There comes a time when a boy becomes a man and his growth into maturity will stand out like a lighthouse beam. The playfulness and excitement may still remain but the progress he has made in his world, whether it be personally or professionally, now shows itself clearly. So with his third full-length self titled album, Jared James Nichols is standing tall in his transition. Released on January 13th, the once young foal of blues guitar unleashed his hardest rocking album to date but with a mighty difference – his lyrics have more meat on their bones. And what a difference this is making in Nichols’ career, for not only are you getting his trademark guitar playing but stories that come from his heart and his awareness of what’s going on around him.
The Wisconsin native has been on the scene long before his debut album, Old Glory & The Wild Revival, came out in 2015. I, in fact, interviewed him for Glide back in the summer of 2013. Back then he was full of youthful energy for playing guitar and trying to make his mark in a very crowded scene. “I think my strongest asset as a musician is I’m able to express myself fully playing music as an artist,” he told me then. “I know where I want to go with the music and it’s all honest and it’s all just me.”
In regards to his songwriting, Nichols proclaimed, “I’ve never been a guy that approached songs really constructively like these are my parts and this is it. I try and keep it very natural and flowing. I don’t want songs to come across too stale or too thought out and pretentious.” For his new self-titled batch of songs, he allowed himself to go a little deeper, all while keeping the dynamic of recording live in the studio with his longtime drummer Dennis Holm and bass player Clark Singleton.
For Nichols, playing live, whether in front of an audience or in the studio, is where the magic is. But in late 2021, a freak accident almost stole his dream from him. “I had a small accident last night after my set,” he posted on his social media. “I ended up grabbing a road case the wrong way, my arm twisted under the stress, and I heard a loud POP. Turns out I broke my RIGHT arm just above the elbow.” Surgery and physical therapy followed and Nichols was back playing guitar in no time … and recording. Jared James Nichols is the result of passion, determination, maturity and never giving up on your dreams. Songs like “My Delusion,” “Bad Roots,” “Down The Drain,” and first single “Hard Wired” rock your socks off, while “Out Of Time” explores psychedelia from a tender moment in Nichols’ life.
I recently spoke with Nichols ahead of his European tour, starting on February 9th in the Netherlands, about his foray into more hard rocking territory, the maturity of his songwriting, his tornado guitar, the break that could have changed his life, and why his father is his hero.
So what’s happening in your world today, Jared?
I’m just getting over a pretty wicked cold actually but I’m in Nashville now. I’ve been everywhere. I was in Chicago, Wisconsin and before that I was in California and then we were doing shows around Tennessee.
But I bet you loved being back out on the road and being onstage and not having to worry about any pandemics.
Oh, it felt so good to be back out. I mean, honestly, it was like the biggest piece that I had been missing. It’s great to play music at home and it’s great to jam with friends but being back in that live element, it was everything.
What do you feel when you’re on that stage?
Connection. There’s a connection that can’t be faked. I don’t know how to describe it. Being in the moment, I think that there is something so special about that and it’s the only time that I ever truly get that. I can write music, I can be in the studio, I can do all that stuff, but there is still something that is so just beautiful about that live element. It’s just the energy and connection.
You know, you told me in a past interview that you were starting to open up more musically, especially to rock & roll, and this new album has really knocked it out of the ballpark for you, taking blues into hard rock. Was that a natural exploration progression or more from being around and playing with people like Zakk Wylde and Slash and seeing firsthand what they can do with the guitar?
I think it was a little of both. Obviously being around it and playing with more established rock acts really, really helped kind of guide me in that direction. But also it was natural. There was a lot of my music that I felt like I wanted to get out and the only way to do it was through that rock & roll vein. I grew up playing blues and I always, always will love the blues but there was this rock edge always calling to me. So with the new record, it was really important to me, like I told you then, to open up a little more and not be afraid to jump in the deep end, so to speak. It felt really natural to do but it also felt really free to do that and I felt like with this record I didn’t have that voice in the back of my head telling me, oh you better cool down, you better tame down. I just really went for it and put myself all in.
And you had that previously, that voice telling you to not do things?
Oh definitely. Maybe not necessarily to not do things but I feel like as a guitar player and as an artist it’s very easy to get pigeon-holed, to almost get boxed into things, and in the past I felt like I would kind of like stick between the lines more, so to speak. But I felt with this record I wanted the music to go where it wanted to go. With that being said, I didn’t really say, okay, I’d better tame this down or I’d better make this a little more bluesy. Some of these songs are really heavy and instead of saying, okay, let me chill this out, I basically just said, alright, let me let this song go where it wants to go and I will simply hold on to the end of the cable and see what I can bring to it.
And you really amped up the drums. Tell us a little about your drummer.
His name is Dennis Holm and Dennis and I actually met in 2011. So we’ve been playing together for a very long time. But this was the first record I made that Dennis is the only drummer on it, which is awesome because we’ve grown so much together. In the past I used different producers that on certain songs wanted more of a polished sound or they wanted a certain player to play on it. But this was awesome cause with this recording it’s all Dennis. With that being said, there are not really any overdubs except for my voice. We all basically went into the studio together and we said, let’s just play it like we play it live. And like you said, the drums are super amped up and what’s great about that is what you hear on that recording is what you get live. It was really fun to make the record like that because it was kind of spontaneous but also there was this energy of us playing live in the studio that I think translated really well.
“Hard Wired” you wrote with Tyler Bryant and Graham Whitford. How far back does the friendship go with those guys and how did that song come together?
I met Tyler for the first time, I think in 2007, so it’s been a long time. He was actually touring under Tyler Dow Bryant and I was a fan. But we struck up a friendship and it’s continued to this day. Shoot, it’s been over fifteen years. But that song is all from a jam session that we had at Tyler’s house probably about two years ago. Funny enough, Graham was the one playing the drums and Graham is a great drummer. I had no idea! (laughs) But we were just jamming at Tyler’s house and “Hard Wired” just kind came out of nowhere. Tyler was like, “I have this idea for a song that would be called ‘Hard Wired To Love You.’” And I thought it was a really cool idea and within, I don’t know, twenty minutes that song kind of surfaced.
Tyler is so good at recording and writing songs that in an afternoon that song was basically written and recorded in the demo form. Then what I was able to do was I brought it back to Dennis and Clark and we literally sat there and were like, cool, how do we take this? Let’s start playing it live, let’s start trying to see how it feels live. And what we were able to do was kind of take that demo, give it a little more wings, do it my own way, and basically what you hear on that record is kind of the way that song was written. The funny part is that intro was totally spontaneous. That was something that I just did in the studio and the guys were kind of looking at me like, what is he doing? (laughs) I just had this idea to just start playing my guitar and then go into the song. And I am so happy I did it because it just comes off like this wild, crazy guitar intro kicking off into that riff, which I feel sounds so heavy.
You wrote “Out Of Time” after your father passed away yet you didn’t take it down a stereotypical sad ballad route. It’s very surreal with lots of psychedelic overtones. Why did you choose to do it that way?
You know, when I wrote that song my dad’s death was so fresh; it was almost like I was still in shock. And it wasn’t like, okay, I’m going to write a sad song. It was almost like I wrote that song and that song is almost like me being dazed and confused. It was more coming from a spot where you feel the emptiness but you don’t know how to process it yet if that makes sense. When I wrote that song, to be honest with you, he was on my mind but I didn’t say, I’m writing a song for him. It almost came out in kind of a side way. It wasn’t like, I’m going to write a sad song for losing my hero. I was just trying to cope with it and that’s what came out. And to be honest, I wasn’t even going to put that on the record. It was personal but it still didn’t feel right to me. But once we got in the studio, putting it with the guys, I feel like I shed a little bit of intimacy doing that and it was a really, really helpful thing for me.
Was that psychedelia in there from the beginning?
It wasn’t necessarily so much like psychedelic but I had so much open space in the song that our producer Eddie Spear said, “Oh man, it would be really cool if we added this.” At first I was kind of against it because I didn’t know how I felt about it. It was a precious song to me but in the end I’m really glad that we went that route because now what’s great about that song is it means so much to me in a certain way but I’ve had so many people come up to me and say, “Man, I love that song,” but for a completely different reason. And I think that that’s a really cool thing about having a song that stands on it’s own, is when people can kind of hear it in their own way. But the psychedelic thing, that definitely came later.
Why was your dad your hero?
Oh my goodness, for every reason. He taught me how to fish, he taught me how to be respectable and respect people, he taught me how to work hard. He wasn’t a musician or anything, he was a construction worker, but he would always say, “Play from your heart,” cause the music he listened to he showed me it was very resonant to that. I could sit here, Leslie, all day and tell you why. I think having a guide in life or having a role model is so important and I feel so lucky that I had such a good one. Every day, even though he’s gone, he still teaches me stuff.
Hard-working people like your father seem to appreciate things more sometimes.
Absolutely. He was a bricklayer and then he ended up becoming a crane operator and watching people who work hard when you’re growing up, you see how much they pour into that and then pour into the family. It’s one of those things that kind of rubs off on you in a good way and you say, that’s how hard they work, I want to work that hard to achieve my goals.
Which guitars did you use predominately during the recording of this record?
Actually, I only used four guitars for the whole album; not because I didn’t have any other ones but I really, really wanted to use the guitars I felt sounded right, cause with this record it was really important to me to have a certain sound that translated through the whole thing. Obviously I’m known for my guitar playing and stuff but I really wanted to capture the rawness and that kind of stick of dynamite on the record so I used some pretty old guitars on the album.
There is a guitar that I recently was gifted that was actually in a tornado. It’s really weird but I’m telling you, Leslie, that guitar, if I had one guitar that has a soul in it, it’s that one. It is crazy how good and how beautiful that guitar sounds. It’s a 1952 Les Paul so it’s seventy-three years old already. But there was this guy that hit me up on social media, right, and he goes, “Hey Jared, I know you like old Gibsons and stuff. There was a tornado in my hometown in 2013 and this flew into my front yard.” He sends a picture and it’s this guitar with a broken neck, all full of dirt, all full of debris, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing because if you’re into guitars or cars or whatever, you can see little things about it that can show you potentially when it was made. And this guitar had the earliest form of pickups; it had some clear cut things that made it very, very old.
So I hit him back and said, “Hey man, what are you doing with this guitar?” And he goes, “I don’t know, I was thinking about potentially getting it repaired but I don’t know what to do.” So I said, “Hey, if you ever want to get rid of this guitar, I would love to have it.” I gave him my number and he calls the next day and said, “Man, I’ve been thinking about it and I just want you to have it.” I couldn’t believe it. I ended up driving up there, he was about a hundred miles south of Chicago, and meeting up with him and he gives me this guitar. So I had my friend rebuild it and put a new neck on it, everything else was the same. I didn’t want anything else touched. I wanted to preserve it as it was. And man, this guitar, it’s just crazy that it survived a tornado and I’m now literally playing music with it every day.
What songs can we hear it on?
“Hard Wired” for sure. That’s the guitar sound on “Hard Wired.” That’s the guitar sound on “Down The Drain.” That’s the guitar sound on “Hallelujah,” “Good Time Girl,” “Out Of Time.”
Did you use anything else?
Oh yeah, I ended up using one of my signature models, it’s called Gold Glory, and that’s through Epiphone and an all gold Les Paul. What was cool about that guitar was, it’s crazy to hear how different the new guitar sounds from an old one. An old one sounds more warm and fuzzy, while a new one is more articulate and more sharp. So I used that guitar on “Skin N Bone,” “Saint Or Fool,” “Bad Roots,” cause it had a more sharp and articulate tone. Then the other guitar that I used was another old Les Paul, a 1953, and I got it from one of my friends and right before my dad passed – he was born in 1953 and he loved the way that guitar sounded – so I had him sign it, had them engrave his name in it. So it’s pretty cool and that’s another guitar I will never get rid of, obviously.
When you first started learning to play guitar, what was the hardest thing for you to get the hang of?
Trying to use a guitar pick (laughs). To be honest, at first when I got the guitar, everyone was like, “Hey man, if you’re going to play guitar, you’ve got to play right-handed and you’ve got to use a guitar pick.” You know, I’m a leftie so that guitar pick never felt good in my hands. I almost felt like I was playing backwards. Then after all of that, I would say the hardest thing for me to get used to was, and this sounds really funny, but when I play the guitar I always get really excited. I don’t know what it is but literally if I get a guitar in my hands, if I had a headache or even if I’m like sick or whatever, it all goes away and I’m like in the moment with the guitar. So the one thing that was really hard for me to do is I would be so excited that I would push the strings down too hard (laughs). So it took me a long time to relax when I was playing the guitar. I almost had to like ease into playing cause I was like so jacked up about it (laughs).
Your arm injury a few years ago, when was the moment you knew that everything was going to be okay?
Here’s the thing, even when it happened I was telling myself, even before I knew what was wrong, I’ll be okay. I just kept saying that, even though I did not know what was going on. But I remember when I met with the surgeon, he said, “Hey, I hear that you’re a guitar player. I play the guitar too.” I looked at him and I said, “Please, you have to help me.” And he gave me this look and he said, “Don’t worry about it. I got you.” And I remember when I woke up from the surgery, he was like smacking me in the face, “Hey, hey, Jared” and I’m all groggy and he goes, “It went great. You’re going to be just fine.” And he goes, “Do me a favor. Move your fingers for me.” And I remember I just squeezed my hand and my fingers and he goes, “You’re going to be just fine.” That was the moment that I was like, everything is okay.
How much therapy did you have to do?
Oh right when I got home I immediately grabbed the guitar and I just held it and almost tried to like pick just one note, trying to make sure I could do it. To be honest with you, I did so much therapy and I did 99% of the therapy on my own. Everything from isolation exercises finger by finger because what was really hard was I was so numb for so long. So it was very hard. I couldn’t feel anything for, I would say, the first two months. So getting my mind around not being able to feel was the first kind of challenge. Then after that it was almost every day I would just try to get a little further. Even bending my arm, just being able to hold something in my hand. I went through every single step of rehab. It took a really long time.
You play with your fingers, so you couldn’t feel the strings?
No, I couldn’t feel the strings I would say for the first month.
Do you remember the first song that you were able to play all the way through after rehab?
Actually, I learned this really old song. It’s called “I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know” by Donny Hathaway. I remember I heard this song and it’s like the slowest blues song ever, seriously. You should listen to it. It’s so beautiful and I remember hearing it and I was trying to play along to it cause it was so slow and when I heard him playing it I was like, man, this is the song I’m going to rehab to. So I just kept looping it over and over and over. I’d say for two weeks that was the only song I played. Now when I hear it, it brings me instantly back to that spot. I’m just so thankful I was able to make a full recovery and not only a full recovery but if anything, having that happen showed me how quick something can be taken away. It made me feel not to take it for granted and to push even harder.
Where do you see your maturity as a songwriter?
Oh man, I think I’ve come very, very far considering where I felt like I was a few years ago. This record, from a songwriting style, this is the first record I’ve made where I actually sat down and really thought about making songs. I know that sounds funny and someone would probably say, what’s he talking about? Like, that’s part of your job (laughs). But it’s very easy to overlook songs when you want to just see what’s right in front of you almost. Like, yeah, this is the song, I’m only worried about playing it. This was the first time I sat down and crafted songs, which was an amazing experience and something I am so happy I did. One would think that maybe when you are writing songs you’re not thinking about how they are going to sound live. But the reality is, you get the whole picture when you’re writing songs and it’s almost as if the songs, like I said before, they almost shape themselves. So for me as a songwriter, I feel like I’ve matured so much on this album and I’m really excited to see where it goes.
You know, before this record I almost felt like I didn’t really pay attention to the songs. I would play songs and do the best I could but now I am very, very into the construction and honestly, the overall picture of the songs. I feel like I’ve grown so much and am already writing for the next record.
Is there a song on here that is exactly, top to bottom, as you first wrote it?
I feel like I made changes to every single one of those songs but the only one would be “Out Of Time.” That’s the only one as far vocally, structure, that stayed the same, because all of the other ones, I wrote them and then I sat with them and then I’d think about it and say, oh I don’t like this and I think I should change it to this. So there was a lot of little meticulous things about the songs. But I would say “Out Of Time” is the only one that hits as it stands, besides the psychedelic kind of flavor.
Is there a particular line or lyric that really stands out to you?
There are quite a bit of lines in all of the songs that I feel stand out a little bit. For instance, a song like “Bad Roots,” one could hear that one and go, oh, this is just a hard rock song. When I wrote that song it was really about our lives in history and how a lot of times people don’t learn from bad things that have happened, right. So you had the line, “You built this house made of stone and then you wonder why it gets so cold.” There’s all these lines in that song that were trying to almost trick ourselves to try and forget about history and bad things that have happened instead of learning from them and growing from them. So I always loved that line. Even like in a song like “Saint Or Fool,” right. “Nowhere left to run, the truth is hard to see, I’m too far from home and you’re just what I need, I lost myself to you, either you’re a saint or I’m a fool.” It’s kind of the song I think we can all relate to, whether it’s a relationship or just a bad choice.
Is touring going to take up most of your 2023?
Oh yeah, absolutely. What’s up next is we’re going to Europe for about a month and then it sounds like we are going to be doing runs across America in March and April and then we go back to Europe in May. It’s a really, really exciting time.
How are the old blues artists guiding you and your music into the future?
Oh man, it’s funny because when I think about the blues I think of like a pure and easy way of living. Like, I think about the truth when I listen to the blues. So for me it’s like, it’s easy to get overcomplicated and to think about everything at once; even musically it’s like, what have I got to do, all these different things, but when I listen back to the blues it’s almost like slowing down, taking your time and say what you really need to say. So I think moving forward, that’s one of the things, the truth, and that’s what blues is, rhythm and truth. I feel like as long as I keep that, kind of wear that on my sleeve, keep that in the forefront of me making music, I feel like that’s going to take me very, very far.
Portrait by David McLister; live photo by Leslie Michele Derrough
