An evening with Andrew McMahon and his piano

Over the last 25 years, Andrew McMahon has successfully experienced musical rebirth many times and has consistently arrived on the other side stronger than ever. A child prodigy who was born and raised on the East Coast before moving to Southern California as a teenager, McMahon began stunning classmates and teachers with his ability to connect through song at an early age.

By 1998, he co-founded the pop-punk outfit Something Corporate while in high school, serving as singer, pianist, and songwriter, and leading the band to major chart success in the early 2000s with Leaving Through the Window and North. Soon after, McMahon resurfaced in 2005 with the deeply personal solo project Jack’s Mannequin, releasing three acclaimed studio albums, including the Gold-certified Everything In Transit and the two subsequent Billboard Top 10 albums The Glass Passenger and People and Things.

In 2014, McMahon released his debut album under his own name and new moniker, Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, featuring the breakout top 5 Alternative radio single “Cecilia and the Satellite.” He followed with the hook-packed Wilderness albums like Zombies on Broadway, which featured another top 5 single “Fire Escape," Upside Down Flowers, and Tilt At The Wind No More.

Across his three projects, McMahon has sold nearly 2.5 million albums, surpassed 1.3 billion streams, has performed at major festivals including Coachella, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, and Austin City Limits, and toured alongside the likes of Weezer, Panic! At The Disco, Gavin DeGraw, Dashboard Confessional, and even his idol, Billy Joel. McMahon has also received an Emmy nomination for his work on the NBC show “Smash” and launched his own curated cruise experience, Andrew McMahon’s Holiday From Real. In July 2025, he brought all three of his acts together at Red Rocks Amphitheatre making history with his sold-out Three Pianos show, where he became the first artist to perform as opening act, direct support, and headliner at the iconic venue all in one special career-spanning night.

But behind this story of constant evolution lies a deeply personal journey. McMahon’s path was shaped by his very public battle with leukemia at the age of 22. Those challenges not only influenced his songwriting but also inspired the founding of the Dear Jack Foundation in 2006, a nonprofit that supports adolescents and young adults facing cancer. His survival and continued creativity are also chronicled in the documentary “Dear Jack” and his searingly honest 2021 memoir Three Pianos, which blends personal storytelling with original music scored by McMahon himself.

Through it all, McMahon has found solace and hope in the things that matter most: his family and the one instrument he’s always turned to, his piano. He has built a career on resilience, reinvention, and the healing power of music, creating a body of work that continues to inspire others as much as it has sustained him.