Biography

Raised in South Dakota, Jared’s family had always been musical. The family would sing on occasion, accompanied by dad on guitar and older sister piano. Jared’s musical journey started at age 12. It was at this time his older sister married and moved away. Losing their piano player, Jared‘s dad decided to look into playing bluegrass style music and one day he brought home a mandolin, a dobro and a bass guitar! Originally, Jared assumed the role of mandolin player but quickly added dobro to the list. He would later take up guitar, banjo and fiddle.

At age 14 Jared met Noah Sigmann, a musician who was skilled at playing all the bluegrass instruments. This encounter made a big impression on Jared, inspiring him to work towards excelling at all the instruments not just one or two. For the next couple of years, Noah would introduce Jared to the more progressive side of bluegrass by loaning him CDs of bluegrass legends, such as a Tony Rice, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Rob Ikes, Chris Thile and many more.

Because there’s not a Bluegrass scene in eastern South Dakota, Jared relied heavily on CDs to learn how to play the music, sometimes practicing four to eight hours a day! It was during this time Jared developed a passion for writing and recording instrumental tunes. By the age of 16, he had already recorded two instrumental albums and helped record a couple albums for his family’s band!
One day, the following year, Jared was looking at the back of a Ricky Skaggs album and noticed there was a phone number for Skaggs’ Place, Ricky’s Recording Studio. Always dreaming of recording a professional album down in Nashville, Jared decided to call the number. After explaining to the studio manager his situation, the manager suggested Jared call Andy Leftwich (Ricky’s fiddle player at the time) and ask him if he would help produce the album. Nervous at the idea of talking to a Nashville studio musician, Jared was a bit relieved when the call went to Andy’s voice mail. Jared thought that was the end of that and was shocked when Andy returned the call the next day! Andy agreed to help produce an album and this resulted in Jared’s first professional album entitled “Daunting Task”.
The album was a compilation of original instrumental tunes. The players included members of Ricky Skaggs’ Band, Kentucky Thunder; featuring Cody Kilby on guitar, Andy Leftwich on fiddle, Justin Moses on banjo and Byron house on bass.
Upon releasing the album “Daunting Task”, Jared chose to work in the construction industry for the next 10 years. In the fall of 2022, Jareddecided to pursue Music full-time and moved to the Nashville area. His most recent project “Steppin’ Into It” is somewhat of a sequel of his first album, including all original instrumental tunes and including the same band lineup with the exception of Matt Menefee on banjo.