016: A summer song with Jason Mraz

Voiceover: If music had a season, Jason Mraz's songs would be the soundtrack of summer. His tunes tend to be breezy and carefree, kind of like the guy who writes them.

Interviewer: A lot of artists write this song about the dark place, and you seem to write about how you get out of the dark place.

Jason: Definitely. I certainly don't want to bring an audience into that dark place and say “come with me on a journey while I bum us all out and then hope that my next song gets us out.” No, it has to happen within one song. You know if we're going to go to a sad place, for me I got to get out of it

Voiceover: His albums have sold 7 million copies and while Mraz dabbles in Melancholy, he never lives there, even when the topic is dead serious as with his hit The Remedy.

Jason: I wrote Remedy about my best friend in high school, his name is Charlie Mingroni and right there on the same time I was writing my first record, he was diagnosed with human sarcoma, a rare bone cancer and he was born on July 4th, and so I was triggered by the fireworks going off at Disneyland, off the freeway, and I immediately started rapping the verse.

Voiceover: The singer still likes to return to where his life in music began – playing coffee shops in Southern California. That exposure led to his first record deal and a 2002 album aptly titled “Waiting for my Rocket to Come”. It carried him out unto the road where he built his fan base. But it was his song “I'm yours” from his third album that in 2008 sent his career into the stratosphere. It's been 76 weeks on the top 100 charts, a record at the time.

Jason: I kept thinking “okay, any minute now this is going to be over, I'm going to go back to the coffee shops” and I still think that. It's been ten plus years of a world stage and I still think that I'm going to go back to the coffee shop someday.

Voiceover: Mraz has earned a reputation as a songwriter who knows how to turn a phrase and then turn it on its head. His skills have earned him two Grammy awards including one for his Lucky duet with singer Colbie Caillat. You'll find those Grammy's at Mraz's home near San Diego in his awards room which also serves a less laudatory purpose.

Interviewer: All of your accolades are confined to a very small room and that room is called the bathroom.

Jason: A little bit of embarrassment hanging them on the wall and yet the bathroom is the place that just about everybody needs to visit at least once when they're here. And so then they're forced. They're forced to be surrounded by our accolades.

Voiceover: He prefers to be surrounded by nature.

Jason: Do we still want to go a little to the right of these cats?

Voiceover: Mraz is a regular at a surf spot near his home, and self-confident enough to let us record him doing this. He called surfing his version of recess and surf culture is a big influence on his music.

Jason: The fact is surfing serves no point really, I think that brings to my music this sort of carefree and everything's-going-to-be-okay kind of quality. Because when you're out in the water, that's how you feel. You're like “everything's going to be okay”.

Voiceover: Jason Thomas Mraz was born and raised in Mechanicsville, Virginia. He says he had an idyllic childhood despite major upheaval at home.

Interviewer: Your parents divorced when you're four.

Jason: Yeah.

Interviewer: What kind of impact did that have on you?

Jason: I think it had a huge impact. I remember at a really young age saying “when I get married, it's only going to be… it's only going to happen once and it's going to be for life.” And so I decided I wouldn't get married young, I would wait and I would find someone and when I get married it would be once.

Voiceover: The 37-year-old says he's finally found that person but wants to keep their relationship private. But he unabashedly sings about love on his new album which he emphatically titled “Yes”. He's tweaked his sound by teaming up with the all-female folk group Raining Jane. They are also touring together.

Interviewer: What's it like to be the only boy in the band?

Jason: I love being the only boy in the band. It's probably the greatest decision I've ever made in my life. Everything's very clean, everyone goes to bed early.

Interviewer: But you make sure you put the toilet seat down and do all those things right.

Jason: I put the toilet seat down exactly. I use the air freshener. You know, all that.

Interviewer: It's very courteous.

Voiceover: We wanted to see if the women of Raining Jane would back that up.

Interviewer: He claims that he puts the seat down, that he's very courteous. Is this true?

Raining Jane: He's so courteous. He's so thoughtful, generous, brings us green juices, makes smoothies in the morning, definitely always smelling fresh.

Jason: I take a lot of pride in it. You know I love seeing this end up on the kitchen table.

Voiceover: Mraz is a devoted vegetarian and grows much of his food in his garden on his property.

Interviewer: You are a farmer.

Jason: I'm a gentleman farmer.

Interviewer: A gentleman farmer.

Jason: As I've heard it called for those who have small farms or those who dabble in farming who still has a day job but loves to grow and loves to produce a crop.

Voiceover: He has 300 avocado trees. More fruit than he could ever eat, which is why you can thank him for some of the Guacamole at Mexican fast-food chain Chipotle. He sells his avocados to their San Diego restaurant.

Jason: Would you like to try a little bit?

Interviewer: I'd love to try one. Oh seriously good.

Jason: Y'know, I should actually just bring a little salt and lemon in my pocket.

Interviewer: And a tequila shot.

Jason: That's it. Nothing would get done.

Interviewer: And then we get to stay out here all day.

Voiceover: Mraz says the stage is one of his favourite places to be. But even with more than a decade of success in the music business, he still doesn't always feel worthy of his fame.

Jason: Even right now, here we are having a conversation about my life.

Interviewer: Now how you would choose to spend this day if you don't have to?

Jason: Well, just, just, Again, I don't see my colleagues at the coffee shop doing it this way and so I feel a little strange, I feel a little unworthy, I feel a little “why me?”.