Jars of Clay

Jars of Clay is a Christian rock band from Nashville, Tennessee. They met at Greenville College in Greenville, Illinois.

Dan Haseltine, Steve Mason, Charlie Lowell and Matt Bronleewe formed Jars of Clay in the early 1990s. Charlie Lowell first met Dan Haseltine after noticing that he was wearing a Toad the Wet Sprocket shirt. Pursuing a career in music together was not necessarily their original goal; some of the first songs they wrote together were for music and recording classes they were taking at the time. Their second guitarist Matt Bronleewe joined some time later, and drummer Joseph Quevedo occasionally joined them for some of their early public performances. While in college playing together at local Christian coffee houses, Jars gained quite a reputation for their very original arrangement of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" which had been deftly adapted to the tune of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit".

In 1994, the band submitted a demo to a talent competition run by the Gospel Music Association and were selected as finalists. They traveled to Nashville to perform and won the contest. Back in Greenville, they self-released a limited-run of the same demo, which they named Frail, after their song of the same name. The buzz from their performance in Nashville and the demo's popularity resulted in offers from record labels, so the band decided to drop school and move to Nashville. At this time, Bronleewe left the band to finish school and settle down with his fiancée. He was replaced with Matt Odmark, Lowell's childhood friend and fellow McQuaid Jesuit High School alum.

The band has gone on to release 10 studio albums, 2 live projects, and 10 EPs, along with three compilations. The majority of their albums have charted in the top 10 on numerous charts, including Billboard's Top Christian Albums and the Billboard 200.

Jars of Clay has been successful in being nominated for and winning several awards, including prestigious Grammy Awards and several of the Christian music awards, known as the GMA Dove Awards. Some of these successes have been collaborative efforts, including two City on a Hill albums and the inspired collaboration for the 2005 film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The group has won five Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) awards.

In June 2009, Jars of Clay was named as one of PeaceByPeace.com's first peace heroes.

Jars of Clay. (2011, November 2). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 13:28, November 16, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jars_of_Clay&oldid=458673101