Jason Mraz is convinced the ladies love a glimpse of his chest carpet.

Jason Mraz didn’t exactly reinvent the adult-contemporary wheel with his latest album, We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things . Nor did he mess with his blue-eyed beach bum soul formula. And, oddly enough, he’s the first to admit it.

“I didn’t write anything different than I did on my other albums,” says Mraz, who’s calling from a Phoenix, Arizona, hotel. “In fact, I think all three albums are pretty much the same.”

Few would argue with that. So why was this simple little campfire album such a freak success? Sure, the record’s light and breezy ditty “I’m Yours” was a huge, Grammy-nominated hit, but there has to be more to this phenom than just one instantly recognizable song, right?

Mraz, who was here less than a year ago promoting this same record, says he owes his good fortune to a little thing called gratitude. He’s also apparently learning to live abundantly with what he already has, which just happens to be a highly lucrative music career.

“Introducing those concepts to my already peaceful demeanour was sort of what put me over the top,” he says. “I honestly believe that’s why I’m having so much success with this record. That’s why people are more attracted to the songs this time.”

In addition to mastering the art of loving life and giving back, he’s also become somewhat expert at pulling off PR stunts—like the time he posed in his Speedo wielding a rather large knife. The point was to show the rest of the world what kind of lean physique he has thanks to his raw-food diet. See, the San Diego–based singer-songwriter is on a one-man mission to make healthier food choices more accessible for those of us who can’t afford to tour with a personal nutritionist.

“I vote with my dollar for whole foods and raw foods, so that the demand increases,” he says. “And also, I feel pretty darn good when I’m eating that way—the way my mind works, the way my thoughts generate, the way my body operates.”

In other words, you won’t find any refined carbs on his rider. That might throw his whole Zen-like equilibrium off. For him, it’s all about making “conscious” eating decisions.

“If I invite 10,000 to a show, then I feel like I am with those 10,000 people,” he explains. “But if I just cram a pizza down unknowingly and show up on-stage with any kind of imbalance or insecurity, then I really feel like I’d be working: ”˜Oh my God, I gotta get this right. I can’t screw up.’ And I feel like 10,000 people are staring at me.”

According to Mraz, another benefit of his uncooked lifestyle is the calibre of chicks he meets in the health-food section.

“There’s always girls either going to yoga or from yoga, and again these are conscious women,” he says. “They’re vibrating and interacting on a entirely different level than, say, women I might meet at a show or women you’d meet at a bar, who sometimes only talk to you and can’t hear anything you’re saying back. So I really love the health-food-store ladies.”

It would be all too easy to make fun of Mraz for busting out phrases like “vibrating and interacting on a entirely different level”. But after talking to him for 15 minutes, it’s pretty clear that the 32-year-old surfer and musician has simply found his own far-out spiritual way to deal with the pressures of the music industry.

“If anyone ever comes to me with, like, ”˜Deadlines—we have to do this,’ or ”˜You did this wrong,’ or anything that might cause a stressful situation, it’s like, ”˜Okay, whatever. No big deal. I’ll do what you need me to do to take care of that,’ ” says Mraz. “But it doesn’t usually prompt me to be stressful because this whole thing [pop stardom] is kind of a joke anyway, right?”

As for his next album, Mraz has stated in previous interviews that he wants to make a more progressive-sounding one, but don’t hold him to it.

“You know, I go back and forth with that,” he admits. “I keep thinking it’s gonna be an acoustic album, or it’s going to be myself and an orchestra. But all this week, I’m kind of hoping that it gets more funky and progressive again. So I hate to say it, but I can’t make any promises or be final at the moment. But I definitely hope that it’s another album that people can get along to.”

Jason Mraz plays GM Place on Wednesday (September 30).