You can’t teach the blues. It’s not something that can be codified in music books or learned on YouTube. It goes much deeper than that and it comes from the inside. It’s about the way the guitar strings are bent and the sound gets transmuted directly from a player’s soul.
It’s simple. Either you’ve got it, or you don’t. Jared James Nichols has definitely got it. The Wisconsin born, Los Angeles-based singer, writer and guitarist’s first LP Old Glory & The Wild Revival channelled blues grit and gusto through bombastic arena-size rock ‘n’ roll. It’s raw, raucous and righteously real.
Over the past four years Jared has built up a solid reputation as a stunning heavy edged blues rock act and stage beast, having shared stages with the likes of ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Zaak Wylde, Glenn Hughes, Walter Trout, Blue Oyster Cult, UFO and Saxon and now he is on tour again, this time with the tremendous L.A. Guns and as part of the tour, which starts at the 02 Islington Academy in London on August 31st, will come to Manchester’s Rebellion on September 6th.
All those tours were executed within a short period of time in support of the highly acclaimed debut album. Jared has quickly reached international status and has continued to deliver crashing propulsive blues tones with soulfully insane guitar solos. It’s raw, raucous, and righteously real
As soon as he got his first guitar at 14-years-old, the stage immediately called to Jared. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he grew up minutes away from The Alpine Valley Resort, where Stevie Ray Vaughan performed his last show. However, no divine coincidence could truly foreshadow just how adept at the six-string he would become. He personally traces the beginning of his story back to a blues jam that his mother brought him to.
“Two weeks after I got an electric guitar, I was on stage with all of these old cats from Chicago playing the blues,” he recalls with a smile. “The music immediately resonated with me. It was all about the feeling and the soul behind it. None of these guys were music nerds. They were true blues guys playing what they felt. That power and reality struck a chord in me.”
Soon, he found himself practicing for twelve hours every day. Hitting up the local jams, he ended up sharing the stage with legends including Buddy Guy, “Honeyboy” Edwards, and “Big Jim” Johnson as well as opening for Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Derek Trucks. By his 21st birthday, he had logged over 500 gigs. After a short stint at Berklee School of Music in Boston, he headed out to Los Angeles where he garnered numerous accolades at the world-renowned Musicians Institute, winning the 2010 Jerry Horton guitar contest, the 2011 Les Paul tribute contest, and the 2011 “Outstanding Guitarist” award. 2012 saw him release his debut EP, Live at the Viper Room, gaining the notice of both Guitar World and Guitar Player and inking a deal with Sony/MTV’s Hype Music Publishing.
His second full length album, Black Magic was released on Friday 13th October 2017. All tracks on the album were recorded at The Boneyard in Boston as well as Johnny Depp’s home studio in Los Angeles and produced and co-written by Tony Perry and Jared James Nichols.
Ultimately, he lives up to that idea of Revival from his debut album’s title. “I want people to get excited,” he concludes. “I want them to feel like anything is possible in this music. I want them to know great blues rock exists. If I can give someone the same inspiration I was blessed with, I’ve done something right.”
Jared is currently working on a new album.
For a review of Jared James Nichols superb gig at the 02 Indigo as part of Stone Free Festival go to:
http://www.liverpoolsoundandvision.co.uk/2016/06/19/jared-james