One of the things Jason hasn't fully figured out is how Lifehouse - which also includes bassist Sergio Andrade, guitarist Stuart Mathis, and drummer Rick Woolstenhulme - went from playing a few college shows and a steady gig at a youth group to sharing the road with Pearl Jam. Even at age 20, however, the singer/songwriter/guitarist knows better than to speculate. In fact, like everyone, Jason would be hard-pressed to explain most of the unexpected twists his life has taken.
His early years in Camarillo, Calif., for instance, would suggest an all-American boyhood, but then his family moved to Hong Kong. He admits to having little interest in or exposure to music until his parents split up when he was 15 and the songs just started pouring out of him. Both of his parents were ministers, but he has steadfastly found his own spiritual way. And though he ultimately embraced a particularly humanist faith, he's frank about that direction creating all kinds of new questions.
These questions, it turns out, are universal. Says Jason of No Name Face, Lifehouse's debut album: "This record deals a lot with self-discovery and breaking out of whatever your parents or your boss or whoever thinks you should be. It's about trying to find out for yourself who you're supposed to be - your purpose, your destiny in the world."
Seeking one's own path is a recurring theme in Jason's story. When he was 5 years old, his parents, who were both leaders in their church, decided to pack up and head overseas.
"The church my folks were associated with is super-religious, very conservative and controlling," Jason explains. "My parents were very active in it, but there was a lot of stuff going on that they didn't think was cool. They wanted to leave it and start something new, something that would fulfill them. So they sold everything they had and we moved to Hawaii."
During their 18 months in Kailua-Kona, Jason's folks received instruction through a group that trained missionaries. But once that was completed, he says, "they just kind of walked away from it. They got what they needed and then went and did their own thing." The family next began a tour of Asia - Japan, Thailand, Singapore - where Jason's parents believed there would be ample opportunity to do good works. After several months they settled in an impoverished section of Hong Kong.
"It was this very, very poor Chinese village," Jason continues. "We went there not only because we knew the people needed help but because we didn't have any money either." Not surprisingly, however, the villagers were suspicious. "They hated us," he says. "They thought we were mocking them by living there because they thought all white people were rich. They thought we were witches who were bringing trouble to their neighborhood. They lit firecrackers at our door every morning. I was pretty scared and freaked out by it."
When he was 10, Jason took up martial arts (the irony that he discovered Du Ye Chi Tao after leaving Asia is not lost on him). "I was hanging out with this friend who got me into it," he recounts. "I just had a knack for it. I was really flexible and could do the splits and all the kicks. I did the fighting and weapons - nunchucks and the bow staff. I competed and got my black belt, and I got to go to the state championships."
But after a few years, a new passion took over. "I'm the kind of person who can only do one thing at a time," Jason says. "I get completely inspired by it and just do that all the time." Music was about to become his "one thing."
By the time he was 12, his parents had divorced and he and his mom and sister had moved to the Seattle area, where they put down new roots near his grandmother in the town of Port Orchard. Despite his family's best efforts to shield him from their troubles, Jason was beset by emotional turmoil.
"I was experiencing all the pain anyone feels when their parents get divorced. It opened up all this stuff," he says. "But it also opened up this creative outlet for me. It's funny, because I was never a musical kid - never took lessons, never really listened to the radio; I don't even own that many records now because when I do start listening to a lot of music, it kind of taints my songwriting." However, when pressed, Jason will claim U2, Nirvana, the Beatles, and Paul Simon as, if not influences, then at least favorites. "But I suddenly just started writing poetry and lyrics and coming up with melodies. We lived in the woods, and I'd take these long walks and the songs would just start happening."
Jason's mother had been musical. For two years as a student at Pepperdine University, she'd traveled the country singing and playing guitar in a folk/pop band as part of a scholarship arrangement. "My mom always had a guitar lying around the house," he recollects. "I finally just picked it up and learned how to play a few chords."
Domestic crisis wasn't the only thing spurring Jason to make music. "My parents never forced their beliefs on me," he says. "They always encouraged us to draw our own conclusions about that and I think because the divorce had stirred up so much, I started questioning my spirituality, too. I started wondering if God was real and if so, could he help me through all these terrible feelings? And if not, then what? That's what my earliest songs were about - they were me crying out, trying to figure out what I believed."
At 15 Jason and his family moved to California, where he quickly hooked up with budding bassist Sergio Andrade and began blossoming as a songwriter. Both teens were members of the youth group offshoot of the Malibu Vineyard, a nondenominational church. "A bunch of kids would hang out at this elementary school, and there'd be music and food," Jason says. "Serge and I had a lot in common, like playing basketball and running, and he'd just started playing bass. So we began jamming together and writing songs and helping each other get better."
It turns out Jason and Sergio had shared experiences beyond sports and music. Originally from Guatemala City, Sergio left his homeland at age 14 to move to Los Angeles with his parents, who, like Jason's folks, made the church a large part of their life. The repertoire was a mix of pop, rock, and Latin styles that broadened Sergio's musical horizons, as did his adoption of trombone and flute in the school orchestra.
Eventually, Sergio started playing drums and as rhythm became more important to him, he naturally gravitated toward the bass and its varied melodic opportunities. But a week after he started on the instrument, his family left their congregation to join the Malibu Vineyard.
The two paired with a drummer (who has since left the group) and inaugurated a Friday-night residency at the elementary school. The gatherings were casual events where the band was afforded onstage jam time (some of these jams became songs, including "Everything").
Meanwhile, another Malibu Vineyard member, No Name Face producer Ron Aniello, became a supporter of the group. "He let us come over to his house and record a couple songs," Jason says. "And he introduced us to Stuart, who played on those really early demos."
After working on Lifehouse's demos, Stuart Mathis says, "I went off to gallivant around and do my own trip." He'd been writing, performing, and recording as a solo artist for a couple of years when Jason called to see what he was up to. One thing led to another and Stuart was recruited to join the band. "I really liked Jason and Serge and the work they were doing. Even though I had my own thing, I love being 'guitar guy,' too, and this seemed like a great chance to really do that well. Jason and I have talked about doing some co-writes for the next record - we're both writing all the time - but we're totally focused on this record for now. We're all having a blast playing this stuff."
Rick Woolstenhulme came along later, under somewhat serendipitous circumstances. Born and raised in the Arizona farm town of Gilbert, he also became a musician at age 9. "I was always pounding on things," he says, "so my parents finally got me this beat-up old kit and I started taking lessons right away." He, too, seemed destined by genetics for a career in music: "My mom plays piano, my dad plays piano and guitar, and my brother plays guitar." Rick went on to attend the Los Angeles Music Academy and has played drums and percussion ever since, as a band member, sideman, and session player. He ran into his current mates at a rehearsal studio.
Says Jason, "It was one of those weird coincidences. As soon as we met and started playing with Rick we knew he was the guy. It all just clicked. We'd go to the beach and just hang out and we knew right away it was going to work." Attests Rick, "It was really smooth - I just sort of snapped on. The music's great, totally fun stuff, and these guys are super easy to get along with."
In the early days, Ron Aniello (who's worked with Jude, Kendall Payne, and Shannon McNally, among others) had taken Jason aside and said, "I think you guys have a lot of potential, but it's going to take a couple of years to develop." Still only 17 at the time, Jason knew Aniello was right. So he kept on writing, and the band continued to rehearse intensively and play its Malibu gigs. It also managed to land shows at Pepperdine and the University of Southern California; the group even did a two-week college tour of Oklahoma, where a friend who'd been a concert promoter had some contacts.
Jason stayed in touch with Aniello, and two years later the producer said, "Okay, come in and show me what you've been doing." Jason brought him the track "Breathing." "He got really excited about it," he says, "and he wanted to play it for his friend Jude Cole, who's our manager now. Then Jude got all excited and inspired by it. So he called [ DreamWorks Records principal] Michael Ostin, who was his A&R guy when Jude was an artist." In 1998 Ostin decided that DreamWorks would finance Lifehouse's first real demos, which the band chose Aniello to produce.
Many of these tracks made their way to No Name Face. "When we tried to re-record some of the songs for the album, we just couldn't get the same spirit the demos had," Jason says. "The demos had been recorded right after the songs were written and even though they weren't perfect, they were so real, so honest; they just had a vibe we couldn't recapture later."
The rest of No Name Face was cut over a period of months, with drum tracks laid down at Hollywood's Ocean Way and Cello studios. The lion's share, however, was completed back at Panembriello, Aniello's home studio, where Jason has essentially grown up as a musician.
Jason's trust in Aniello helped make these sessions a positive learning experience. "I came in wanting it to be all slick and fancy," he concedes. "I was young and just so excited to be in the studio making a record. I wanted every instrument and every effect on the planet. Ron said pretty early that he felt the record should sound organic, that the production should be simple and transparent. I'd have all these ideas, and we did use some of them, but after a while I realized he was right and that overproduction did not serve the songs at all."
No Name Face (released by DreamWorks Records on October 31, 2000) is a big, moody rock record. Ultimately, its sonic character is a crystal-clear reflection of Jason's soul-searching meditations. But the record is as much about love in its various incarnations as it is about finding one's way, and there are threads of mandolin, piano, strings, and tambourine among the guitar, bass, drums, and Jason's resonant vocals.
Summing up the record's lyrical outlook, he states simply, "I don't tend to write about shallow things."
But Jason's underlying sense of compassion and optimism keeps the darkness from overwhelming the light at the end of the tunnel. "I don't just want to connect to people and relate to them for its own sake," he says. "I don't want them - or me - to be miserable and lonely and feeling there are no answers. I want to say something hopeful, that maybe we can figure out some of this stuff and be happy."
