Jars of Clay

Dan Haseltine – vocals, percussion
Charlie Lowell – keyboards, piano, organ, vocals
Stephen Mason – guitar, bass, vocals
Matthew Odmark – guitar, mandolin, vocals

Jars of Clay offer a tonic for crazy times with their own perfect mixture of pop-infused melodic rock on their new release Much Afraid. The album is the much anticipated follow-up to the group’s platinum 1995 debut Jars of Clay, which yielded the single and video “Flood.”

Jars of Clay enlisted celebrated British producer Stephen Lipson (Annie Lennox, Sting, Simple Minds) to helm the album’s production. Recorded in Nashville and London, Much Afraid builds on the band’s refined rock lyricism, adding gorgeous pop hooks, driving guitars, and sweetly layered harmonies. Jars of Clay soar to new heights of creativity, imagination and insight through inspiring, soulful lyrics examining the universal desire for enlightenment, love and understanding.

“The album is about moving from a place where fear guides us to where we’re guided by love,” explains lead singer and lyricist Dan Haseltine. “There has always been spirituality in music. We’re expressing our feelings and writing from our own experiences.”

The first single, “Crazy Times,” with its rocking, emotional melody and probing lyrics, is an anthem for the millennium. Written by Haseltine and Mason, along with songwriters Greg Wells and Mark Hudson (of the Hudson Brothers), “Crazy Times” is the result of pure serendipity. Written during the summer of 1996 in an extremely brief burst of artistic energy during music industry maverick Miles Copeland’s annual “Troubador Conference,” Haseltine marvels at its seemingly miraculous appearance.

“We did a couple of opening slots for Sting during our 1995-96 tour and we met Miles through him. He invited us to his annual writer’s convention at his castle in the south of France,” Haseltine recalls. “Every morning at breakfast, we’d be paired off with different songwriters to see what might happen. It was such an amazing atmosphere. Timbuk 3’s Pat McDonald was there, along with Carole King and Paul Carrack. The idea was to write a song each day and record it, then, the next day start over with different collaborators. ‘Crazy Times’ was the product of our day with Greg Wells and Mark Hudson. Actually we wrote it in about ten minutes!”

Although Haseltine seems genuinely amazed by his good fortune, the band’s brief career is a product of such unpredictable and joyous events.

Jars of Clay got together as students at Greenville College in Illinois. “Charlie and I met as freshmen. I was wearing a Toad the Wet Sprocket t-shirt during orientation week and Charlie asked me if I was a fan. The next year I was wearing the same t-shirt the first week of school and Stephen came up to me and asked the same question!” Haseltine laughs.

Each had studied music formally since childhood as well as sharing a love for bands like the Beatles, Depeche Mode, Def Leppard, Genesis, Indigo Girls and ABBA. It was during a class in studio recording that they also discovered a unique artistic chemistry. In 1993 on a lark, they submitted one of the student recordings to a nationwide battle of the bands talent search, went to Nashville for the finals and won!

“Suddenly we were getting calls from record labels on our dorm floor phone,” Haseltine says. “So we ended up quitting school after only two years and moving to Nashville. Matt, who was Charlie’s best friend from high school joined us there.”

Signed to Silvertone/Essential Records in 1994, Jars of Clay have been so busy ever since, it’s no wonder they titled their sophomore effort Much Afraid.

“Much Afraid is both literal and allegorical for us,” Charlie says. “As we wrote and recorded it, and then chose the title, we realized that it was going to mean different things on different levels. We were facing a sense of pressure to meet the expectations set by our first album.”

The title track, a meditation on human frailty, Much Afraid carries an especially deep meaning for the group. “The song admits a lot of struggle and uncertainty,” Charlie adds. “Fear is a daily part of our own lives and it’s really heartbreaking to travel and meet so many people who are almost crippled by fear. Much Afraid is an anthem of hope and faith and a sense of resolution.

“It is what we’re trying to learn and live, and the message we want to leave people with.”