Contrast and Complement
"My heart beats for you"

Author John Fischer examines the unique personalities in Jars of Clay and shows how God blends them artistically and spiritually.
Excerpts from "A Postcard from A Church on Wheels" by John Fischer, 1998

Dan Haseltine, lead singer and the most vocal on stage, is actually the most introverted of the group. He walks like he's responsible for the rest of the band--as if there's a weight on his shoulders or some wheel grinding in his mind. He reads C.S. Lewis and George McDonald and comes up with album titles (such as Much Afraid) from Christian classics such as Hinds' Feet On High Places by Hannah Hurnard.

Dan once sent me a postcard from the road. It was a picture of a bus made over to look like a church with stained glass windows and a steeple on top. The caption reads "Church on Wheels, County Kildare, Ireland." On the other side he wrote, "This post card seemed to capture the true heart of what it is we do. God continues to challenge me. I suppose that is the most encouraging factor. God cares enough to see to it that I don't become comfortable in the monotony of this lifestyle." The monotony does get to him at times with bouts of depression common to artists and thinkers. So when he sings, "It's in despair that I find faith," he is singing from personal experience.

Guitarist, Stephen Mason, the youngest of the group, occupies the other end of the personality spectrum. He is a live wire who often canšt talk as fast as his mind operates. He pauses frequently, "Oh yeah..." and starts off in another direction. Steve is a Beatles fanatic and the first to show up for sound check just to make sure everything works right.

Balancing both the age and the temperament span is keyboardist, Charlie Lowell. Charlie measures his words carefully and for that reason is a frequent spokesperson for the group. "It's definitely a dream," he once said of Jars of Clay's rise to popularity that garnered four number 1 radio singles in the first year. "When I really stand back and feel like I've got a pretty good perspective on it, I'm totally baffled." Of the group's often criticized straddling of the sacred and the secular, Charlie says, "We try not to write for a certain market. Instead, we write from a very human level that a lot of people can relate to. We try not to force feed [our faith] to people. Instead we say, 'Here, chew on this.'"

And then there's Matt Odmark who--to put it in a word--is simply intense. I once saw him play the guitar so intensely, he tripped on a monitor speaker and fell over backwards. He merely kept on playing, like the Energizer bunny tipped over by an invisible hand and still going strong.

According to Aaron "Utah" Sands who should know--he travels with the band as their concert bass player--all four members of Jars of Clay complement each other remarkably well. They would have to in order to maintain the grueling schedule of appearances and the artistic demands of recording without getting on each otheršs nerves constantly... In the final analysis, they are what their music is: passionate, vulnerable, young in life experience, but wise beyond their years. One can only hope they stay that way.

*Excerpt from: The Fisch Tank http://www.fischtank.com