The success that reality redefined

WHEN Andrew McMahon decided to take time off to do some soul-searching, he had no idea he’d end up staring down his own mortality.

In 2004, exhausted from almost four straight years of record making and touring with the emo-punk quintet Something Corporate, McMahon called a timeout -- an attempt, the hyperkinetic singer and piano player says, “to harvest my own individuality.” He embarked on a side project, Jack’s Mannequin, and a year later had an album’s worth of sweetly melodic pop songs chronicling his self-realization.

Then on June 1, the day he completed work on “Everything in Transit,” McMahon was diagnosed with acute lymphatic leukemia.

Even as he began treatment and battled complications, plans to put out the album moved forward. On Aug. 23, the day he underwent a stem-cell transplant, the album was released. Now, with his cancer in remission and “Everything” enjoying a groundswell of attention, McMahon has found an even more profound understanding.

“All my life all I wanted to do was make records, but now my priority became staying alive,” says McMahon, 24, relaxing on a sofa last week at a Sherman Oaks studio, his formerly spiky hair now making a comeback from chemotherapy. “And all of a sudden I woke up to a lot of things around me that were really important -- there was so much more to my life than I’d ever given it credit for.”

The album, a coming-of-age bouquet that wraps its petals around teenage hearts and just might soften a few older ones, reveals that even before he fell ill McMahon was well on his way to such insight. Eerily, the songs were peppered with references to ambulances, doctors and hospitals as their author sought metaphors for the ache of his transitory lifestyle and crafted verses reaffirming his love for those closest to him.

“It’s spooky,” says Carl Stubner, McMahon’s manager, “but it’s apparent that there was a parallel between where Andrew was musically and where he was going physically.”

If the young songwriter suspected as much, he was too hard-charging to stop.

“He’s driven,” says Jim Wirt, a veteran producer and McMahon’s collaborator on “Everything.” “In fact, I have never worked with a more driven guy than Andrew.”

THE prepossessed piano player emerged early. The youngest of five children in a music-filled household, McMahon began writing songs at age 9, enjoying the same kind of parental support a Little Leaguer might get. “I’d say, ‘Mom, I want to record some of these songs,’ and she’d go through the Yellow Pages in Ohio looking for ‘Music Producer,’ ” he recalls with a laugh.

By the time he was a teen, the family had relocated to southern Orange County, where McMahon hooked up with guitarist Josh Partington and the other guys in Something Corporate.

“Most kids will graduate high school and go away to college and find themselves,” McMahon says. “I climbed in a van with four guys for three or four years. We all kept pretty humble because we had to work it so hard.... But we just got tired, maybe myself more so than the others.”

Despite Something Corporate’s success -- its two albums have each sold more than 300,000 copies -- McMahon found it difficult to ease up, even during the band’s downtime. “I was a little obsessive in that sense; I had a hard time letting go,” he says. “You spend so much time in your head, thinking about why this worked or why it didn’t.”

By 2004, McMahon had lost his emotional footing, not to mention his girlfriend (with whom he has since reunited and plans to marry). He retreated, writing songs at a leisurely pace, discovering the Beach Boys and rediscovering Southern California.

“It wasn’t until I’d been away from California on tour for four years that I really appreciated it. It was a really awesome awakening,” he says. “But as cheery-sounding as some of the music is, the subject matter is darker and more personal.”

As “Everything in Transit” took shape, says Wirt, “I think Andrew really found himself in new territory. There’s some Beach Boys, pop elements, even jazzy things that pop up here and there.”

Featuring piano lines that aspire to such heroes as Elton John and Billy Joel, an attitude that recalls a less cheeky Ben Folds and chunky modern-rock guitars, the album has sold steadily even without tour support from the man whose barely pubescent tenor soars through its choruses. Something Corporate’s fan base and McMahon’s recent appearances on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and the WB’s “One Tree Hill” have helped “Everything in Transit” approach the 100,000 mark in sales.

McMahon did foresee this, even in May 2005 as he finished work on it: “I really felt like we had connected on a pretty large scale.”

That euphoria vanished the day the album was being mastered. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, the record is finished,’ and then walking outside to check my messages and getting one from my doctor telling me to go straight to the hospital,” he says. “My focus shifted pretty quickly.

“When they start talking about your future in terms of statistics and odds, the severity becomes apparent.”

NEITHER anger nor bitterness surfaced.

“He was almost Zen-like,” Wirt says. “He was in such good spirits, he never seemed anything less than positive. He never got tired, he never got grumpy.... It was remarkable, and very inspiring to me.”

After six weeks of chemotherapy and a bout with pneumonia, McMahon found out that his sister Kate was a bone marrow match. The stem-cell procedure was performed in August, just as Maverick Records was releasing the album.

“He never wavered in his commitment,” Stubner says. “There was no ‘Why me?’ or ‘This is not fair’ or ‘This thing is kicking my ass.’ And there were times he was really sick.”

Despite an attack of shingles, the leukemia was found to be in remission, and, his prognosis for recovery good, McMahon played a small show and a cancer research benefit in December. Last month at the Viper Room, he played “Everything in Transit” front to back and was joined onstage by Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee (who played on the album).

McMahon looks forward to a modest slate of live shows this spring and even someday reconvening Something Corporate for another album.

But, he says, “I spend a lot of time these days taking deep breaths -- after the way 2005 played out, it definitely deflated the seriousness of my everyday anxieties. Right now I don’t have a timetable for anything. In fact, I’ve really abandoned timetables.”

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Jack’s Mannequin

Where: Viper Room, 8852 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday

Price: $15

Info: (310) 358-1880 or www.viperroom.com