Jack Johnson On The Friendship At Heart Of New Documentary SURFILMUSIC

MADRID, SPAIN - JULY 14: American singer-songwriter and professional surfer Jack Johnson performs in concert during Mad Cool Festival 2018 on July 14, 2018 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Mariano Regidor/Redferns)

Redferns

For multi-platinum singer songwriter Jack Johnson, the storytelling started early, albeit subconsciously.

Growing up in Hawaii, Johnson began surfing at a young age, telling stories on his board as he emulated the lines of surfers like Tom Curren. In his teens, Johnson would begin competing in prestigious surfing events like the Pipeline Masters. Later, he’d emerge from UC Santa Barbara with a degree in film studies, working with friends like Emmett and Chris Malloy and surfing legends like Kelly Slater to create a pair of 16mm surf films.

Newly remastered in 4K from the original prints, those films (1999’s Thicker Than Water and 2000’s The September Sessions), set Johnson upon a creative path that predates his career as a Grammy-nominated musician. Both are now available for purchase or streaming on most VOD platforms.

Taking a rare look back, Johnson began coming through the old footage in an effort to help promote the wider release of the films, a process which quickly snowballed.

As its title implies, the new documentary SURFILMUSIC masterfully ties together Johnson’s worlds. Directed by Emmett Malloy, who’s co-managed Johnson for 25 years while directing films like the 2009 White Stripes documentary Under Great White Northern Lights, the new documentary traces Johnson’s unique journey.

Themes like the importance of friendship and adventure quickly emerge from a film which examines both life and loss while celebrating the ideas of creativity and acceptance.

While Johnson and Malloy allow the surf scenes to breathe, the new film also traces the evolution of his music, with the inclusion of multiple demos of Jack Johnson songs like “Flake” giving viewers an in-depth look at just how he’s grown and evolved not only as a songwriter but as a human over the course of the last 25 years.

The new double album SURFILMUSIC Soundtrack & 4-Tracks (now available via Johnson’s own Brushfire Records on vinyl, CD, cassette or for online streaming) tackles that, featuring those demos alongside the film score created by Johnson and Hermanos Gutiérrez, who join Johnson on the road during a lengthy tour which kicks off Friday, June 19, 2026 in New Hampshire, running into October before moving to Australia and New Zealand in November.

I spoke with Jack Johnson about today’s theatrical release of SURFILMUSIC (more info on theater locations, showtimes and tickets is available via Johnson’s website) the rhythm of both waves and sound, the value of travel and his philanthropic work alongside wife and co-manager Kim Johnson promoting both sustainability and education. A transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity follows below.

Jim Ryan: Going through old songs and old footage the way you did for this project seems like such a rare look back - seeing people who are no longer here, such different times before fame, different places. What did you learn during that process?

Jack Johnson: Well, it wasn’t really meant to be a feature length film at first. It started because we were going to put out our old surf films. Because we were really just trying to find some bonus footage or little clips we might put out to kind of promote the idea that we were putting these old films out. And so we started going back and looking through all of this old footage. And the more we dug in, the more we just kept finding these things. And as we put them together, it kept growing.

I think the reason it really amounted to something more than just little clips was focusing on the friendship. I had lost a really close friend a couple of years ago as we kind of dove into the project. His name is Tamayo Perry. And he was one of my best friends. And he was on some of those surf trips with us. And he was just a major reason we all connected as friends.

So, really, the idea of friendship and collaboration - and sort of this thing of friends seeing things in each other before we see them in ourselves sometimes - really started emerging and being the major theme.

Ryan: I imagine it starts with the surfboard. On that surfboard, you’re telling a story. Later, with the films, you’re telling different stories. And, eventually, that manifests itself in your songwriting too. How important generally is that idea of storytelling to you?

Johnson: It is big I guess. It’s cool that you’re pointing that out. Because it’s something that I’ve been thinking about more lately. I think with songs, I don’t always think of them as storytelling. But I realize now that is what I’ve been doing for the last 25 years. They feel real personal. I kind of share these little things in the songs. A lot of times, something applies to my life. And, if there’s enough truth in it, I think other people sort of feel that truth. And they can apply it to their own life.

And it was fun to work with Emmett Malloy, my friend who directed it. It was a very collaborative project. And even though it’s about friendship, it brought a lot of friends together. A lot of the same people that did those first projects kind of came together to do this one again. So, the film itself became a re-connector of friends. And the storytelling was a big part of that.

Ryan: Whether it’s a surfer, a filmmaker, a musician, a poet, anybody, who are some favorite storytellers of yours?

Johnson: Greg Brown would be one of them. He’s a great songwriter that I love. Thinking about films I love now, the Coen brothers. I love all of their films.

But it’s like you said, people are telling a story even on a surfboard when they ride a wave. One of my earliest inspirations is a [surfer] named Tom Curren. Just the lines he would draw on a wave. I guess you could go so far as to say that with the story he was telling, he was maybe the first person where I thought, “I want to be like that.” I remember seeing him in films when I was a kid and thinking I wanted to learn more about what was in his mind and why he drew those lines he was drawing.

Ryan: One of the things that really fascinated me watching the film again, especially early in the movie, is that there’s these moments where it just kind of breathes. There’s no music. And there’s not necessarily even narration at times. You’re watching the scene and listening. Was it a concerted effort between you and Emmett to take that approach?

Johnson: You’re very observant. In the very beginning, once we decided it was going to be a longer film, we were really thinking more of the surf world. It was going to be a lot of this history of this green board that was part of the film. That part was longer and it was a bigger part of the film. But it kept changing a little bit in terms of who the audience might be and who we’re telling the story to.

There’s a part [in the film] with the Pipeline Masters [surf contest] when I was a kid. People in the surf world know these names. Michael Ho and Johnny Boy Gomes are legends in the surf world. Well, there’d be times when we would get feedback [on the film] from somebody watching from outside the surf world. “You should cut this part down.” But there were some parts we just didn’t want to cut down. And we wanted to leave the surfing.

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Ryan: You’re watching those surf scenes and there’s the rhythm of the ocean. You listen to music and obviously there’s rhythm. It feels like something they share. What does that idea mean to you and is there a similarity between the two?

Johnson: I never used to make that connection at all when I was younger. And then the older you get, it’s fun to think about things and philosophize and stuff.

But, yeah. It’s all waves. So much of everything that we interpret is waves: sound waves or these waves coming in across the ocean. Their patterns that happen. And they’re created by a storm way off in the distance. And then you’re riding at the last moment before that wave kind of dissipates at the shore. So, it is fun to think about the intervals.

Waves are about 12 seconds apart (the intervals, the average swell). They could be sometimes longer or shorter. The shorter it is, the more stormy and choppy and dissonant it kind of feels. And the longer the increments between the waves are, the more harmonious.

So, it’s different. Me and the band have talked about it. With ocean waves, you’re riding on top of waves that have been created by a storm off in the distance. At a concert, I guess we are the storm. Because we’re creating the sound waves and sending them out to other people to dance on top of.

We are the storm when we’re playing a concert.

Ryan: I think it was you who made the comment at one point that you started getting the bug for travel. And whether it’s filming in Hawaii or Tahiti or France or Ireland, there is all of this travel that you undertook in the making of those early films at a young age. To me, one of the valuable elements of travel is that it helps people to embrace the idea of different - people or things that look or sound or act differently. What is the value of travel?

Johnson: Of course you’re going to run into people that are edgy or have tension traveling at the airport. But I can distinctly remember having this realization as I travelled that almost everybody I’d run into everywhere I went was so accepting and full of love. The more I travelled, the more I realized that as long as you have time and you listen and you get into the conversation, you can really get along and be at peace with anybody. So, I think it is a great thing for anybody to be able to see and hear different cultures.

And I was really lucky at that point in my life to get a chance to do that. It was a huge luxury. And it was one of those things where I never dreamed that I’d get to visit that many places. All of the sudden, because of this “job” - with quotes around it - we pulled around the world and got to experience a lot of cultures.

I’m forever grateful for that experience.

Ryan: When you were filming some of the new material, you made the comment about shooting to film - that it’s important even though you don’t technically have to be doing it. What are the advantages of shooting to film in this largely digital era?

Johnson: I had just graduated film school. And I was what you might call a film snob at that point.

It’s funny. Because I knew how to use a 16mm camera. And I learned how to use a couple of different ones. They’re all a little different. The Bolex camera, you have to wind it up. Because there’s no battery (it’s a spring-wound thing). And you have to know your light exposures and your shutter speeds and all of that kind of stuff. But I didn’t really know how to use state of the art video cameras at the time. So, it was because of my limitation. I only knew how to run a film camera really. And it was exciting. But I definitely love the idea of shooting on film.

The limitations that come with it are you only have a certain amount [of film]. There’s not an endless hard drive you can fill up. So, you have to kind of decide where you’re gonna pull the trigger and capture something. In this day and age, I guess the trouble is that with our phones, you can capture anything all of the time. Should you capture everything all of the time? Or is it worth kind of sitting back and watching and then waiting for the moments and being a little more conservative with what you’re actually trying to capture?

Ryan: I imagine the new double album kind of captures this. But take “Flake” for instance. There’s a few different demo versions of that song used throughout SURFILMUSIC. One is faster, one is slower. But is was fascinating to watch how that song has evolved over all of these years. In putting together the Four Track element of this project, what was it like revisiting the roots of your songs like that?

Johnson: I think there was a time right after I put out my first record, and maybe even the first couple, where whenever I’d hear those old recordings, I’d cringe. Because I heard the vulnerability in them. And I was still so close in age to when I’d recorded them that I only heard the imperfections. Now, enough time has passed that, when I do hear them, it’s kind of magic for me. That vulnerability is what’s charming to me. It’s sort of like I can picture myself at a different stage where life was still full of discovery trying to figure out, am I even a songwriter? Or am I just toying around with this for a minute?

But the song “Flake” in particular. I didn’t talk about this in the film at all. But that was the song where I found out that I could sing. I remember writing the song and having this thought that, “I think this is a pretty good melody. And I think this song is catchy...” When I’d play it for friends, they’d seem to react to it in a different way. But I couldn’t really sing out yet. So, I took that song and I went to this one field in Santa Barbara when I was going to college there. And I remember I just took a long walk to a place where I felt like nobody could hear me. And I just really sang that song out for like an hour. I just tried to see if I could sing. And I gained a little confidence that day. I realized that, “I think I can maybe."

Anyways, that was a fun song for me. It was fun to dig back and find those versions. Because that was kind of right when I was finding my voice.

Ryan: You collaborate with Hermanos Gutiérrez on the film score. They’re also joining you on the road. What was it like working with them on the soundtrack?

Johnson: It was so great. They’re fans of surf films. And they’re fans of creating these visuals. Their music is so visual. A lot of times, when we first started talking about scenes, they would send me like a slide guitar track and say, “This reminds me of light glittering across the water.” They see music in a way. Their music is so visual that it creates these soundscapes. So, working with them, I knew I loved their music. And then we got to become really good friends.

You hope to connect with people out on the road and at festivals and stuff. And a lot of times you do. But every once in a while, you gain a real new friendship. And that’s what we have. And so it’s fun.

Ryan: Well, we’ve talked about how that idea of friendship manifests itself throughout the film. To be able to kind of still be able to tie those worlds together creatively with the people you love after all of these years, while including a new generation via your kids, is so rare. What does that mean to you?

Johnson: The thing that feels most successful is that all my best friends are still all my best friends. All of the people that I knew before. I’ve made a lot of good friends through it. I’ve met a lot of really creative, interesting people along the way that I can still call friends now too. But my wife and I met when we were 18, as it kind of shows in the movie. So, to have people like that and Emmett around is great.

But even my sound guy, the guy who is our front of house sound mixer, has been with me from before there was any success. And when you know you have a friendship or a relationship with people before all that success, you can just trust that that relationship is real.

Ryan: In your philanthropic efforts with Kim, I know that sustainability has kind of been your lane for a while now. But there’s also the educational component via Kokua Hawaii Foundation and Johnson Ohana Foundation. Sustainability and education are concepts I’d argue are as valuable as they’ve ever been. How important is that work to you?

Johnson: It’s everything. To be honest, it kind of makes it all feel like a career that I can keep doing.

I was somebody whose goal wasn’t ever necessarily to be a working musician. I was more into the surf and the film and stuff. It all kind of started happening. And it was really exciting and fun. But it got to a certain point where I just wasn’t sure if I would keep going out on the road or not. And then I realized that it could almost be like a non-profit wing of what we do. And that when we tour, we could try to mitigate all of the negative impacts of a show as best we could.

But what I really loved is that we could expound upon the positive by having 10 local non-profit groups at every show. And then money from the shows could go to those groups. And then some of these new fans that are coming to the shows could become new members of these groups and kind of give them new energy. I’ve met people along the way that were introduced to a non-profit by coming to one of our shows. And then we came back a couple of years later and they were working at the non-profit. It’s really cool to know those connections can happen because of gathering people for music.

So, from the very beginning, as soon as we could fill small clubs, we were having groups like Surfrider have a little booth. It was always kind of part of our blueprint. And it kept growing.

We love doing it that way. It feels good.