Singer-songwriter Jack Johnson returns from his Hawaiian home for his latest studio album, To The Sea. The follow-up to 2008′s hit Sleep Through The Static, To The Sea was recorded in just three weeks at Johnson’s solar powered studio in the 50th state.

Speaking to MTV News, Johnson says the title of the album is “a reference to a father leading his son to the sea, with the water representing the subconscious. So it’s about trying to go beneath the surface and understand yourself. I have three kids … so the album is about that. It’s both me as a son of my own father and me looking down at my kids. I’m 34, right at this transition of still feeling like a child sometimes, but other times feeling like a father, and finding the father in myself. It’s all about those things.”

Johnson and his band recorded To The Sea quickly and as live as possible. “We don’t need much time. Just four guys in the band, we try to get it live as much as we can, keep as much of it with the bleeds in it,” Johnson said. “Three weeks is about as long as we could spend, because we tend to start overthinking things if we go longer than that. We’re a pretty small band, with pretty simple songs.”

To The Sea will be out June 1, with the lead single “You And Your Heart” landing at radio in April. Johnson said of the tune, “at some point, some of the books I was reading started leading me in a certain direction, kind of like this broken king character. That area you get in sometimes, where you stop trusting your heart and you start thinking too much about logic and this and that. So it’s basically about that separation that can happen between the self and the heart and trying to trust your heart again.”

Johnson has announced a number of tour dates for later this year. He will play Australia and Hawaii in April, then a run of European dates (mostly festivals) in June and early July.

[FMQB]