Poker players refer to it as going “all in.” It’s an all or nothing move that generally occurs when a player is down to his last stake. Andrew McMahon, singer-pianist for Jack’s Mannequin, found himself in such a situation four years ago and went all in with every chip he had.
His stake was not money, however, but his very life.
McMahon, who rose to fame fronting the Drive-Thru/Geffen piano-punk act Something Corporate, named his new band after his song “Dear Jack” about a friend diagnosed with childhood leukemia. Fate is not without its evil ironies. In June 2005, on the day he finished mastering Jack’s Mannequin’s Everything In Transit debut, McMahon himself was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Already suffering tremendously, the 22-year-old singer immediately underwent chemotherapy, but the radiation resulted in severe pneumonia that he barely survived. Considering his broken state, the doctor suggested an alternate route: a stem-cell transplant using his sister’s blood marrow. Success would hasten a recovery, but his odds of survival were no better than a coin flip.
McMahon recalled, “The tricky thing is, undergoing a procedure with such a compromised immune system, you can fall ill to any number of ailments and there’s no immune system to fight it. My doctor felt my best chance to survive was the stem cell transplant, but he was very clear that an unsuccessful transplant would lead to a much shorter time on earth. If it wasn’t successful, that would be it.”
The young singer agreed, but in the days leading up to the transplant, his condition grew worse. The pneumonia didn’t go away, shingles turned his body into a giant scab and sores lined his throat to the point that he couldn’t eat. McMahon, whose life seems like a giant string of coincidences, had the transplant on Aug. 23, the very day Everything In Transit debuted in stores.
The transplant fortunately proved to be a lucky bet, but McMahon wanted a goal to motivate him during his recovery. He found that drive by announcing a Jack’s Mannequin show to take place in Los Angeles on the 100-day anniversary of his transplant. The venue was small and the set scaled back, but on Dec. 2, McMahon kept his promise.
“Preparing for the show was exhausting,” he recalled, “but making it up on that stage was a huge rallying point for my recovery. At that point, I had a pretty diminished lung capacity and weighed about 115 pounds, so I had a lot working against me. Still, it was 10 times more therapeutic than exhausting so for that I am thankful.”
Still, his return to the stage wasn’t the only way Jack’s Mannequin helped him through his Job-like experience. In many of his darkest moments, he ironically turned to the song, “Dear Jack.”
Says McMahon, “That song is the foundation for the band name and it’s about someone who suffered from the disease that I got the same month I finished the first album, which itself has so many uncanny coincidences like all these hospital references. It made everything seem predestined. It made me feel like the leukemia had a reason, and I asked the ‘why me’ questions a lot less. It gave a lot of purpose to the songs and to the idea of Jack’s Mannequin in general.”
As you can imagine, it wasn’t such a coincidence that the band’s second album, 2008′s The Glass Passenger, addressed the singer’s walk through the valley of death. This album propels McMahon past Ben Folds as heir apparent to the Elton John/Billy Joel piano-rock crown while vividly recalling the most agonizing memories of his gruesome ordeal.
“‘Caves is the one song that put me back in the hospital and into that headspace with a level of clarity that I never really anticipated to find in a song,” he noted. “The rest of the record is more of a reflection on the effects of that time and the aftermath.”
The album also offered triumphant anthems like “The Resolution,” which ignited a buzz when Twilight author Stephanie Meyers signed on to write and direct its music video. With so much hype and good will, The Glass Passenger debuted last September at No. 8.
The Glass Passenger, of course, was just one part of McMahon’s fresh start. The summer following his recovery, he launched the Dear Jack Foundation to raise funds for organizations like the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation and the regents of UCLA where he was treated. And get this: Jack’s Mannequin got the ball rolling with the 22-city Tour for the Cure, which directed all $125,000 of its proceeds to the Dear Jack Foundation.
“It was a natural next step,” said McMahon. “A lot of fans were creating their own homespun charities or wanted to give to the cause, but the efforts were fragmented. If nothing else, the Foundation centralized everything for the people inspired by the story and who wanted to be a part of giving back.”
The band is also actively involved in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s “Light the Night Walk.” These nationwide events, which take place in September as part of Leukemia and Lymphoma Awareness Month, raise funds with participating walkers carrying illuminated balloons — white for survivors, red for supporters and gold for those walking in memory of a loved one. The Foundation organized Dear Jack teams across the country that raised over $100,000 last year alone.
Next up, the Dear Jack documentary. Three years in the making, the film starkly documents McMahon’s journey with all the blood, hair loss, spinal injections and tortured family faces. Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee narrates his friend’s story under the direction of two MTV alums who helmed the project. The film, featuring new Jack’s Mannequin songs, naturally, debuts in September.
Besides all this, McMahon always finds time to talk one-on-one with leukemia-stricken children.
“I encourage them to stay positive and visualize beating the disease inside their body,” he said. “That’s something I did a lot. I did meditation and breathing exercises to calm my body and become less anxious. I fought to try to achieve the largest level of peace humanly possibly, and that’s what I try to instill in people I talk to. It’s less about fighting the disease and more about fighting for peace as your body fights the disease. If you can approach it like that, at least you’ll have peace no matter which way your body ultimately goes.”
Though having emerged from the SoCal punk scene, Jack’s Mannequin now seems set on a grander trajectory. Just last summer, the band played main stage on the Vans Warped Tour alongside groups like Pennywise, Paramore and the Vandals. This summer, Jack’s Mannequin hits the arenas with multi-platinum chart-toppers The Fray. The tour kicks off June 12 in Atlanta.
As far as the future, Jack’s Mannequin is one band I wouldn’t bet against.