Fans

SS: So how has the internet changed your relationship over the years with fans?

JM: Well actually, I was lucky enough to sort of find an in, and I don't think it's really around anymore. Like whatever the new in is. Like for me is it was Napster. It was file-sharing, it was internet. Once I even got a record to get out there with. It was really a dynamic sort of growth. The interesting thing now is just sort of learning how to adapt and change your reasoning with how you use the internet while people go onto different parts of the internet, and different things like Twitter. This is just where the communication point is. And then, it takes a minute to figure out how can I use this in a really authentic way.

SS: But you pretty much used Twitter as a promotional tool. You talked about the album title, the first single on Twitter before the press release.

JM: Yeah, but I don't really think about promotion. I was actually thinking about this the other night. Like, "Will I want to get on Twitter and say, "Hey everybody, buy my album?" And it's funny because I don't want to do it and there's a lot of times I'm at places or with people that I know that would sorta up my Twitter profile as like someone who's wheeling and dealing, and out and about and meeting and greeting but that's always a time when I want to write something silly and non-descript in terms of where I am or who I'm with. There's something about using your Twitter to say, "Look who I'm with right now." I don't care who you stand next to. I care who you are, what you're doing.

So yeah Twitter turned out to be a really sweet, endearing thing. The question is like, how am I—I mean do I even tweet that it's out? I guess I should. But I just don't want anybody feeling like spoon feed.

Q: How does it feel knowing you inspired tons of people, including myself, to pick up guitar?

JM: It's something that I'm still getting through my head because I appreciate it so much. It's the ultimate compliment because I'm being complimented in a way that I also experienced myself growing up. So when I was growing up I could tell you who I wished that I would have met and how I would have felt if I met them. And I know what that feels like to have wanted that. And I know what it feels like to have had that in a few situations. So if that way that I felt when I was seventeen is how someone else feels when they come up to me, I am not ready to accept that kind of full circle goodness. But it's incredible. It's incredible that even if your music comes and goes one day, a guy or a girl, doesn't forget who inspired them to play guitar. That is always on the tip of someone's tongue, so, that is remarkable and cool and an even bigger dream than I could dream of. So thank you very much, and I hope I continue to inspire you and I have a question for you, how does it feel to possible one day inspire someone else to send the same thing to you? It's rhetorical because you're not here.

SJ: You know you do this thing during your shows where you thank the audience profusely, but it's so sincere. It's wonderful. Because your relationship with your audience is so unique, it's really quite fascinating. When I'm sitting on stage with you and you're thanking them, it is not staged, it's not superficial. It's so real. And your audience loves you so much. It's really quite fascinating for a bystander to check. Expound on that.

JM:I can't take the credit for the crowd. I can't take credit for what it's become. They informed me about what it was. I was going out because I got pushed to go on stage to promote this record. They deepened my ability to do this thing. Not the other way around. They informed me about what it meant to them.

And I don't think it's all uncommon when you are first hitting the ground running as an artist where you're not necessarily taking in what it all means. You're playing a game. It's a board game. You're trying to win the game. How many are here tonight? Who's on the guest list? It's very transactional when you first start out. So I didn't necessarily beginning with even the ability to give that kind of love to the crowd, or accept that kind of—I mean I had to learn to be loved as a human being. Learn how to love correctly. And they deepened the whole enterprise. By meeting people and having them tell me what these songs mean to them—I might have to be super honest and sit here and say I wasn't aware until people made me aware of what it means to them, and now I pretend I always knew. You know what I mean? They deepened that. The crowd gave that to us. 

It's really funny man; I'm a lyricist. I love all the different ways there are to explain things, and express things. And I feel usually, lately, the last couple years, really successful making thoughts into words. But the one place I have a hard time with is gratitude. There's not enough words, man. There's only a couple ways to say thank you. I think when I take that stage every night I'm trying to find more articulate ways to say thank you, but gratitude is just gratitude. It's pure. There's no real abstract way—and I'm trying to find it because what we want to do it to let other people know how much we really appreciate it. So the "profusely" thing is, I just learned how to really feel it, and I just want to play with it. I want to use it.

JM: There's a lot of psychological work that we have to do when we meet other people, because if you think about it we are trying to make it okay for other people to be meeting us. Like I find myself being as helpful as I can to people who are meeting me, who I think I understand the mindset now where I can be a little more idea than man. I know people are going to a meet-and-greet waiting you know—they don't just appear out of thin air—they're in a line from about 15 minutes. What do I say? So a lot of what I do when I meet other people— you probably have this too—is putting other people at ease. Just helping people feel comfortable, and I think that takes a lot of energy. It's not just this quid pro quo of like 'hey man what's up'. You're responsible for other peoples' emotions.
 
DD: You don't want to be a dick, but you get into this finesse game of like, “Alright, you got two minutes, all right cool.”
 
JM: Like you got to find the sweet spot between not being a dick and not being phony either.  You have to find a point of connection that doesn't make someone leave the room and go like 'was he even there'? I’ve met people that were so famous and so bothered that I could tell they gave me five percent of their personality. That guy just gave me five percent,  you know? Like I've met some super, super big guys and I'm like I really don't think he knows anything about what he just said to me. I got five percent out of that guy.