Adam Met isn’t just the “A” in the multi-platinum band AJR — he’s also an academic, an author and an activist.

In his new book, “Amplify: How to Use the Power of Connection to Engage, Take Action, and Build a Better World,” Met draws from his nearly two decades of growing an audience for his band to deliver a blueprint on how to animate and engage people to take political action. As the founder of the clean energy nonprofit Planet Reimagined, an adjunct climate policy professor at Columbia University and the recipient of Time 100's Earth Award in 2024, Met’s dual roles as a climate activist and a musician have given him firsthand experience with building a following.

Met told GBH’s The Culture Show that the inspiration for this project came from interactions with his band’s fans.

“Every time [AJR] would do meet and greets, because fans knew about the work that I was doing. ... They would always come up to me and say, ‘I want to participate, I want to do something more about the cause that I care about — whether it’s LGBTQ+ rights or climate or gun reform,’” Met said. “I kept thinking ... there’s got to be a better way to build activism, to build these on-ramps for people to get engaged.”

Met sees much of contemporary activism as often inaccessible to the average person, either conducted in “boring” fundraising galas or enmeshed in protests based in “anger and frustration.”

“What if there was a fun middle ground where you can have a concert-like space?” posited Met. “Something that was educational [and] fun where you were bringing people together in a creative way, in order to get them to collaborate on something?”

He interviewed prominent figures to gather insights into movement building, including: politicians such as presidential candidate Andrew Yang and New York City Councilor Chi Ossé; performers such as songwriter Ben Folds and comedian Jim Gaffigan; and vocal political voices such as March for our Lives’ David Hogg and conservative commentator Glenn Beck.

Met acknowledged the anxieties that some might feel about the state of the world, with many people finding it difficult to know where to start.

“The first thing I tell people is, what is the one small change that you want to see in the world?” said Met. “I’m not talking about flying cars, futuristic cities ... but even if it’s something as simple as ... want[ing] to put a stop sign up, there are concrete steps that you can take to advocate to get that kind of thing done.”

Met sees a hyperlocal approach to activism as being the place where individuals can enact the largest amount of change, as votes in community elections can end up being “far more powerful than in the federal election.”

“Every handful of months are these local elections that can impact your day-to-day,” said Met. “People can win or lose their seat by 10 or 12 votes ... and these are the people that decide where you’re gonna put a petrochemical plant, what zoning looks like in your neighborhood, the kind of power that your neighborhood uses to power your homes, what waste disposal looks like. This is where the decisions are made.”

Although Met sees local activism as crucial, he still believes that everyone can use the skillsets they already have to play their part to enact change on a larger scale — from communication to research to art.

“You shouldn’t have to do something different, you shouldn’t have to pay money to learn something new,” Met said. “You can take the thing that you’re already good at and take a few minutes in order to participate effectively.”

Met is coming to Greater Boston this week to speak at the First Parish Church in Cambridge on Friday, June 13.

To hear more from Adam Met, listen to the full interview above. Listen to The Culture Show daily at 2 p.m. on 89.7.