Pop singer/songwriter fans, you may be seeing a new face on the scene while Dave Matthews, John Mayer and Jack Johnson take a break.
He hails from Dave’s home state of Virginia, is produced by John Alagia, also known for working with Matthews and Mayer, but still sets himself apart from these models he’s followed. How? He tells us in “Too Much Food.”
“I’m one curly fry in the box of the regular,” he sings.
This “curly fry” is Jason Mraz, a 25-year-old who went from New York’s American Musical and Dramatic Academy to playing every Thursday night at Java Joe’s in San Diego.
Starting from the ground up, meeting musicians to jam with along the way, Mraz played to 14 people his first night at Java Joe’s. Two years later, he plays to sold out crowds across the country. Three words: devoted fan base.
The shows that built his fan base are much different than his major label debut, “Waiting for My Rocket to Come.” The record is pretty and friendly to the ear on the surface, and yet there is complexity beneath it. The influences have left critics hyphenating phrases to describe the record — “world-meets-folk-meets-trippy-meets-jazzy,” according to one press release. Mraz’s accomplishment is in the successful unification of all these elements.
The best example of his melting pot of muses comes in an autobiographical tune, “Curbside Prophet.” Over a twanging banjo and a walking bass line, he raps, defining himself as a “down home brother/ redneck undercover/ with my guitar and I’m ready to play.” Well-crafted melodies come in near the tune’s end, leaving the listener salivating for more.
While making the record, the label, Elecktra Records, sent Mraz on co-writing missions to pen a hit song. The only product of the sessions is a definite single, “The Remedy (I Won’t Worry).” However, the song doesn’t deviate from the style of the rest of the record, a testament to Mraz’s command of his own material.
On the trip, he wrote another song by himself, “Too Much Food.” The frustration of the co-writing process is apparent in the lyrics, “You gotta let me make my choice alone before my food gets cold … Stop telling me the way I gotta play/ Too much food on my plate.”
Songs like “The Remedy (I Won’t Worry),” “You and I,” and “I’ll Do Anything,” with their wailing, sing-along choruses, have VH1 written all over them. And Mraz uses the slower moments on the album, such as “Absolutely Zero,” to simultaneously lament heartbreak and display his vocal range, which surpasses Matthews and Mayer.
Themes of lost love and just being lost run thick throughout Waiting. But his style and singing ability are what separate him from the norm. He’s not just another understudy; he’s on his way to running alongside the established.
Jason Mraz toured with Jewel and the Dave Matthews Band. He is headlining his own club tour right now, and fans can get a taste of his talent on the Conan O’Brien Show tonight at 11:35 p.m. on NBC Channel 3.