Jars of Clay is excited to announce that they will be once again joining the 2011 Rock & Worship Roadshow, which kicks off on November 3rd! Jars will be joining MercyMe, Hawk Nelson, Matt Maher, Disciple, Group 1 Crew and Tip Lee for this amazing line-up.

Jars will also be offering a limited number of tickets to their very intimate VIP acoustic "Sing & Tell" event on every RWRS tour date!



Get your VIP tickets Here

The VIP ticket includes:

-Admission into Rock & Worship Roadshow
-Intimate VIP acoustic performance by Jars of Clay
-Q&A with Jars of Clay
-VIP laminate
-Special edition CD

Rock & Worship Roadshow Tour Dates:

11/3: Saginaw, MI - Dow Event Center
11/4:  Grand Rapids, MI - Van Andel Arena
11/5:  Ft. Wayne, IN - Memorial Coliseum
11/6:  Cleveland, OH - Wolstein Center
11/10:  Atlanta, GA - Gwinnett Center Arena
11/11:  Charlotte, NC - Bojangles Coliseum
11/12:  Knoxville, TN - Thompson-Boling Arena
11/13:  Columbia, SC - Colonial Life Arena
11/17:  Oklahoma, OK - Oklahoma City Arena
11/18:  Wichita, KS - Intrust Bank Arena
11/19:  Kansas City, MO - The Sprint Center
11/20:  Memphis, TN - FedEx Forum

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Well, it's mid-summer, and Nashville could not be any hotter or more humid! We have been working hard in the studio on a number of different projects. The main one being the writing for our next full-length project. We started writing in June, and will continue throughout the next few months, but we are excited to see what gradually comes forward.  Writing is funny for us, and it's always been this way, but the record sort of finds us, as opposed us knowing exactly what we are creating.  It's a mysterious process, and it keeps us engaged and intrigued!

We have been working on a Christmas EP that will be available this fall.  We found a couple more "classic" Christmas songs to re-invent, as well as a new original song that we wrote.

We've also been recording some acoustic versions of older Jars songs that have not had much attention these past handful of years.  Mainly inspired by our VIP remix events during last winter's Roadshow tour, we have enjoyed capturing some of these intimate arrangements for your ears.

If you haven't yet heard the recent Roadshow news, there is a fall tour going out and we'll be playing on it once again!  We're excited to re-join MercyMe and Matt Maher, as well as Hawk Nelson, Disciple, and more, for a great evening of music at a low price.  Stay tuned for announcements about our own exclusive VIP pre-show event, which includes a ticket to the Roadshow concert.  Tourdates and info at: http://therockandworshiproadshow.com/

Just before Roadshow goes out this November, we'll be performing a couple weekends in clubs as an acoustic foursome.  It'll be a fun evening of stories, interaction and acoustic music, hopefully something our long-time
fans have not seen lately.  We are privileged to have the incredible (and hilarious) Dave Barnes out to support us!

We are also experimenting with some news media outlets to better be in communication with YOU.  We have been U-streaming live from our studio as we write and record a bit this summer.  Twitter and facebook are the best ways to stay plugged in with what we are up to.  The link to our stream, if you care to bookmark it, is:  http://www.ustream.tv/channel/jars-of-clay

If you are on our facebook page, you may notice that a couple of us havenstarted our own artist pages, as a way to be in more direct communication with you, reading stories and replying to questions and comments more regularly.  Feel free to LIKE our artist pages and check in or throw your questions at us.  ;) 

Thanks, friends!!  May your summer be filled with air conditioning and sweet lemonade.

If you have ever read any interviews about Jars of Clay, there is a common answer to the question about why we started playing music together.  It was simply that we were all fans of music.  Music allows even the most unadventurous the opportunity to be an explorer. 

The mechanisms for exploration have taken many strides.  Nearly gone, but not entirely, are the days when I could just drop in to my local record shop and gamble on an album based solely on the cover art, and hopefully, be pleasantly surprised by what I heard. 

Even as the influence of a radio deejay who finds a band worth liking and champions them, goes the way of the buffalo, there are more ways to discover new music than ever before.  The technology is changing. It means that we will be forced to adopt new ways of hunting and gathering.  And no one truly loves change. It is the reason we don’t simply rent our clothing. It is why most of us live in homes that have concrete foundations. We like things the way they are. 

I can’t even imagine what it must be like for generations before my own.  If you want to see how terrifying technology can be, spend a couple minutes explaining a push button flip phone to my grandfather, or testing out Netflix with my grandmother. Technological advancement is a scary proposition. But we can’t let these things scare us.  After all, what’s the worst that can happen? 

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We are celebrating an anniversary this year.  “Celebrating” is not the correct word.  Perhaps, “acknowledging” is a better word.  We won’t be sending cards or thinking romantic thoughts, or raising a glass as we release sentiments like, “we hope the next 30 years are even better than the first. “   It was 30 years ago that the first cases of, “The Gay Cancer,” were reported.   We have come to know this disease by a different name.  We know it as AIDS.

I still remember sitting in the corner office of our Rendy Lovelady Management as I listened to a man describe what was happening in Africa.  He was not hopeful in that conversation.  His words held no silver lining.  How could it?   He was in the office because he needed help.  A poll had been commissioned by World Vision to find out what the general state of knowledge and understanding was in the church surrounding HIV/AIDS.  They asked a simple question of Evangelicals. “If you had the chance to help someone with AIDS, would you?”   Only 3% said yes.

 AIDS is complicated.   Just as relationships are complicated, or medicine is complicated, or humanity is complicated, or being a Christian is complicated.  So, for many people it was necessary to find reasons to disengage without feeling implicated in the work that needed to be done.  
The poll suggested that Evangelicals blamed HIV/AIDS on a lot of things.  One of the loudest critical voices speaking about HIV/AIDS was the one telling us that Africans were reaping what they had sewn. AIDS was the way God was acting out his wrath on sinners, and so our job was simply to ignore Africa and let those infected with AIDS die.

AIDS is complicated. And the church was immature.  And the act of pulling the covers over our heads and hoping that the monster would simply go away, well… , It didn’t work.  The monster grew.  The next approach was better.  What could we learn from people struggling with HIV/AIDS?  Our approach was to listen and observe.

We found that the reason for HIV/AIDS rapid spread was not entirely due to an influx of homosexual activity.  We learned that it was transmitted through breast- feeding, and ceremonial circumcisions, and wife adoption, and a host of tribal practices meant for healing, and childbirth.  We also learned that our response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic was selfish and fearful.  We, as a culture, found the human story trapped under the umbrella of mega-statistics and impersonal numbers. We found a foothold to re-engage.  And even with a massive push by musicians like Bono and world leaders like, Bishop Tutu, we saw the effects of HIV/AIDS continue to rise.

We built initiatives, and peace plans, and watched the development world truly rally to the call of ending HIV/AIDS.  And still we saw the disease hold it’s ground.   We saw pockets where an idea or an education campaign made a significant difference in the number of new transmissions of HIV.  And still, we find ourselves 30 years into a great war, unable to fully end HIV/AIDS.

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