You know you've really made it when you're
the butt of the joke of a Saturday Night Live skit.
And a few years ago, singer/songwriter/ultimate feel-good mellow dude
Jack Johnson found himself in just that situation.
All
of a sudden, there was Andy Samberg on the television sporting that
signature close-cut Johnson haircut (though it is no longer, as
Johnson is now sporting a full-on shag), barefoot, puka shell
necklace-clad and armed with an acoustic guitar.
“Hi,
I'm Jack Johnson,” Samberg dragged. “Welcome to The
Mellow Show… cargo shorts!”
But
were there any hard feelings over the reoccuring skit, featuring
cameos from the likes of “Jason Mraz” (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and
“Dave Matthews” (Bill Hader)?
“No,
no, it was great. I thought it was real funny when I saw them,”
Johnson shares over the phone during a tour stop in Kansas City.
But
the skits led into another project Johnson himself couldn't even have
predicted: a music video for his next single, “At Or With Me.”
]
Johnson's
usual music video director, Emmett Malloy of the Malloys (the White
Stripes, Vampire Weekend, Matt Costa, the Cold War Kids, Ben Harper
and more) was actually involved with Samberg on a project when they
started talking about the connection between Malloy and Johnson.
And
so, the big fight scene of “At Or With Me” was born–complete
with injuries both fake, real and accidental--but believe me when we
say it was tough to get the info out of Johnson at first.
When
I asked Johnson about a tweet I had seen that he was injured on the
set, he laughed quietly, and asked, “Oh yeah? And what else did you
hear?”
Turns
out the quietness was for a reason: Johnson had wanted to keep the
whole video concept of “At Or With Me” hush-hush “in order to
try to keep it exciting when it comes out.”
He
goes on to explain he wanted to leak images from the video to get
people talking, almost as if Samberg and Johnson had really gotten
into it over the SNL skits.
End
result of the video shoot?
“A
little black eye–a shiner,” Johnson explains. “I almost broke
my nose when we did this one stunt. Andy was like, 'Why don't we just
let the stunt guys do the stunts?' But then I started doing them and
he was like, 'Oh god,' and he started doing them, too.”
He
then shares his story of that one prop breakaway vodka bottle “hurt
like hell” when Samberg accidentally knocked him over the head with
the corner of the bottle.
“I'm
kind of overly proud,” Johnson adds, with another warm laugh. “Holy
cow, I had to jump over the top of the table at one point… fake
bottles were broken our heads. He broke a chair over my back–and
that kind of hurt, actually.”
Watch the video below:
Jack Johnson performs at the Irvine
Verizon Wireless Amphitheater on Tues., Oct. 12, 8808 Irvine Center
Dr., Irvine, (949) 855-8095; www.ticketmaster.com. $45-$65.35. All
ages.
