Article by Brian Q. Newcomb
The folk/pop Essential recording artist, Jars of Clay, works against the conventional wisdom that most "overnight sensations" have been secretly plugging away at their craft for five or ten or twenty years. These human vessels, scheduled to open Michael W. Smith's spring tour, show every sign of having arrived in quite a short time. The success of Jars of Clay, the debut from this Nashville-via-Greenville College quartet, proves to be the very epitome of the word, "fresh."
"We've been together for about two years now," says piano and keyboard player Charlie Lowell. "Matt (Odmark), one of the guitar players and I grew up together in Rochester, New York. I left to go to Greenville College in Illinois and in my freshman year, I met Dan (Haseltine), our lead singer. We worked together musically a little bit that first year in a campus ministry group as well as some studio recording projects. That following year we met Steve Mason; he came in as a freshman. We hooked up with him because he had a sampler and was kind of into that hip hop sampling thing."
However, admits Lowell, the passing influence of hip hop is not heard on the band's album, which leans toward a Toad the Wet Sprocket approachable acoustic alternative sound. "There's a lot less of a techno emphasis; the demos had a lot more keyboard choir pads and the beats were mixed a lot louder and it was just a lot more stripped down and raw. We wanted to take it even more organic and acoustic on the album, adding some strings and things like that, making it a little more lush without it being over-produced."
The transition from demo band to recording and touring artist, for Jars of Clay is the very stuff of rock music fantasies. "I was taking a studio recording class and I needed some projects to do throughout the year," explained Lowell. "We'd written these songs, so we thought why not demo them. We ended up staying at school through Spring Break, putting in some really long days in the studio, getting as many songs on tape as we could. We were pretty excited about how they turned out, a lot of people responded well to them, so we entered three songs in the GMA (Gospel Music Association) Spotlight Competition (in Nashville). We were accepted into the competition and ended up winning, very much to our surprise."
The rest, as they say, is history. Albeit, recent history. Added to the speed that Jars of Clay moved from the dorm practice room to the concert stage opening for PFR and Steven Curtis Chapman, is the presence of Adrian Belew - noted guitarist to the stars (David Bowie, King Crimson, Nine Inch Nails) and solo artist - acting on producer on two songs, "Liquid," the album's mesmerizing opening track and "Flood." However, again, the truth isn't the rock legend one might expect.
"The story is really not that spectacular," explains Matt Odmark." "There's an intern at our record company, who's also a very good friend of ours, who just happens to be Adrian Belew's wife's cousin. Through her we found out that Adrian was in Nashville and was putting the finishing touches on an ADAT home studio here in town. Our friend volunteered to hand him one of our demos and apparently, with some coaxing from his wife and this friend of ours, he was interested in working on our record."
And what was the nature of Belew's contribution? "He did some string arranging and played mandolin, bass and cello on the songs, so he did have a quite a bit of input (on those two songs)," says Odmark. Although to these ears, Belew's contributions stand out on the disc, the members of Jars of Clay were comfortable producing the remaining tracks themselves, says Odmark. "We had a real shared vision for these songs, as well as the rest of the record, so it wasn't like we finished those two songs and were like, 'Wow! I can't believe they turned out this way, how are we going to make the record sound like this?' It was more like he really achieved what those songs would sound like. He helped us, early on, achieve the goal we were shooting for on the whole record."
Still, says Odmark, working with a musician of Belew's caliber and reputation forced the novice Jars of Clay on a quick learning curve. "We definitely felt pretty green," he admitted. "It was quite a challenge to go into the iso-booth and play guitar knowing that Adrian Belew was listening to what you were playing. There were moments where our inexperience showed through and he had to take control and set the tone as far as what needed to be accomplished."
The presence of a mainstream musician had little impact on the spiritual content of those songs and indeed the entire recording, says lyricist/vocalist Dan Haseltine. "I'd be lying if I said that I'd been writing for a long time and formulating how I wanted to write, because this is really my first attempt to write things and express things through music. Authors, more than anything else, such as John Fischer and Max Lucado, have really influenced my writing. The way they express the gospel or the things that they were trying to get to in their writing, was colorful but to the point. There was no question as to where they were going."
Haseltine continues, "The message that we share is something that, definitely, deals with the concerns of the Christian audience but also deals with the unhealthy view of Christianity, that it's this untouchable thing with rules and laws. It's definitely accessible to anyone and we try to show a more realistic view of the life of faith. It's not a story book ending."
It's this desire to walk in honest human-ness that gives the band its name and principle metaphor. "When Paul writes about how breakable and fragile a human being is," says Haseltine, "yet God has entrusted His Holy Spirit within us, that's definitely the verse that we try to tailor our ministry after."
http://www.vision3.com/jarsgold/party2.html
This article first appeared in Syndicate magazine in October 1995.
Brian Q. Newcomb was a freelance writer at the time, living in St. Louis.
© Copyright 1995 Syndicate. All rights reserved.