Jars of Clay Too Late to Start Again

Stephen Stonemason's new barbershop is right side by side door to Nashville'south famed trailer/swoop bar Santa'south Pub. There's non much parking, simply that's OK because there'south simply room for Mason, his Prohibition-era barber chair and a row of three theater seats for folks who are waiting.

The music is Duke Ellington. The decor is stacks of towels, bottles of Lucky Tiger aftershave and letterpress art of mustachioed men.

What at that place isn't: any sign of the barber's two decades as guitarist and vocalizer for chart-topping, Grammy-winning Christian stone ring Jars of Dirt, all-time known to secular fans for crossover hitting "Inundation" in 1996.

There's an easy narrative around Mason's new career that says his quondam one was derailed by pb singer Dan Haseltine'southward series of tweets in 2014 in back up of same-sex marriage. Googling Haseltine's name produces pages of manufactures on the resulting backlash and his ensuing explanation.

Only the real story is more complicated. Equally the band's religious behavior shifted, information technology became tougher to play lucrative evangelical music festivals. They were getting older, and it was time to start thinking virtually program B. On the other hand, there were proficient reasons to keep going.

They'd been together since Greenville College dorsum in Illinois, had families to back up — with no solid work experience outside of making music — and a nonprofit they'd launched to provide clean water in Africa, Blood:Water Mission.

Even before Haseltine'southward Internet flap, Mason enrolled in barber school, preparing for a leap of faith.

"There are a lot of people who have been with Jars for a long time and just desire to hear 'Love Vocal for a Savior' and 'Similar a Child' and some of that stuff from the first record, and we are grateful for those fans," he said on a recent Sat at the shop. "Nosotros just couldn't practise it in a theme park or a church setting where they were going to co-opt what we had written about and sung and make information technology about somebody else's agenda, and that was happening more and more. Even just sharing the neb with speakers who would suggest things where nosotros would think, 'This is the concluding thing I desire a teenager to hear.' "

Mason was raised General Association of Regular Baptist Churches just converted to Episcopalian, is a member at St. Bartholomew's in Nashville and speaks enthusiastically about his new experiences there.

"There were times in my own journeying where I wondered if my shadow should even darken the stoop of church because of what I grew upwards with and what it meant to be OK," he said.

Deceit, death and drought bring awakening for Blood:Water

In response to an emailed interview request, Haseltine — who has shifted more attention to Claret:H2o post-touring —confirmed that making a transition was inevitable. (He didn't address questions almost the role his tweets did or didn't play.) The rock 'n' roll lifestyle allows musicians to avoid responsibleness, he wrote, and it took years for Jars to wake up to music business realities and start considering their families' quality of life.

"Stephen was the youngest of the grouping and probably had a flake more of a journey to take hold of upwards, but he was besides the catalyst in many ways," Haseltine wrote. "He was the beginning to start taking online college courses and to start seriously thinking beyond his role in Jars of Dirt. To run into him building his own business organisation and having success with it has been inspiring.

"He gives a great haircut."

The band'south name is a biblical reference from 2 Corinthians, and much of its early work is distinctly religious, but Jars of Clay didn't plan to be relegated to the gospel charts, Mason said. That's where it landed, nonetheless, despite bout dates with Matchbox 20 and Sting and later songs where religious references are tough to find.

Its most recent studio anthology, "Inland," didn't necessarily belong in the gimmicky Christian music market, said John J. Thompson, former creative director at Capitol Christian Music Group and acquaintance dean at Trevecca Nazarene University's music school. And he doesn't recall fans who stayed with Jars from the kickoff found Haseltine's tweets surprising because they would have heard a philosophy of grace and generosity existence espoused for years.

"More annihilation, I remember that incident convinced them this wasn't the game they wanted to play anymore," Thompson said. "And they didn't have to. That life of touring and total-time music isn't as fun every bit people recollect it is."

Christian music executive Dan Keen, now a professor in Belmont University's music business college, remembers his years at ASCAP, tracking Jars of Clay's ascension with fascination and envy — they were with competitor BMI. He said "Flood" had a marked impact on the civilisation, with that hit and others earning spots in television and movies.

"They made some great records, merely when you've had a huge vocal like 'Flood,' information technology'due south difficult to keep going if you tin can't equal it," he said. "To me, their arc is a very normal arc in the music business organisation."

He tells his students to rock as hard equally they tin can for as long as they tin can, but don't skip out on an education, because they'll ultimately have to find other ways to brand a living.

But barbering, Keen said, is a highly unusual side by side phase for rock stars.

Stonemason credits his wife, Jude, for helping guide him toward it. She pointed out that he is a man who plucks his eyebrows and pays attention to detail, so the aesthetics field made sense. And a questionnaire aimed at finding his strengths came up with "winning others over."

Barbering also allows him to leave days open to get back together with band mates and play house shows or small venues, which he finds newly invigorating.

He named his shop The Handsomizer, and that recent Sat establish Stonemason plying his trade on the head of young Eyan Bonner while the teen's begetter, Patrick, stood in the doorway waiting —every bit pleased with the chance to connect with Mason, he said, equally with the sharp new look he planned to get.

Mason's hands flew, trimming strays and shaving sharp angles, the snips and buzzes and large-band music a soundtrack behind comfy conversation — as comfortable as he was across the years cracking jokes over thousands of fans' adoring screams.

Perchance even more comfy.

Heidi Hall is The Tennessean's former religion editor. Contact her on Twitter @HeidiHallTN.

kujawskianert1972.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/religion/2016/03/23/how-jars-clay-guitarist-ended-up-barber/81550370/

Share this post