A great deal has happened since Cross Rhythms became the first national magazine to write an article (CR28) on Jars Of Clay. Tony Cummings reports on the progress of the Illinois rockers.

Jars Of Clay

Contemporary Christian music is still pinching itself over the phenomenon that is Jars Of Clay. Here is a band whose "debut album" (actually, it was their second) has sold over a million copies, whose album and single have scored in the American pop charts and who have toured with many of the mainstream's biggest acts including recently Sting.

Critically too the band which only commenced in Greenville College in '94 seem to have found a truly original sound, marrying folk roots instrumentation to a hip hop groove and plaintive layers of harmony to the most idiosyncratic of melodies. But what has gripped the imagination of CCM commentators most forcefully has been the band's ability to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the mainstream rock arena like few US artists since those early days of Jesus Music. This was highlighted recently by veteran CCM columnist John Fischer who attended a Jars Of Clay concert at Dallas Starplex amphitheatre.

He wrote: "The event I attended was a free birthday bash sponsored by a local alternative rock station. The Dallas Morning News listed the groups to play that day as Cowboy Junkies, Jars Of Clay - 'one of the few Christian groups that tons of non-Christians have actually heard' - Jewel, Dada and Deep Blue Something.

"The summer night air hung low and smoky from tobacco and some other leaves that were burning. I looked out over rows of shaved, cropped hairdos. The guy next to me had five earrings on his face and only two of them were actually on his ears. Two stagehands were lighting candelabras on either side of the large dark stage when a disc jockey from the local rock station came out and introduced the last group. 'Ladies and gentlemen, a new group we happen to like a lot, and I know you will too. Please welcome...Jars Of Clay!'

"Under cover of fog and loud Gregorian chanting, six young men slipped on stage. Soon two acoustic guitarists emerged from the fog. The audience was on its feet - some standing on top of chairs and some dancing in the aisles. Three layers of tight vocals mimicked the chanting and then the strains of the first lyric could be heard as the music backed off to let the words through: 'Arms nailed down, are you telling me something?'

"All I could think of was, 'We've waited a long time for this.' The guy next to me, the one with the facial jewellery, had been waiting all his life. 'Are you with Jars?' he had asked when I first came in, probably noticing the backstage pass I had stuck on my chest.

"'Yes,' I said. 'If you're going to see them afterwards, would you thank them for me? I became a Christian listening to their CD.'

'"You mean, he got everything he needed to know to become a Christian off one CD?,' I asked myself. 'I played it over and over and figured out just about everything. I went and got a Christian friend of mine - pulled him out of a party - and told him I wanted to get saved right away. He didn't believe me. You wouldn't have either. I hated Christians.'

'"But you see through my forever lies/And you are not believing/And I see in your forever eyes/That you are forever healing." (From "Sinking" by Jars Of Clay.)

"Now here you have a guy who hates Christians, falling in love with Christian music, and following the lyrics right up to the Gospel. His name is William, by the way, and I'm sure he would appreciate your prayers. He's now reading Mere Christianity by CS Lewis and wants to be a novelist.

"Something about this seems fragile. Breakable. We need to back off and let this thing happen. Pray if you will, but please, don't go to hear Jars Of Clay at a club and cheer for Jesus. This isn't a contest. There are no sides. There are only sinners and a Gospel. If you want to do something, look for people with lots of earrings, who are finding ears for God they didn't know they had.

"You know when Christian music started, it was a lot like this. You would have gone to hear a Christian group and smelled pot and sat next to someone who appeared at first to be as far from the Kingdom of God as you could imagine, until you talked to him and found out he had just walked into it three weeks earlier. 25 years ago there wasn't a Christian audience to entertain; there was only a world to reach. Now, 25 years later, there still is."

Jars Of Clay's haunting sound which has so caught the ear of America is built on lyricist Dan Haseltine's lead vocals laid overtop the driving, rhythmic acoustic guitar interplay of Steve Mason and Matt Odmark, coloured by Charlie Lowell's often ethereal keyboards. With influences that range from the Beatles, folk music and modern alternative rockers Toad The Wet Sprocket, Jars Of Clay have crafted a sound that is indeed all their own.

"I would like to think what we're doing here is unique," says Steve Mason. "I get frustrated with acts being 'the Christian equivalent' of anybody else, because I think if it's of God, it can be better than anything the wold has to offer."