Andrew McMahon & Friends

Every seven to ten years, the human body replaces itself with a new set of cells. Not only does
this physical turnover occur multiple times over the course of a lifetime, it serves as a decent
metaphor for personal and professional growth. If anyone understands renewal, it’s Andrew
McMahon. Over the last two decades, the veteran indie-pop singer-songwriter has experienced
musical rebirth many times, ever since he started entertaining audiences in the ‘00s alt-pop
outfit Something Corporate, and he’s consistently arrived on the other side stronger than ever.
After leading Something Corporate to major chart success in the early 2000s, McMahon soon
resurfaced with the more personal solo project Jack’s Mannequin, then moved on to release
numerous hook-packed albums under his own name using the moniker Andrew McMahon in the
Wilderness. In 2006, following his own battle with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL), he
launched the Dear Jack Foundation, which provides programming to benefit adolescents and
young adults diagnosed with cancer. Through it all, the East Coast-born, SoCal-based singer
and musical collaborator has created a stunning catalog of introspective, impossibly catchy
piano pop. His enthralling new project, Tilt At The Wind No More (Nettwerk), is just the latest
example of his immeasurable staying power.

Arriving four years after his 2018 album Upside Down Flowers, Tilt At The Wind No More
captures McMahon at a turning point: celebrating his 40th birthday and 15 years of marriage,
raising a daughter, working through past traumas in therapy, hiring a whole new team, writing a
memoir — it’s all in there. As he looks back at a monumental career, Tilt At The Wind No More
simultaneously looks excitedly to the future. “I’m not one of these people who is worried about
getting older,” McMahon says. “Even as a kid, I always felt like I was carrying around an old
soul. But the fact that I’ve been in the music business for more than half of my life, turning 40
feels like a milestone. I’ve lived an amazing story, and I wanted to use the record to reflect on
some of that — and say, ‘Okay, what next?’”

In order to realize his vision for Tilt At The Wind No More, McMahon called up producer Tommy
English (K.Flay, WALK THE MOON, Carly Rae Jepsen), whom he had worked with while
making his 2017 album Zombies On Broadway (English produced “Brooklyn, You’re Killing Me”
and “Island Radio”). McMahon also got in the studio with producer Jeremy Hatcher (Harry
Styles, Shawn Mendes), co-wrote a new song, “Skywriting,” with K.Flay — whom McMahon
calls “such a trip,” adding, ”She has such big, generous energy. I know few people like her” —
and even had his daughter Cecilia sing on two songs: “Smoke And Ribbons” and “Nobody Tells
You When You’re Young.”

The end result? Tilt At The Wind No More features 11 big-hearted songs that burst with joy and
lessons learned. One such truth is embedded in the mid-tempo jam “Nobody Tells You When
You’re Young”: “The things nobody tells you when you’re young, that some friends will become
strangers,” McMahon sings before observing how “a rebel heart won’t listen.”
On the jubilant first single “Stars,” McMahon brought in LA singer-songwriter Ella Vos to sing
backup. “Most of my best love songs find me in the morning after a fight,” McMahon laughs,
adding how the chorus lyrics — “the stars that fell for you, left holes in my roof” — are some of
his favorite to date. “I don’t even really know what it means, but I know what it means to me,” he
says. “There’s something beautiful about loving someone for all of their baggage, their beauty
and everything in between.”

Likewise, on “Last Rites,” which conjures Cure-like drum beats, McMahon again pens an ode to
his wife and considers how love songs evolve with long-term relationships. “These last few
pandemic years, I think people’s bonds have either deepened or fractured. ‘Last Rites’ is
reflective of a connection that goes so much deeper than even I can put into words.”
Elsewhere, K.Flay’s co-write “Skywriting” takes flight with a propulsive beat, lush synths, and
pounding piano. “Skywriting” is the most “existential” track on the album, McMahon says,
adding, “The act of Skywriting is a big gesture, to see something painted across the sky. You
own a place in the clouds for a minute, and then it just disappears.”

He continues: “I think it really is a metaphor for this idea of creating for a living. There are things
I’ve done that I consider my best work that nobody ever talks about. And that’s okay. This song
was a chance to make peace with that and celebrate a life spent making things regardless of
the outcome.”

Finally, on the sprawling, orchestral “Lying On The Hood Of Your Car,” which McMahon jokingly
describes as “surf-noir,” the singer contemplates an earlier time in his life — a bygone era when
he could drive around town with friends. “We’d always end the night sitting on the hood of the
car, looking out at the beach and reflecting on all the dumb shit we had just gotten into,” he
laughs. “That was the genesis of the idea — this sense of the world being so far in front of you
that you don’t even realize you’ve already done some living, and that feeling of being young with
so many possibilities. This record accesses a lot of that nostalgia.”

Though it is steeped in nostalgia and optimism for the future, above all else, McMahon wanted
to make Tilt At The Wind No More sound “transportive.” “I wanted people to be able to put on
their headphones and hear a universe in these songs,” he says. “I think we pushed hard to
make this music really adventurous. We took the singer-songwriter medium and said, ‘Let’s dig
deep and make it sound really fun and out there and wrap people up in these arrangements. It’s
one of the things I’m most proud of: the way it sounds.”