Jared & The Mill
Howdy, We are Jared & The Mill. All of us were born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, and we still call it home today. When we first got started in the summer of 2011 we just wanted to play some music with our best buds, have a few shows, and have a good time. Jared and Michael had been buddies and playing music together since they were kids, and after they met up with another childhood duo, Josh Morin and Larry Gast III, after that they realized they needed a bass player, so along came Chuck Morris III. Some months later, Jared ran into Gabe Hall Rodrigues, a local accordion and keys player at a coffee shop. Gabe joined, and as it goes we were soon hammering along in the local scene, playing alongside the bands of new friends and old throughout Arizona. The wheels kept turning, and before we knew it we had over three years of touring under our boots; playing in the living rooms, dive bars, venues, theaters, music festivals, and even arenas of this big ol’ country of our’s alongside fellow upcoming bands, and with some of the biggest acts we had always looked up to.
Playing for fifty people one night in a smokey bar, and the very next night opening up and playing for eighteen thousand in an arena was inspiring and eye opening to say the least. Opening up and sharing stages with the likes of Zac Brown Band, Barry Gibb, Boy & Bear, War on Drugs, Wildfeathers, Cake, Flogging Molly, The Killers, Allen Stone, and others while touring alongside bands just getting their start like us was a real honor. We certainly gained invaluable experience from all those shows and all those trials, but something else happened out there on the road for us, something we have a hard time explaining, but anyone who’s spent some time out there on the interstate understands; we became not just friends, but family.
Being out there changed our lives, it changed how we thought about things and it changed how we wrote about things. Those miles molded our music and molded our souls and it made our bond even stronger. Life gives to you and it takes from you, and we have written about that give, and that take. We’ve written about getting older, about those friends and those loved ones and those things that never leave and about those that do; about those sweet things and those bitter things, and that struggle to keep the course as you try your best to carve yourself into what you hope is a good man. We have written about our desert home we so very often miss, and we’ve written about the stories of others we’ve heard along the way. Our music has been called, compared and regarded by a number of different names and genres, and we’ve been influenced and shaped by many different events and people, but more than anything, we’d like to think that some shred of the Southwest — of our home — can be found in the heart of our music.
So here we are, with new music to release and another busy year ahead. We’ve got some new tunes and a sound that has grown, and we’re eager as hell to share it with all of you. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for listening.
