The band Two Jasons, made up of Jason Rodgers and Jason Irwin, have been lifelong friends and are celebrating a new album this weekend.
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Editor’s note: The Daily Reporter will feature our “Neighbors” regularly, whether it be someone with an interesting hobby or profession, or a nonprofit group making a difference in our community. Here, Jason Rodgers shares about his band Two Jasons that he performs alongside Jason Irwin. Both grew up outside of McCordsville, and both now live just outside of Greenfield. The duo released a new album this month. If you know a person or a group that you’d like to see featured in Neighbors, email [email protected].
Daily Reporter: When was Two Jasons formed, and how long have you known each other?
Jason Rodgers: Sometime around 2018. We’re basically lifelong friends, we met in grade school. We’ve been buddies for almost 40 years at this point.
DR: How did the group come together?
JR: We’ve both been writing songs for a long time on our own. We would play each other’s new ideas and songs while we were sitting around campfires or just hanging out and we would just jam together. We started hitting the open mic scene in Indy probably around 2017 or so, and those connections and that exposure eventually led to people asking us to play shows.
DR: How would you describe your style of music?
JR: I would say it’s what is now called Americana. It’s a mix of country, folk and rock. We try to find harmonies where we can and we play acoustic guitars most of the time.
DR: Do you perform covers or originals?
JR: We focus mostly on our original music, but we play some covers as well. The covers we play are usually songs or artists that have inspired us in some way and not necessarily currently popular songs. We probably aren’t a great bar scene cover band, but we shine in more listener-friendly type environments.
DR: Who are your biggest influences?
JR: We have been really inspired by a band called The Avett Brothers. We also both have a love and appreciation for older, outlaw style country music like Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Vern Gosdin. Neil Young would also have to be mentioned as a musical hero and influence. More recently, Arlo McKinley is a singer songwriter we both really like. We gravitate towards people who mostly write and perform their own songs, I guess.
DR: Where do you perform? What are your favorite venues and why?
JR: We’ve performed all over Indy and the surrounding areas and we’ve played a few shows down in southern Indiana as well. Locally, we really like playing outside on the Griggsby’s patio and we play quite a bit at Moon Drops Distillery in Fortville. We’ve played locally at the Rick’s Theatre, Snappers Bar & Foxgardin as well. We really like doing house shows also, those are always a good time and a unique way to see an artist perform.
We really like being invited to play theaters because of the acoustics and just the feeling of being up on that stage. The Ricks Theatre in Greenfield is a great place to play; I wish more people would support the live music that is booked there. We really love playing outdoors. Smaller festivals are always a good time because you get a variety of music. Kammys Kause in Fortville is a great festival for sure, that’s one of my favorites. House shows are a blast. And we still love to trade songs around a campfire anytime we can.
DR: Tell us about your albums.
JR: We have independently-released one album called Two Jasons Volume 1, around two years or so ago. It’s available anywhere you stream music. Our second album went live on all streaming services Feb. 17. It’s titled Two Jasons Volume II – Whiskey & Water. We don’t really sell our music, we just make it free for those who want to hear it. We did have a bunch of CDs printed for this new album so we will probably sell those for some small fee if someone wants a hard copy memento, but the music will be available to stream for free. Everything is self-produced, all in the Two Jasons house.
The new album is really a double album with two separate collections of songs, Whiskey & Water. The Whiskey tracks are maybe a little more fleshed out and polished and the Water tracks are a little bit raw. There are (24) new songs total, twelve on Whiskey and twelve on Water. Most of the songs were written over the last few years, but some of the songs are a lot older. Specifically, the Water collection has a few songs we always wanted to record and release that were written several years ago. We’re really proud of it and I think the writing, melodies and harmonies will hopefully hit some people the right way. It’s an acoustic album, it’s pretty spare, but it sounds like us and that’s what we wanted. The album is available to stream on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you stream music.
