing at Ocean's Calling Second Wave on January 20, 2025.[4]
Andrew McMahon began his musical career as the lead vocalist and pianist for the Orange County piano rock band Something Corporate. The primary impulse behind McMahon's solo project, Jack's Mannequin, was a song he recorded in December 2003 titled "Locked Doors". He felt the song had too different a style from previous Something Corporate material to be one of their songs. He realized that if he ever decided to release it, it would be on a solo album rather than a Something Corporate record.[5] Exhausted from months of touring in late summer 2004, the band decided to take a temporary break. During his time off, McMahon laid down piano and vocal tracks for a song on Hidden in Plain View's Life in Dreaming and two songs on Tommy Lee's .
While Something Corporate's other songwriter and lead guitarist Josh Partington created a side project of his own called Firescape, McMahon started writing his own songs. He did not expect the songs to be released. McMahon took a more therapeutic approach in writing these songs, resulting in a more personal and intimate testament of his songwriting. McMahon stated in an interview that they dealt with "coming home, and having home be way different than I had remembered it [...], abandoning a lot of people, and things, that I had normally been so attached to [...], exploring and being okay with myself, and not having to make excuses for who I am, and accepting who I am."[6] Although he just planned on recording these songs, they began to take shape collectively. He paid for the production out of his own pocket, which ultimately led to a record deal with Maverick Records.
He formed the band under the name Jack's Mannequin, which came to be after McMahon had considered the name "The Mannequins". However, after growing "bored of 'the' band names," he decided to sandwich it together with the title of a song he had completed for the record, "Dear Jack". Originally, there was said to be "not much significance behind the name," but upon McMahon's diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, "the band name became ironic--considering the Jack I wrote the song for & ultimately named the project after, suffered from childhood leukemia."[7]
Their first album, titled Everything in Transit, was released in August 2005 and received a positive response from fans and critics alike.[8] A summer tour was scheduled to support the record release, but was canceled after McMahon was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and received a stem cell transplant from his sister Kate.[9]
Music by Jack's Mannequin from Everything in Transit was featured in Season Three, Episode Fifteen of the TV series One Tree Hill.[10] Hilarie Burton's character on the show, Peyton Sawyer, appeared in the music video for 'The Mixed Tape,' from Everything In Transit.
In May 2013, nearly eight years after its 2005 release, the track Dark Blue went gold.[11] In August 2021, 16 years after its 2005 release, Everything In Transit went gold.[12]
The band began recording their second album in the summer of 2007. In August 2007, McMahon posted the lyrics to the song "Cellular Phone" on his blog,[13] which the band played live at several shows in 2007 and 2008. Also, in February 2008, videos of live performances of two songs off the record ("Caves"[14] and "Suicide Blonde"[15]) were uploaded onto YouTube for public viewing. McMahon then appeared on the cover of the January 2008 issue of Alternative Press.[16]
The album was entitled The Glass Passenger, and is a transcendent step-up, a catchy and listenable journey through McMahon's stories of love, life, and loss that moves from full-on upbeat rock ("Spinning") to melancholy introspection ("Annie Use Your Telescope") and all that lies between.[17] It was originally set for release on April 22, 2008, but the date was then tentatively set to June 3, and eventually delayed to be released on September 30, 2008.
The Ghost Overground EP was released to iTunes on August 5, 2008. The EP contains two tracks from the second album, "The Resolution" and "Bloodshot", and two live tracks from Everything in Transit. Another EP, In Valleys, was released on iTunes on September 9, containing one song from the album, "Swim," and three b-sides, "Cell Phone", "Sleazy Wednesday", and "At Full Speed".
On August 28, 2008, in an interview with MTV, Andrew revealed that the author Stephenie Meyer had written the treatment for the music video for "The Resolution" and was set to direct it the following week.[18] McMahon said of the filming, "It was a very cool shoot. Music videos are a tricky thing. They require a lot of trust in the team creating the visuals and that can be a little scary. That said, there was a great vibe on the set, and shooting by the water really made it an especially peaceful day, despite all the hard work that goes into it."[19]
On September 28, 2010, it was announced bassist Jonathan "Dr. J" Sullivan left the band to pursue his other band, Kid Is Qual. McMahon stated, "Our dear friend, Dr. J, will be moving on to pursue new horizons with his band Kid is Qual. He will be sorely missed by us and the fans who have grown to love him, but we wish him great success on this new journey."[20] Mikey "The Kid" Wagner was later announced as the band's new bassist.
In an Alternative Press article, Andrew revealed that he planned to return to the studio in Spring 2010 to record his third full studio album with Jack's Mannequin. According to a LiveDaily interview with Relient K's lead vocalist, Matt Thiessen, Thiessen contributed around four songs or so to this Jack's Mannequin album.[21] 3 of these songs, "Amy, I", "People, Running", and "Platform Fire", were included on the album.This newest album was released on October 4.[22]
McMahon debuted a new song titled "Restless Dream" during an acoustic tour in Australia in February 2011. This song, along with "Hey Hey Hey (We're All Gonna Die)", and "Platform Fire", which was debuted in late 2010, are on the new album.
On March 21, 2011, McMahon sent an email to his fans announcing a summer tour with Guster and revealing the title of Jack's Mannequin's third studio album: "In a perfect world we will be finished with Jack's third album, 'People and Things', by the end of this month."[23]
On July 19, 2011, it was announced that People and Things would be released on October 4, 2011. The first single, "My Racing Thoughts", was released on August 2, 2011.[24]
According to AbsolutePunk.net, McMahon had this to say about the new album, "I consider 'People and Things' a relationship record. My goal with many of the songs was to strip away the flowery language and sentiment attached to newer love and replace it with starker, less blinded language about more binding love. In the time following the last Jack's album the people in my world were moving in together, getting married, trying to find quote unquote 'real jobs' and reconciling new lives that looked a lot less like youth than some of us cared for. Marriage is a bit of a beast to tackle in a pop record but when I wrote 'My Racing Thoughts,' it became clear how powerful and loaded a subject this kind of love is and somewhere in that moment I began to lock into the broad concept for the writing sessions to come." In another (unrelated) interview, McMahon established "this album should be different than the previous few. The first (Everything In Transit) was about breaking up, the second (The Glass Passenger) was about getting sick and recovering from it. I hated that album at first, until we wrote this one (People and Things) and I then realized how proud I am of all of my work. This album will be much more 'cheery' than the last one(s)."[25]
On February 2, 2012, McMahon foreshadowed the end to the band.[26]
On August 25, 2012, the Jack's Mannequin website redirected to andrewmcmahon.com, with McMahon decidedly putting out new music under his own name.
It was announced in September 2012 that Jack's Mannequin would perform their final show together at the 3rd Annual Dear Jack Benefit on November 11 in Los Angeles.[27] The show sold out faster than any other show of McMahon's career, and because of this, an additional performance was added for November 12.[28] Special guests for the shows included Jonathan "Dr. J" Sullivan, Jacques Brautbar, Matt Thiessen, and Stacy Clark.[29]
It was announced at the 2023 Dear Jack Benefit that Jack's Mannequin would be reuniting for the 2024 Dear Jack Benefit, to be held in November 2024, as part of Andrew McMahon's Holiday from Real Cruise.[30]
| Title | Album details | Peak chart positions< | -- Per Wikipedia discography standards, maintain a MAXIMUM of 10 charts. --> | Certifications | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US [31] | AUS Hit. [32] | CAN | JPN | |||||
| Everything in Transit |
| 37 | — | — | 97 | US Gold[33] | ||
| The Glass Passenger |
| 8 | 19 | — | 29 | |||
| People and Things |
| 9 | — | 57 | 130 | |||
| "—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory. | ||||||||
| Year | Peak chart positions | Certifications | Album | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | US AAA [34] | US Adult [35] | US Alt [36] | US Rock | JPN [37] | |||||
| "The Mixed Tape" | 2005 | — | — | — | — | — | — | Everything in Transit | ||
| "Dark Blue" | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| |||
| "The Lights and Buzz" | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||
| "La La Lie" | 2006 | — | — | — | — | — | — | Everything in Transit | ||
| "Cell Phone" | 2008 | — | — | — | — | — | — | In Valleys | ||
| "The Resolution" | — | 28 | — | 27 | — | — | The Glass Passenger | |||
| "Swim" | 2009 | — | — | 34 | — | — | — | |||
| "Dear Jack" | — | — | — | — | — | — | The Dear Jack EP | |||
| "My Racing Thoughts" | 2011 | — | — | — | — | — | 68 | People and Things | ||
| "Release Me" | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||
| "—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory. | ||||||||||