The phenomenon that is CCM supergroup JARS OF CLAY continues. Tony Cummings brings the latest on the acoustic roots rockers.

Jars Of Clay

Charlie Lowell makes a memorable quote about the new Jars Of Clay album. "It's Christ's intention to lead us out of fear and into lives that are led and motivated by love. 'Much Afraid' is almost an anthem of hope and faith and a sense of resolution. That, above all else, is what we're trying to learn and live, and the message we want to leave people with."

A lot of people have already been left with the message. 'Much Afraid' entered the US Billboard charts at number eight and the Alternative chart at number one. In Britain the first single from it, "Crazy Times", has received a mainstream release by Silvertone and was subsequently chosen by Radio One DJ Simon Mayo as his Record Of The Week. So much has happened so quickly to Dan Haseltine (vocals), Stephen Mason (guitar, bass), Matt Odmark (guitar) and Charlie Lowell (keyboards) - rising in three years from being an unknown college band to today's unit recording Coca-Cola jingles and touring with Sting.

A key element in the creative development of the Jars was choosing the right producer for 'Much Afraid'. The band eventually settled for Stephen Lipson, a London-based talent who has worked with such artists as Sting, Annie Lennox, Simple Minds and Whitney Houston. "We started to talk to him about some specific songs," says Mason, "and we asked him, 'What do you think you'd do for that?' And he goes (as he widens his eyes and dons a British accent), I don't know. I guess we'll just get into the studio and panic together.'"

"He brought to us the expertise and the skill of having done this for many years, but with the gracious abandon of not having an agenda or formula," says Beeson. Odmark adds, "We had an hour and a half meeting to decide if we wanted to spend $200,000 and the biggest career step of our lives on this guy. But of all the people that we had met with at that point, he seemed the closest to what we were looking for."

And just what were they looking for? Odmark continues, "We really wanted to make a record that spoke our hearts, and we wanted to make a record that would sell a few copies. Yeah, if only one person bought the record, we'd be disappointed."

Though the band laugh at that bittersweet truth, it's apparent that these four men long to have an impact on their world. Their approach? Just be honest. "We had to look at what we are about as a band," says Haseltine, the band's primary lyricist. "We're going to write about the things that are at the forefront of our hearts and the things that we're dealing with and struggling with. We took the issue t>f from fear to faith - ultimate feat to ultimate faith."

It's a theme that emerged when Steve Mason began reading Hannah Hurnard's classic work Hind's Feet On High Places. The book quickly made the rounds among the band. "It's basically an allegory of the Christian walk," explains Haseltine, "and a journey from fear to faith by this character in the book named Much Afraid."

Mason adds, "At this point of our career, many of the emotions that Much Afraid was feeling were things that we were feeling. There are other characters like Bitterness and Anger who are relatives of Much Afraid that throughout the book try to thwart her journey. Change Much Afraid to Jars Of Clay and those are things that we experienced. There are moments of deliverance where Much Afraid's at the end of her rope and she gets delivered...and a tour gets cancelled. If one were to read that book, it would basically be a synopsis of the last two years for us."

"That and the moving That Thing You Do," jokes Haseltine. While the title cut portrays redemption from fear and self, other songs on the album run the gamut, at one point basking in God's mercy and grace, at others wrestling with human frailties. "The message of Christianity is a hard thing to want to spend time pondering," says Haseltine. "The fact that we are sinners, that apart from Christ we're nothing, those are things that are not easy to listen to, and yet (most) Christian music tries to make whatever they do easy to hear. It's the good package mentality. When reality starts filtering into that, it tends to shake things up a bit because what people expect Christianity to be is not reality."

"It comes down to really believing that Christianity is completely relevant in a 20th century world," says Odmark. "Our nature as faithless people is that it's hard for us to believe that God could really meet us as bad as we are and as messed up as things are."

But with 'Much Afraid', Jars Of Clay embrace both - the divine and the human. It represents the pilgrimage of four young men walking - sometimes gingerly, sometimes expectantly - through a real world pursuing a very real faith. '"Much Afraid' is born from the everyday experiences of life and tapping into the longings of one's soul," remarks Smith. "I cannot listen to it without feeling tremendous hope, knowing that it is indicative of Jars Of Clay's struggle and growth in their own journey as they've been trying to deal with growing up from boys to men."