Jared James Nichols is a massive figure if you ever get to meet him or just see him play live. A towering figure standing 6ft 5 with an equally massive mane of hair. If you didn’t know he was a musician, you’d think that he was a professional wrestler. He’s one hell of a musician as well as a Gibson brand ambassador. He has two Gison signature guitares already released with a third on the way. How impressive is that? Still not impressed? I find that hard to believe, but just in case. The man had to relearn how to use his right arm a couple of years back when he suffered an injury and had to have his right arm operated on. It left him with a plate and 16 screws in his arm. He could barely move his fingertips after the surgery. He could have thrown in the towel and called it quits, but thank goodness he didn’t. He was determined through very hard work and an amazing amount of determination to relearn how to use that arm. He rebounded and is better than ever! He just unleashed one beast of an album onto the world. His new, self-titled album is his third and most impressive work to date. It’s a gritty mix of blues, grunge and rock that meet to form an amazing body of work. In a day and age where many artists only release EPs or singles, Jared James Nichols just released an album comprised of 12 very strong tracks. I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying ‘all killer, no filler’ before. Well, that is definitely this album! Solid and diverse from beginning to end and meant to be played loud. We had a chance to sit down with the talented artist bright and early the morning after he had two listening parties in Nashville. At an hour when some rock stars are just going to bed, he was up early and ready to attack the day head on.  

Hey dude what’s up? 

Jared James Nichols: Hey Johnny, what’s up man?

You are up dude, surprisingly. You had a public and a private show last night so I am surprised you are.

Honestly, I was home about midnight. I was so excited that I started out at about 5:45 this morning I said I’m going to go work out and then knock out some of these interviews this morning. We had such a great night.

Yeah man, we were there it was quite a night

It was a good turnout and we had a lot of fun. We ended up doing a bunch of jamming and we did an event before that was for the public and it was packed out. I gave away one of my signature guitars.

What? No way!

So get this! This guy comes, I want to say, from Atlanta and he told me that he took off work and blah blah blah. I had met him before so I said thanks for coming and he asked if I could sign his guitar. Then he’s hanging out in front the whole time and then they bring out the raffle tickets. They call out the number and then all of a sudden he yells out ‘it’s me’ and he comes up and he gets the guitar. He looks at me and he asks ‘am I dreaming?’ He says ‘this is the best day of my life!’ Yeah, we definitely had a good time.

That is so awesome and what a great story as well

Yeah, it was very cool.

Dude I won’t lie, I’m kind of fanboying at the moment. We have so much love for you here at the magazine and me personally. I saw you in August of last year here in Raleigh, North Carolina with Zakk Wylde on his makeup date that he did.

Yeah at the Ritz; that was such a great show! I remember that one.

I kicked myself for not making time to come say hi, but I had to do photography that night and I was short on time so I never did. But I’m sitting here with you now man. We did an album review, we’re covering your release show in Nashville and we’re doing the interview today!

I appreciate that a lot; thank you so much man.

What a great album! You really run through a gauntlet of emotion on there. I’m hoping other people feel that as well when they get to listen to it. Do you think making the decision to record it live made that type of an impact on it?

100% man! I have so much love for my last records, but here it is. Embracing the uncomfortable is a very powerful thing to do as a musician. I always feel like I thrive playing live and it feels like home. When we are playing live, there’s a certain energy there. I remember we were playing a show and a guy comes up after we were done. He said it was one of the best shows that he had ever seen and that I sounded so much better live than on the recording. I remember going thank you? So that kind of got in my head and I started thinking what if I do a record old school tracking live and playing to tape. With all of us being in the same room, all together, making music organically. So to answer your question, that was the game changer on this record. Even now, I listened to it this morning and there’s power, an energy that you can just feel that sometimes you don’t feel on a modern recording to a computer. This one was done so organically and so raw that you can hear it and you can feel it.

There’s a lot of grit to it I that I feel when I listen to it. 

Yeah, there definitely is.

One of the first tracks that I listened to when I got the complete album was “Hallelujah” because I wondered is this a Jeff Buckley cover and if it is, how is this going to be?

You’re like is that Buckley or is this a Christian album? What are we doing right now?

Technically, “Down the Drain” was the first song that I heard and that really hit me hard. I heard Hallelujah and man I could feel my chest rumble. I had it turned up loud because I feel like you get more that way. I could definitely pick up on a Black Sabbath vibe so there was some early influence there?

Oh yeah, on this record I really wanted to embrace and wear my influences on my sleeve in my own way. We tracked that song and that was the second take on that. We didn’t do more than two or three takes on any of the songs. I remember especially, and I will never forget this, the drummer started to do that fill and I was just like let’s go. It was like a moment in time and when it kicked in we both looked at each other and thought yep this is it. I remember it being so blistering loud. I was playing in front of the amplifier and I was just digging into it. My ears, it was just like driving a race car as fast as it could go and I remember when we got to the solo. I felt like where do we go and we kick back into it and it was just so awesome. The energy was just off the charts and yeah of course there’s that early Sabbath influence. 

Can you tell me a little bit about “Skin and Bones”? That’s one of my favorite tracks on the album.

Yeah man, that is actually one of the first tracks that was written for the record. When I got home in March of 2020 after doing Europe and we found ourselves back home like everybody. I started to think man I want to write and I want to do all this stuff. I started to hang out with friends on Zoom and I was writing on my own. The first person that I saw in the flesh, which was probably early 2021, was Marty Frederickson who is a great writer here in Nashville. I remember we met up outside, me, Marty and another friend, and we were outside and we were so far away from each other. It was my first time being around people in forever so I felt weird. Was this okay? We were just kind of talking over coffee and I had my guitar and I had that little riff Here, let me grab a guitar. I don’t know if this is in tune or not but I just started to play. I just started to make this riff right and Marty had his guitar and he started playing. We were talking about the world and everything and within five minutes we started singing the chorus. It was this song and we felt great about it.Then, I brought it to my band and I told them ‘guys I want to make this like a total rock anthem.’ So, we started to jam over it and we came up with this cool groove. I started to sing over it and, in fact, I think it’s one of those songs on the record that just has a lot of power and it has a lot of really, really good energy with a good message.

Talking about that song coming together quickly, by tracking it live, did the album come together quickly as well?

It did in the studio, but there was probably two weeks of pre-production before. By that I mean that we were in a room the size of a bedroom with no windows, all together rehearsing. I brought the songs to the band and we stripped them down to nothing and built them back up. We were doing eight to ten hours a day for probably two weeks beforehand building each one like a house. What was cool about that was we were playing so much and we were getting so much into a groove that by the time we went into the studio, we were able to track the bulk of the record in four days. It all came down to the performance. Making the record was easy because we were all feeling so good. It also brought us closer together as musicians. We did it all together; we went from 0 to 100 and we built it all up.

You have the two album release shows coming up and I saw some dates for overseas.

Yeah, we are finally going back to Europe!

So what about here in the US? Do you have anything you can mention?

We have these two album release shows and we are currently booking into March and April all US states so that is on the horizon. With this record, honestly, we are going to tour like crazy because this was meant to be played live. So absolutely, US states will be announced soon for March April and May.

Dude, you are a massive figure! Seeing you on the stage for the first time really caught me off guard with how big you truly are. Does a day go by where someone doesn’t comment to you about your hair?

(Laughs) No man, honestly it doesn’t. Yesterday we did like a Today Show here in Nashville and the first thing when I walked in this guy goes ‘wow look at this guy’s hair.’ Everyday somebody mentions something. I actually just got a bunch cut off. My hair is like, who is that Greek god of hair or something?

Was it Samson? Wait, he had all his strength in his hair until it was all chopped off.

I’m not sure, but anyways I just saved you from the huge hair this morning and I put it in a bun. Between how tall I am, how wide I am and my hair, people are always like what is up with this guy? They usually ask me if I’m a professional wrestler.

Dude you’re a big man and you really could be!

People are like ‘do you wrestle’ and I tell them no I play music and they look really confused. I’m like no I play the guitar.

What a great swerve to throw at him! I did want to ask about your arm break that was mentioned in the press release. It sounds like a freak kind of thing to happen and I was just wondering how tough of a process it was to learn how to use your arm after the surgery?

To make a long story short about the whole thing, I was on tour and you expect things to go wrong but you don’t expect things like that to happen. I hear a pop in my arm after picking up a case. I pride myself on physicality and lifting weights so when this happened I didn’t know if I had just popped my elbow out or what. Come to find out I chipped a bone. I had stress fractures up and down the bone and one shipped off. I was like okay what does that mean? I have to have an emergency surgery and have a plate with screws put on and it was like the worst case scenario. I was far from home and I had to do it there on the spot. I was ready just to tape it up and keep going: It was like someone poured a bucket of cold water on my face because all of a sudden it went from everything is great to is this really happening? As a guitarist and as a musician you just don’t expect something like that to happen so I was hell bound that this was not going to change anything. This is just a bump in the road. I remember there were a lot of people saying you’re going to have to adjust the way you play and things might be different. I remember after I got out of the surgery the surgeon goes ‘can you move your fingers’ I went from being able to play like crazy to just being able to move my fingers just a little bit. The first thing I did when I got home was I picked up a guitar and started to try to play. I remember I was literally just slowly picking at it trying to get back but the numbness was going into my hand and into my fingertips. It was a process, this is weird, but I am grateful that it happened because in turn it made me a stronger person. It made me realize that things can be changed in the blink of an eye. It was also a freaky situation and I definitely don’t want to go through it again.

You sir are a Gibson Ambassador. For those who may not know, what does that mean?

People have to call me Mr. Ambassador (laughs). No, I’m just kidding. What’s really cool with Gibson is obviously I am a Gibson nerd. They are the guitars that I’ve been playing since I was a kid and basically what Ambassador means is that in turn it makes my position as an artist with the company more of an alliance. I think that’s really cool because I have released now two signature models with them, one in 2019 and the other in early 2021, and now I have my third on the way. They sound like my children (laughs). Oh, I have my third on the way; it’ll be out later this year (laughs). My partnership with them is very, very strong. Last night, we had our listening party and jammed at the Gibson Garage here in Nashville and I get to host special events for them. I’ve done things on their website where I’ve showed off my guitars and I’ve even broken down my songs in lesson form and put them on their website. I think the coolest part for me being such a fan of the brand is as an artist it makes me feel validated because not only am I on the Gibson team, but honestly they’re like my family. They are my musical family, so it’s really a cool way to show my partnership. Plus, I’m hanging out with people like Slash and Dave Mustaine and Jerry Cantrell and Lzzy Hale, so I feel really honored. 

What a sweet little job to have.

Yeah, it’s a cool gig man.

Mr. Ambassador, I’ll remember that next time. So, Mr. Ambassador, what was it like playing with the late Leslie West? When did that?

Here, can you see this? (turns the camera to show us a guitar sitting up on a table in the corner) There’s a guitar sitting up there and it says “you kick ass, Leslie West.” He gave it to me as a gift when we played.

Wow, seriously?

Yeah, exactly! I will cherish that forever! Leslie is like one of my favorite guitar heroes. I have based so much of my sound off of what he has done. I got the call and they said ‘hey Jared, do you want to go open and jam with Leslie West in New York City at BB King’s’ and I went yeah. I didn’t even hesitate and they were like okay, let’s see if we can line this up. They did and it was like three weeks away and I told him I don’t want any money. I had a gig and I had him drop me off at the airport. This is so funny; I took a red eye from Los Angeles to New York City. I remember I got to the airport in New York and I was so tired that I got off the plane and I only had my guitar with me. I literally laid down for a while and slept. I made my way down to the venue in New York City and it was one of the coolest days because I felt like a little kid waiting to meet Santa Claus. I was going to meet one of my biggest heroes. I get there and I’m like yeah I’m just waiting to meet Leslie. I’m hanging and his handler and tech comes out and tells me yeah he’s in a really bad mood today and I’m thinking oh no this is not going to be good I’m on stage sound checking and he hears me and all of a sudden he comes up and he says ‘holy shit, you sound fucking awesome’ and I’m like I can’t believe this is happening! I’m like yeah well I stole all your licks and he goes ‘I want to steal those back!’ I feel honored that I even got to meet him and see him perform but I got to play with him and that is like something that I will cherish forever.

What an amazing opportunity and an amazing memory to take with you.

I look at that guitar every day and it’s just really cool man. I feel really fortunate to have done some of the stuff I have done.

I know we need to wrap this up. We end all of our interviews with something we call Three for the Road. These are just three fun questions to throw at you. I’m not sure if you’re a movie guy or not, but do you have a favorite movie quote?

That’s a great question. Damn, you put me on the spot. I have a lot of dumb ones that are my favorite ones that I’ll never forget.

I love dumb movie quotes.

Let me see favorite movie quote. I’m just going to say the dumbest one ever that I use every single day and it’s the dumbest quote ever. Predator, when Arnold is meeting with the dude on his team and he says ‘Dylan you son of a bitch.’ You know what I’m talking about?

Oh yeah!

That’s my favorite movie quote and the dumbest thing that’s ever been said on the show.

And you have to say it in the Arnold voice or it’s not as good.

Exactly and whoever it is, their name turns into Dylan and it’s you son of a bitch.

If you could have anyone be your inner voice, famous actor, cartoon character, anyone, who would yours be?

Who would be my inner voice? That’s another great question. I would say Matthew McConaughey Dazed and Confused. (In a great McConaughey voice) ‘Alright, alright, alright.’ He would be my inner voice. (Again in a great McConaughey voice) ‘Hey man, easy on the leather man.’

That was great! Here’s one that you may have gotten before given what we talked about earlier. If music was over and you went into professional wrestling, what would your wrestling name be?

Oh my gosh, it would have to do something with blues power. I would still be Jared, but it would have to be something like Blues Thunder Power or something cheesy but really obnoxious and loud. All of the good ones are already taken so I would have to do something that’s just really dumb.

Then over course of time, it won’t be dumb and everybody would love it! I know we have to wrap this up but again man we have so much love for you. I ordered a copy of the autographed CD that you did on TalkShop Live. 

Dude, awesome!

I heard the mailman go by just minutes before our conversation started and I literally sprinted to the mailbox. I was hoping it was there so I could show you I had it but ugh it was not here yet.

They are so awesome! That was such a fun thing to do. Great talk today man; thanks so much.

Likewise Mr. Ambassador! Can’t wait to catch you out on the road! 

Interview by I’m Music Magazine Owner/Editor Johnny Price

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