The shows will also be stripped-down, acoustic ones, right?

"They’re going to be real acoustic—just Zach (Gill) and myself, really. And that’s it. It’ll be fun. I think Zach will probably play some accordion. I don’t know if we’re getting a piano in there or what we’re going to do. We haven’t really thought about it much. It’s always more fun for me when Zach’s around, though. It’s fun to have two guys up there. It still stays real stripped down, which is a fun way to do the show. The songs sound so different when you do them without bass and drums. It’s kind of fun to present them that way, as well."

The Hawaii shows are benefits for the Kokua Hawaii Foundation and the Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation. We’ve talked about Kokua Hawaii before. But the Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation is new.

"We’d started Kokua Hawaii Foundation years ago, and it’s always really rewarding to have the shows and have the money go towards environmental education in Hawaii. Then we started thinking as we toured everywhere else that it would be nice to start something that benefited all those cities and communities we were playing at. And so that’s what the (new foundation) does.

"Basically, all of the shows we did last year were fundraisers—like mini Kokua Festivals. And everywhere we played, money from the shows went directly to the group that night and then the rest of it got put away. We give out the interest every year to groups that are doing good things. But the (Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation) is more for using worldwide, not just for Hawaii."

You’re donating 100 percent of the profits from En Concert CD/DVD sales and the Hawaii Theatre concerts to your two non-profit foundations. You did the same for every concert on the Sleep Through the Static tour—100 percent of the profits. No one does that, Jack. I mean, that’s everything.

(Laughs.) "It’s one of those things. We’ve been so lucky to be able to just keep doing this. And, when I say 'we' I mean everybody between my wife (Kim) and everybody in the band and everybody who’s involved. It’s not easy to keep something like this going. I mean, I’ll be the first to tell you that after we had success on the first record (2001’s Brushfire Fairytales) that I assumed that was going to be it, and that I was going to fade into obscurity. And then the fact that it continued and we were able to continue to make a living, we just thought that it’d be really nice to be able to have a non-profit wing of what we do.

"And so we decided that the touring (profits) made logical sense, because here you have all these people coming together every night. It’s a community of people coming together. So (why not) use that money we’re raising to go towards positive things? It just made perfect sense for us to do.

"Not everybody can do it. I mean, most musicians depend on their touring income to make a living. And a lot of times you have one or the other—you have a solid touring thing and not so great (income) on the CD sales, or vice versa. We can live off the CD sales and we’re lucky that people keep getting our albums. So we decided to use the touring (profits) for raising money for people that are doing positive things."

Will Kokua Festival return in 2010?

"I wish I could tell you definite. But we’re right on the time of trying to figure it all out. We just had a lot going on last year with life in general and decided to take a little break. Right now, we’re just starting to get back in the mode of thinking about everything—whether we’re going to record another album this year or tour next year and Kokua Festival. I wish I had a more definite answer for you."




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