A social activist, keen surfer, photographer and two-time Grammy-winning singer-songwriter whose hit song "I'm Yours" spent a record-breaking 76 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, never let it be said that Jason Mraz isn't a guy who lives life to the full. Now, though, Jason has set himself a brand-new challenge, teaming up with Intel and ASUS for In Search of Incredible, a quest that's taking him all over the world in search of amazing people, fantastic stories and places of myth and legend. Anything, in fact, that fires up the imagination.
Today, we catch up with Jason fresh from an impromptu performance with Shlomo in an alleyway just off London's Brick Lane. Shlomo is the world champion Loop Station beatboxer, and Jason's here to check out his skills and pick up a few tricks along the way. "I'm always on the road with my music, so it's really nice to find guys like Shlomo to break the routine," says Jason. "He's a phenomenal talent, and I think we made a really nice connection — we both use our voice as our primary instrument, and we're both about playing around with sounds, seeing what our bodies are capable of."
If you want to write a great song, playing in front of people — whether it's at a sold-out concert hall or just here on a street corner in Shoreditch — is key, says Jason. "You can write and write, but you never really know how it's going to fly until you play it in front of an audience." As he prepares to take his music out on the road once more with longtime collaborator Toca Rivera, Jason shared with us the most incredible places in the world in which he's sang.
Java Joe's
Java Joe's was a small pub in California, about a block from the ocean. It was where my act started, where I found my voice. I had been writing songs all my life, but that was where I first took my original material out to the public. While we had a residency there, Joe lost his cabaret license due to some paperwork issues and we vowed to carry on without amplification. I would stand on a chair and sing over people's heads. It was an exciting thing, not relying on the microphones and reverb, but just being there, in the room, with the audience.
Rotunda Gardens
I was raised in Richmond, Virginia. I used to work for the Postal Service, from 4 a.m. til noon, and each day after work I would go to Maymont Park with my girlfriend to enjoy the sun and have a picnic. There's this one spot in the park, a perfect little dome, and I would sing in there — to my girlfriend, or just to myself. It had great acoustics. Before I was a public performer, that dome was my microphone — it would elevate my voice, giving it a resonance that you wouldn't get elsewhere.
In the ocean
Surfing is such a yoga practice. You have a relationship with your board — it's like a mat, and the ocean is your foundation. I like to sing out towards the horizon, in the direction of the sunset. The waves are like an audience — they come towards me, and I sing back songs of gratitude. It's a good place to creatively recharge.
Red Rocks Amphitheatre
It's a natural amphitheatre in Denver, Colorado. The stage is nestled in between these two huge boulders. I'm a big believer in the energy that comes out of stones and crystals. Add an audience, and it's like there's a collective consciousness — 6,000 people, all concentrating on the same song. The first show I played there, I just pulled my cap down and wept for a few songs. I was going through something at the time emotionally, but they were tears of joy — playing my music to a sold-out crowd in such an epic place felt amazing.
In church
I'm not a religious guy, but I certainly respect the spirit of it. Communal singing can be a powerful thing — I'd love to be in a choir when I'm older. I love what you can do with harmonies. When I sing with my partner, Toca Rivera, he delivers harmonies that just light me up. Sing harmonies with someone and it feels like being enveloped by someone, like being hugged. It's an amazing feeling.
The Royal Albert Hall
I first played there in about 2002 with Tracy Chapman, but we went back there in 2008 while we were touring "We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things." It was a full house, but it felt just like playing in my living room. I have a song "Beautiful Mess," and about three-quarters of the way through everything drops out and I like to pause a while. Usually someone in the audience goes 'wooo!' — people feel they have to fill the space. But in the Albert Hall, there was dead silence. There's real respect in that spot.
In the avocado trees, in Oceanside, California
I live in a beautiful agricultural region, in 5 acres of land. It's a great place to write, as my neighbours aren't close by, and writing songs is about being loud and taking risks — opening your mouth and seeing what comes out. I open the door of my studio and just sing to the trees. Much of my last album was written there — songs like "Butterfly," "Live High," "Beautiful Mess." For a while, there was a hummingbird who would just sit on a tree and listen — I would be like, are you listening to me? And he would chirp back.
The Integratron
It's a far-out invention, a building the size of a fairly decent house way out in the Mojave Desert, near Joshua Tree. It was intended to be a healing centre, a way of achieving eternal life through sound. The creator, George Van Tassel, says he was visited by aliens, and was given this privy information. He put all of his life's work into it, but it never got fully completed. What remains is this perfect acoustic tomb. Whatever you do - speak, sing, whisper, take a footstep — the sound envelopes you.
Carnegie Hall
I studied musical theatre in New York for a couple of semesters, and it was there I started playing guitar. Carnegie Hall is a legendary New York venue, but in the past I've only seen stand-up comedy there, never music. We just booked in some dates there for autumn 2011, around Thanksgiving, and to prepare I got to go test out the space. The sound there is so incredible that I'd like to do a few songs off mic, just to give people that raw experience. My Java Joe's days are going to come full circle at Carnegie Hall.
