"Jack Johnson" has been added to your list of bookmarked artists
close
Jack Johnson
Biography
Before Jack Johnson perfected his casual rock star ways, he was a champion surfer on the professional route. The sport was second nature to the young Hawaiian native, who began chasing waves as a toddler and, by the age of 17, had become an outstanding athlete on the Pipeline. However, Johnson was also testing other creative outlets -- specifically film and music -- and a serious surfing accident convinced him to devote more time to those landlocked hobbies.

It was during his college years in the continental U.S. that Johnson began writing the relaxed, acoustic-based songs that would later turn him into a star. While studying film at the University of California at Santa Barbara, he also paired up with old friends Chris Malloy and Emmett Malloy to produced a surf cinema documentary entitled Thicker Than Water, which spotlighted Johnson as a talented cinematographer as well as a burgeoning singer/songwriter. His peers from the surf circuit praised his work, and Thicker Than Water received props in Surfer magazine as 2000s Video of the Year. The follow-up surf flick The September Sessions also earned the Adobe Highlight Award at the ESPN Film Festival that same year.

Still, Johnson steered away from a blossoming pro sports career and stuck with music, a move that would soon earn him additional honors.
report abuse