Jack Johnson on Making a Difference

This Jack Johnson interview was conducted at last month's Mile High Festival in Colorado. Jack headlined the festival on Saturday night.




To expand on this, check out this excerpt from a CNN interview:

CNN: You're giving away 100 percent of the proceeds from your upcoming tour, and you did it on your 2008 tour, too. How can you afford to do that?

Jack Johnson: Everybody makes their salary still, everybody on the road makes a living doing it. The money that we're making from the shows, we're putting back into the communities we're playing at. We can't promise we'll do it forever. It's just something fun to do this summer.

CNN: Most musicians count on touring profits for their livelihood.

Johnson: The CD sales have done fine for us, so we feel really lucky to be able to use the touring as a fundraising tool. It's kinda nice.

CNN: How do you divvy up the funds?

Johnson: There's between five and 10 local nonprofit groups that come out to every show, and money from that show goes directly to the groups -- a certain percentage of it from that night.

And then at the end of the whole tour, we take the rest of it and we put it into a foundation. The nice thing with that is it's a perpetual deal, so we give away the interest every year. It's actually rewarding to see the tangible things -- this amount of instruments are going to this school district -- or to see photographs of a garden that got built from some of the funds. People write to us for grants [at his website, AllAtOnce.org].


Love this little note from a review of the Aug 26, 2010 Cruzan Amphitheater show in West Palm Beach, FL:

And of course, the encore was nothing to scoff at, four songs deep closing with "Better Together," where Johnson brought everyone -- everyone -- including ALO, G. Love, Paula Fuga, and even his roadies, techs and fan club onstage, encouraging them to pick up anything they could. And they did. Roadies played tambourine, fans played bells and drummed on empty Zephyr Hills jugs.

Check it out:)