![]() He said “Flood” had a marked impact on the culture, with that hit and others earning spots in television and movies. That life of touring and full-time music isn’t as fun as people think it is.”Ĭhristian music executive Dan Keen, now a professor in Belmont University’s music business college, remembers his years at ASCAP, tracking Jars of Clay’s rise with fascination and envy - they were with competitor BMI. “More than anything, I think that incident convinced them this wasn’t the game they wanted to play anymore,” Thompson said. And he doesn’t think fans who stayed with Jars from the beginning found Haseltine’s tweets surprising because they would have heard a philosophy of grace and generosity being espoused for years. Thompson, former creative director at Capitol Christian Music Group and associate dean at Trevecca Nazarene University’s music school. Its most recent studio album, “Inland,” didn’t necessarily belong in the contemporary Christian music market, said John J. That’s where it landed, however, despite tour dates with Matchbox 20 and Sting and later songs where religious references are tough to detect. The band’s name is a biblical reference from 2 Corinthians, and much of its early work is distinctly religious, but Jars of Clay didn’t plan to be relegated to the gospel charts, Mason said. To see him building his own business and having success with it has been inspiring. “He was the first to start taking online college courses and to start seriously thinking beyond his role in Jars of Clay. “Stephen was the youngest of the group and probably had a bit more of a journey to catch up, but he was also the catalyst in many ways,” Haseltine wrote. (He didn’t address questions about the role his tweets did or didn’t play.) The rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle allows musicians to avoid responsibility, he wrote, and it took years for Jars to wake up to music business realities and start considering their families’ quality of life. In response to an emailed interview request, Haseltine - who has shifted more attention to Blood:Water post-touring - confirmed that making a transition was inevitable. “There were times in my own journey where I wondered if my shadow should even darken the stoop of church because of what I grew up with and what it meant to be OK,” he said. Bartholomew’s in Nashville and speaks enthusiastically about his new experiences there. Mason was raised General Association of Regular Baptist Churches but converted to Episcopalian, is a member at St. Even just sharing the bill with speakers who would suggest things where we would think, ‘This is the last thing I want a teenager to hear.’ ” “We just couldn’t do it in a theme park or a church setting where they were going to co-opt what we had written about and sung and make it about somebody else’s agenda, and that was happening more and more. “There are a lot of people who have been with Jars for a long time and just want to hear ‘Love Song for a Savior’ and ‘Like a Child’ and some of that stuff from the first record, and we are grateful for those fans,” he said on a recent Saturday at the shop. They’d been together since Greenville College back in Illinois, had families to support - with no solid work experience outside of making music - and a nonprofit they’d launched to provide clean water in Africa, Blood:Water Mission.Įven before Haseltine’s Internet flap, Mason enrolled in barber school, preparing for a leap of faith. ![]() On the other hand, there were good reasons to keep going. They were getting older, and it was time to start thinking about plan B. As the band’s religious beliefs shifted, it became tougher to play lucrative evangelical music festivals. ![]() Googling Haseltine’s name produces pages of articles on the resulting backlash and his ensuing explanation.īut the real story is more complicated. There’s an easy narrative around Mason’s new career that says his old one was derailed by lead singer Dan Haseltine’s series of tweets in 2014 in support of same-sex marriage. What there isn’t: any sign of the barber’s two decades as guitarist and vocalist for chart-topping, Grammy-winning Christian rock band Jars of Clay, best known to secular fans for crossover hit “Flood” in 1996. The decor is stacks of towels, bottles of Lucky Tiger aftershave and letterpress art of mustachioed men. There’s not much parking, but that’s OK because there’s only room for Mason, his Prohibition-era barber chair and a row of three theater seats for folks who are waiting. Stephen Mason’s new barbershop is right next door to Nashville’s famed trailer/dive bar Santa’s Pub. Watch Video: Jays of Clay guitarist opens Nashville barber shop
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