Jars of Clay
A Look Back On How They Started
Jars of Clay began with Charlie Lowell and Dan Haseltine, two college
sophomores who had a vision to be parts of a band. Charlie, whose major at
Greenville College was CCM, had studied II Cor 4:7 in high school, and he
liked the Jars of Clay title as a name for a band. In 1992 he met Dan
Haseltine, who were both majoring in CCM and both lived on the same
dormitory floor. As this came together, it evolved into a four-piece
group with Charlie on keys, Dan Haseltine on vocals, Steve Mason on
guitar and Matt Bronleewe on guitar. They performed on campus and
surrounding areas and were very well received. "People seemed to really
enjoy and dig what we were doing," said Charlie, "and we were enjoying
ourselves, so we did a CD demo just to see if we could pull it off. It
was more for fun. We didn't have intentions of going to Nashville
and trying to get a record deal."
Last April they
submitted a demo tape to the judges of the Gospel Music Association, and they
were selected to be one of ten bands slated to compete in the Association's
Spotlight '94 talent competition, attended by a number of Music Industry
people. Jars of Clay ended up taking the competition by storm - essentially,
GMA was naming them the best unsigned band in the country. Their achievement
naturally led to a flurry of attention: many of the top record companies in
the Christian music industry wanted to sign this talented foursome. "We
were getting calls on the pay phone on our dorm floor," said Charlie.
"We weren't even sure how some of them got our number. We finally put a
sign by the phone that said 'If anybody calls regarding Jars of Clay,
take down their number and tell them "this". . .but don't tell them
"this."' School ended three weeks later and we came to Nashville and
started meeting with people."
The group's members decided to put their college educations on hold, and
they began to explore the possiblity of moving to Nashville and committing
themselves full-time to the band and its potential ministry. One of the
band's members decided to leave the group at this time to pursue his business
degree, and Charlie thought of his friend Matt Odmark as a new guitarist
(they had played in a Christian band from 1987 to 1990 called Simple Truth).
Matt had just completed his second year at the University of Rochester. He
was serving the Church as an active volunteer youth leader and he also gave
himself away to the kids as a leader with the Gates-Chili Young Life Club.
After praying for 2 months over Charlie's offer, Matt decided to accept and
move to Nashville.
Since that time, the band has signed with Essential Records, and has experienced
tremendous success with the release of their self-titled debut album. The
band has toured as an opening act with PFR and Michael W. Smith, and has
headlined with with such opening acts as Duncan Shiek, The Samples, The
Gufs, and Sarah Masen. Their self-titled debut reached the gold mark in
the Spring of 1996, and the platinum mark in September of 1996.
Based on the history of the band as told by Jack Cleveland
This information was provided by //www.jarsofclay.com/bandinfo/history/