Jack Johnson: Shore Thing.

Jack Johnson plays the Arena on Friday, the Surfers Paradise Beergarden on Saturday, instore at Sunflower Pacific Fair at 1.30pm Sunday and the Great Northern Hotel in Byron Bay on Sunday night.

"The new songs I’ve been writing are pretty mellow,” Jack Johnson explains. “I’m not a really sophisticated kind of guy.”

Many who caught one of his Australian shows earlier this year may well be prepared to disagree. It’s a treat to be blessed with a visit by an artist the calibre of Johnson once every year or so. The fact we’re about to get our second visit in a mere matter of months from the soulful acoustic songman is a treat in deed. Last around these parts for the Blues & Roots music festival in Byron Bay, his upcoming shows, by default, currently make him Australia’s most frequent international musical…

“I love the waves down there,” he unashamedly admits from backstage at a Nashville music festival. “The idea of getting down to Australia is really appealing. It’s got good weather and great waves; the people are great. We’re going to kind of settle in Hawaii, so we’ve got North America that we can kind of hit up, and we can jet over to Australia or Japan. We went around and opened for the John Butler Trio last time we were there, and people were really warm. Places like Southern California, Hawaii and Australia just feel really right. Places where people are into roots kind of music.”

The beach is a bit part of the Johnson touring schedule. The former pro surfer turned surf filmmaker as a way to follow the waves, his musical career eventually picking up from a similar point.

“It wasn’t until recently that I’ve kind of realised that I’m a musician now. Even after we put the record out it was sort of just great to get to put out all these songs I’ve been writing. I’d always just though of making some more surf films or whatever. It just sort of took off. It got to the point where we were touring all the year, and any time off I’d still go surfing. I didn’t really have a chance to pick up a camera any more.”

“I think surfing was the real love there. Getting to get around and document surf trips was the fun part. Music was just taking the place of film making in a sense. Whenever I have time my other real love is surfing. If I got to surf all the time, films would be the work part. I hate to say it, but music is like the work part now. Not playing the shows, but getting on the plane and doing six hour drives from gig to gig. Whereas the with films the work was the same, travelling, dealing with all the film gear, processing…”

Was getting into film and then into music more of as a nice way to be able to get to the good surf beaches or do some travelling?

“With film making it was. It was the easiest way to get to the places I wanted to be. Music is taking me to all these places I never thought of going, like Nashville,” he quips. “It’s really cool. I was sitting looking over the crowd watching a friend play a set thinking how cool it was. From about 18 on I was doing a lot of trips in the summer. My brothers would take my along to all these places in the Pacific. It’s nice to be doing something that takes me to some other places in the world.”

His eventual foray into songwriting came almost by accident.

“We’d get together, family and friends and have a barbeque or bonfire on the beach,” he explains. “A friend of my dads would bring his guitar and sing Jimmy Buffet and Van Morrison, all those kind of songs. I’d just start learning the chords, and when he’d leave I’d try and keep up with the singalongs. Lucky it was all family and friends, because it could take a while… I started trying to write my own songs from there. It’s always been about being around friends.”

While his debut album Brushfire Fairytales was written primarily with solo guitars and vocal in mind, the other musical contributors to the record and still working together with him in a live capacity. With Brushfire now nearing two years since completion, attention is turning to the recording of a new album.

“All the songs on that record were just written for an acoustic guitar. I used to make four track tapes of songs. I still mostly write when we’re not touring, so if I get a chance to go out on a surf trip for a couple of weeks I’ll take a guitar and usually write a few songs. Sometimes the other guys will have a groove now and I’ll just add my two cents over the top of that.”