Jack Johnson

You're the greenest rock star we know. Did growing up in Hawaii spark your interest in an environmentally responsible lifestyle?

Yes, I think so. I spent the majority of my time outdoors. Once I had a following and was able to draw a crowd, I was asked to play fundraisers for Heal the Ocean, the SurfRider Foundation, different groups. I felt pretty lucky to get to do that kind of stuff. I got to learn about the organizations and how they operated. My wife and I started our own foundation in Hawaii called Kokua Hawaii Foundation. Most days I feel more like a fundraiser than a singer.

Let's talk about your recording studio Brushfire in Los Angeles.

It's a cool old building that is solar powered. I was so glad to preserve an old space instead of taking something new, or ripping it down and starting over. I like the vibe. The building is from the 1890s. Wherever we did pull stuff down, we re-used the wood in other places or got sustainable materials like cork or bamboo. The insulation is recycled blue jeans. We don't use lots of lights. We have skylights and natural light streams in all over the place. It's a whole team of people who created this, by the way, not just me.

Tell us about your new album.

The new album comes out in February. It's called Sleep through the Static. I wrote the name down once and it seemed good. Now I realize it's kind of a tongue twister.

What are the songs about? Anything green?

Yes, more than ever, actually, on this album. I think a lot of my emotions in these songs come from what's going on in the world. There are songs about the interconnectedness of everything, and there's one song I like that talks about a tear in an eye that gets pulled by the tides and gets put back into a monsoon and then turns back into the ocean and pushed back on shore.

On tour, you're a green road warrior—how do you maintain it?

My wife is really the warrior. She plans everything. I'm pretty lazy and disorganized. She organizes the meetings a year in advance to discuss the tours. Every year we try to up the stakes with our green lifestyle. It seems like the world is shifting in the direction where a lot of the things we do are going to be the norm.

Do you use bio-diesel in your trucks and tour bus?

Yes, we run all our tour vehicles on bio-diesel.

When you are playing on the road, say, at festivals, do you encourage other bands to go green?

I get ideas from some of the newer bands starting out. One band had a van running off diesel that they converted to just vegetable oil—they would stop at restaurants along their tour route to pick up leftover vegetable oil. They did their whole tour that way. Tour managers share information. I hear what Pearl Jam, Neil Young and Willie Nelson are doing, sometimes those guys are doing green stuff that I want to try. As much as possible of the merchandise we sell on tour is from recycled materials. The CDs and posters are all from recycled materials. The t-shirts are organic cotton. This year, we are being diligent about picking certain non-profits to work with in each town. We give out free tickets to these groups, and encourage fans to get involved in their communities. We are going to bring voter registration on tour since it's an important election year. We're going to have Vote the Environment out there with us: They are a group that gives out information on where each politician stands on the issues concerning the environment. Then we are going to have something called Climate Counts, which is a group that does report cards on companies and how they are interacting with the environment. Their website is climatecounts.org and it's basically a list of publicly traded companies and how they rate, as far as climate change goes and what they are doing to better their companies.

Why is this stuff important to you?

It's funny because when I first started doing environmental work or raising money for different groups some people would ask me, "Why focus on that?" I read a quote recently in a book called Break Through that some friends wrote and it said, "If you feel that humans are a part of nature, then the word 'environmental' becomes sort of a bad synonym for everything." Although some people might pinpoint it as being a tree-hugger, or just fighting for the frogs, to me the environment is about humans, too. It's about kids, education, the ocean, anything you can find on the earth. I think I support environmental work just because I'm human, and I'm part of it.

What are some of the eco-friendly things you do at home?

We've got worm-composting, all our food scraps go there. Those worms are our only pets, we can leave them for a month and they're okay with that. I get these fifty gallon drums that this bakery ships their cooking oil in and I cut off the tops and put them under the rain gutters. They're my homemade rain barrels; we use the overflow water in the garden and around the house. We do bio-deisel in our cars, and I have a little tank at the house because the resource is an hour away, so I stock up. My friends with bio-diesel cars all use my gas. It's like a mini gas station over there.

What's your eco-sin?

Riding surf boards. The surf industry is pretty dirty, actually. They are always progressing designs so the kids think they need the newest board every year, which is just stupid. It's getting better. There are some pioneers who are trying to make stronger boards from less toxic materials, ones that are meant to last longer.