How the ’00s heartthrob and former Something Corporate frontman made space for himself while keeping his fans close.
David J. Bertozzi / BuzzFeed
Even though he's playing a sold-out show in Central Park in 24 hours, Andrew McMahon doesn't look like a rock star. At a divey bar in North Brooklyn wearing beat-up jeans and tattoo sleeves, he passes easily as a regular — not an 18-year veteran singer-songwriter with two bands, seven albums, and thousands of performances around the world under his belt.
The 31-year-old frontman of cult favorite pop-punk bands Something Corporate and Jack's Mannequin has never had a radio hit or broken through as a household name. But now, nearly two decades into his career, he's making a play to change all that.
Formerly the pretend boyfriend to a generation of high school girls too cool for Dashboard Confessional but too mainstream for Hawthorne Heights, these days McMahon is going solo with a new act called Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness. Instead of writing unrequited love songs about finding his punk-rock princess, he's singing about getting older and looking back.
