Meet The Moonlight

Jack Johnson has come to be known for his ultra-laidback demeanor and folksy surf-pop songs to match. He's shaped his career around projecting positive vibes for his audience and calling them into his own life as well. It doesn't hurt that he's been on this multi-decade journey with some of his closest friends in tow. “I think life's too important to spend time with people that you don't consider friends,” he tells Apple Music. From his guitar tech, who lives down the street from him in Hawaii, to his front-of-house engineer, who was around when the band couldn't even fill up a room, Johnson is particular about who he allows into his creative space. “It's just in my life, I just always never wanted to feel like I was wasting time with people I didn't want to be around, so I've been really lucky like that. It's just always my wife and my best friend and my managers.”

Among the important new friends in his life is Malibu-bred Blake Mills, the musician and producer he worked closely with on his eighth studio album Meet the Moonlight. “It's weird—all of a sudden, you're in a studio with somebody you don't know that well, and it takes a few days, but when you spend 12 hours a day together, you get to know each other really quick,” Johnson says. “He's one of the greatest guitar players alive right now, he's so good. Lyrically, he would be like, 'I feel like this line maybe isn't getting across what you're trying to say.' So I'd go home and then I'd work on it. And then musically, it was really cool because he would keep pushing.”