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THE ART OF JOY

An Interview with Jim Mayer
For the Parrothead Club of Eastern Massachusetts
Interviewed by Katherine B. Jones (KBJ)

KBJ: Jim, thank you for taking the time to talk with me today for the Parrothead Club of Eastern Massachusetts.

 

Over the years, we’ve heard Peter talk about the early days—learning guitar, soaking up music, figuring things out as a kid. Is there one story from that time that usually doesn’t get told, but really sticks with you?

JM: Yes.
When I was 13, Peter was 16. I wanted to play bass. The guy down the street played guitar, my brother Peter played guitar, and the Beatles only had two guitar players. Everybody knows you don’t need three guitar players—at least, that’s how my 13-year-
old brain worked.

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I thought, “Well, what am I going to do? I don’t want to play drums. I’m going to play bass.”

Peter was already playing in a wedding band when he was 16. I wanted to play bass, and the bass player in his band—a guy named Mike Haase—actually loaned me a bass for a long time. He had an extra one, and he let me play it for almost a year.

But eventually Mike said, “You know, I’d like that bass back.”

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I had been doing chores and had saved $80 for an instrument. And, like a good 13-year-old kid, I carried that $80 with me everywhere. Back in those days, we got our clothes at Sears & Roebuck. It was football season, and it was time for me to get my new husky
jeans—those were always the ones I had, ’cause I was a little big as a kid. I left my jeans in the changing room at Sears & Roebuck to go out and show my family, and someone stole the money. I lost the $80 I’d been saving up for a long time. Peter was making money with the party band, and he bought me my first bass. It was a Vox Beetle bass for $80. I’ll never forget that.

So there—that’s the story that doesn’t usually get told.

KBJ: That might be the only question I need to ask! But I do have another. During all those years playing with Jimmy Buffett, what was the one quality—on stage or off—that stayed with you the most?

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JM: From Jimmy?

Clarity.

You know, Jimmy’s known as a party animal. He’s known as the guy who would most likely do anything. He has a fearless approach to life—from surfing between two aircraft carriers to, you know, who knows what.

But the thing that amazed me most about Jimmy was his consistent clarity. I flew with him frequently on his private jet. We were together at rehearsals. I won’t pretend I was a close personal friend, but I was around him a lot. And he always had an instantly clear decision—from the simple, lighthearted moments like “Where are we going to eat?” to the big moments like “Are we going to cancel this show because a storm’s coming?”

There was never a moment I saw him without clarity. That is mind-blowing to me. And it’s true that sometimes his clarity was: “We are not going to worry about this right now. That’s not today’s thing. We’ll talk about that on Thursday.” But it was still clarity. And that kept us away from endless ditches we could have fallen into.

Clarity. Yeah. I love that.

KBJ: This is a question I’ve asked you before—at Peter’s show in Cambridge, I asked you about the black bass. Would you tell that story again?

JM: Oh yeah—the mad black bass.

So, like Peter, I need to play to stay who I am and stay well. The beautiful thing about music is that it benefits both the listener and the player. When I’m on tour, even though I get to play shows, I still have to have a bass in the room.

And a bass is a lot bigger than a guitar, so it’s harder to carry around. I noticed that Mick Ultey had this really cool case he could strap on his back—it held a keyboard so he could play in his room. I thought, “I’d love to get a bass that could fit into that kind of case.”

 

That’s where it all started.

A regular bass won’t fit; it’s too long. And it’s no fun playing a ukulele bass—that misses the whole point; it doesn't have the same feel as a bass. Then I thought, “Wait a minute. There’s this company called Steinberger that makes a bass with no headstock.” It’s chopped off at the neck and has this ingenious screw—a bolt you turn to tune it. It sounds great and looks cool, but it feels terrible when you play it. It has this slender body that just doesn’t fit right.

So, I had this idea to create a Frankenstein bass: take a Steinberger bass and bolt it onto an outline of what’s called a Fender Precision Bass. The Precision Bass is the most popular, common bass in history—it’s on just about every Aretha Franklin song. It’s the
standard. It sounds great, looks great, and feels great.

I outlined a P-Bass body and sent that outline to a friend of Peter’s named John Parker in California—a great guy who loves to tinker. I asked Peter, “Who can do this?” and he said, “Oh man, send it to John Parker. He loves doing this.”

So I sent it to John, and he spent a couple of months figuring out how to bolt on two other pieces of wood. Those pieces can be removed, so it’s modular. The result is this black bass that just fits in the case—with a lot of padding. The good news is: it sounds fantastic. I can take it anywhere and just put it with the luggage because it’s built like a tank. And if the worst happens and I lose it, I can build another one. It’s not an irreplaceable antique or vintage instrument I’d be afraid to take on the road.

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Jim Mayer, MOTM 2025, photo by Sophia Harris

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KBJ: I love that story—seeing you on stage with that bass is incredible.

Now I want to go back to when I first met you. It was at Meeting of the Minds in Key West in 2015. Jimmy wasn’t there that night—there was a rumor he was entertaining the troops somewhere.

After the show, you had a meet and greet—you, Peter, Gary Green, and others. I was really looking forward to meeting you because I wanted to talk to you about education—serious stuff. I mentioned that I was from Harvard, and you said...

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​​Autographs from MOTM 2015

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JM: I remember saying, “Is that a typo?”

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KBJ: Yes! And then: “Wait, are you really from Harvard—and you’re a Parrothead?”

And then I said, “Tell me about your foundation.”

JM: My foundation came about because art of my brain is wired like a 6-year-old. Luckily, that’s just how it is—I can’t change it.

 

Because of that, I wrote two children's songs that both became number-one hits on satellite radio. I literally wrote them for
fun. One was called Funky as a Diaper and one was called I’ve Got a Butt.

Those are still out there. Please forgive the wardrobe choices I made—they seemed like a good idea at the time.

A teacher friend told me, “You know, musicians come to schools and play—and they actually get paid for it.” This was back in 2008. Not a lot, but enough to make it worth doing. So I started going to schools.

I was raised by Lutheran missionary parents, so I can’t get away from the idea that there’s got to be a message in what we’re doing. It doesn’t have to be about God, but it does have to help people.

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So, I started incorporating positive messages in my assemblies about success principles—tenacity, resilience, all that. Everywhere I went, I asked teachers, “What do you need help with?” Because the kids were listening to me; we might as well work
together and have the messaging support the teachers.  Almost every teacher said, “They can’t handle their emotions, and they can’t handle social situations. That’s where they fall apart.”

I don’t do anything halfway. So, I did a bunch of research. Back then, the conversation was framed as “bullying” or “bully prevention.” But as I did my research, I found that calling it bullying wasn’t that helpful. Even when bullying was happening, the situation
was bigger and more complex than that.

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So, I put together this program that uses music to accelerate and activate social-emotional learning for young children, using fun music and games. It’s taken me about 15 years to be able to say that in one sentence—but that’s what we do.
The basic idea is: we make it fun to talk about the tough stuff.

How do we do that? If a child is lonely or being le` out on the playground—which is very common—we teach them a song about a lonely broccoli that’s le` out of the salad and doesn’t know why. We provide teachers and parents with tools to talk with children
about the tough stuff.

If we can make it a little less tough—just a little easier to talk about—then we’ve done our job.

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Jim Mayer and Katherine Jones, unknown photographer

 

KBJ: That’s wonderful. Thank you.

There’s much more to say about that,
but I have one final question—and this one is just for you:

What would you like to leave us with?

JM: Oh my God. That’s big.

I have many books I plan on writing, and I need to get busy with that. All the books are different versions of one idea: how to bring joy into our lives and live it daily.

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That’s it.

But if that’s just a statement, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s like saying the words “Paris, France” instead of actually being in Paris, feeling the breeze, tasting a fresh croissant and a strong espresso on a sunny morning.

So, we need tools. We—meaning me and you—need tools to help us remember what we are as people. Because we, as people, even on a scientific level, are mammals. We need each other to live.

A friend of mine, David Vaughan, has a saying: “No matter what the problem, community is the answer.”

As we see with our own eyes every day, community is tough. You’ve got different views, different ideas. It’s not only an inside job; it’s not only a “me” job—it’s a “we” job. How do we do this?

I’ve done a pretty good job of hiding a lot of thinking behind my smile—not hiding it exactly but waiting until I’m clear on how to explain to people why I’m smiling. There’s a reason. It’s not just that I’ve had too much to drink or that I’m deluded.

So that’s what I want, and hope, to leave you all with: the owner’s manual, the instructions—to joy. To living in joy and remembering that it’s not just that we feel joy.

We are joy. That is the spark of life.

It’s been twisted and misused and misunderstood since the day we first rubbed two sticks together to make fire. But that doesn’t change the fact that we are joy.

That’s what I want to leave you with.

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