DAVE'S DIARY - 30 AUGUST 2010 - JARON LOWENSTEIN
JARON
AND THE LONG ROAD TO LOVE
POWER OF PRAYER
"Haven't been in church since I don't know when/ things were going great till they fell apart again/ so I listened to the preacher as he told me what to do/ said you can't go hating others who have done wrong to you/ some times we get angry but we must not condemn/ let the good Lord do his job/ and you just pray for them." - Pray For You - Jaron Lowenstein-Joel Brentlinger.
Jaron Lowenstein
believes in power of prayer - especially when he prays to inflict pain
on an ex-lover who did him wrong.
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The
Georgian singing actor hired Emmy award winning My Name Is Earl
actress Jaime Pressley to play his vanquished vixen in a video for
his hit Pray For You. Now, Lowenstein is turning his broken heart into a nice little earner with his band Jaron And The Long Road To Love. And, with a magnanimous gesture, he thanks his heart breaker for a brace of songs on debut solo album Getting Dressed In The Dark. "My former girlfriend, an actress, inspired many of the songs," Jaron, now 36, told Nu Country TV in a call from Nashville. "Yes, good ones and bad ones - more than six. The songs were therapy. That's exactly what it was - therapeutic and cathartic. To write this song was funny. It made me laugh. I felt lot better having written and recorded that song - especially every night when I look out from the stage and see people enjoying it." |
So how long
did the tortured relationship last?
"A couple of years," he confided.
Did Californian actress Kaley Cuoco inspire these songs?
"I have written lot of songs about her but not this one," Jaron
confessed.
"She was a different actress. I talked to Kaley last summer - she
helped inspire the song but only because she was so mad at me. She called
me screaming and reminded me how angry and mad I was at a previous ex."
So do we receive any more clues about the identity?
"No, it's one thing for me to share my stories but that's it,"
he said.
EVAN & JARON
"I pray
your brakes go out running down a hill/ I pray a flower pot falls form
a window sill/ and knocks you on the head like I'd like to/ I pray your
birthday comes and nobody calls/ I pray you're flying high when your engine
stalls." - Pray For You - Jaron Lowensetein-Joel Brentlinger.
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This
is stage two of the singing career for Lowenstein who was born in
Tucker, Georgia just five minutes before twin bother Evan. "Our song Crazy For The Girl was #15 on the pop charts before it was used in Dawson's Creek," Lowenstein recalled. |
"It
was the tail end of it - they liked the song and used it."
That was long after being discovered by singing sailor and record label
owner Jimmy Buffett in 1996 at his famed Margaritaville club in Key West,
Florida.
"My brother and I met him and he signed us to first record deal and
took us on road," Jaron revealed.
"It was our first record deal but not the one that gave us major
success."
The duo's song From My Head To Heart featured in Runaway Heart
that starred fellow Georgian Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.
"That was great, our first big placement when The Distance
was used in Serendipity (featuring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale.)
My brother wrote and sang that one."
KEEPING UP WITH THE STEINS
"You get in the car and you hit the road/and though I still love you I want you to know/I hope you hit traffic." - I Hope You Hit Traffic - Jaron Lowenstein.
Pop stardom
is transient - they waited four years to release another disc, Americana
flavoured Half Dozen, in 2004, before a hiatus.
Jaron moved to Los Angeles where he combined script and screen writing
with acting.
Both appeared on American Inventor reality show in 2006 with Evan's pit
and shell-catching bowl design.
They also developed a series about twins for a cable channel.
Jaron's acting break was his role as choir director Cantor Nathan in 2006
Jewish comedy movie Keeping Up With The Steins.
The movie is a spoof of family rivalries hosting the biggest and best
bar mitzvah for a 13-year old boy.
It starred Jeremy Piven, Jami Gertz, Darryl Hannah, Richard Benjamin,
Doris Roberts and Daryl Sabara with cameos by Jaron, Gary Marshall and
Neil Diamond.
"I used to do music for Gary Marshall movies like Runaway Bride
and Princess Diaries," Jaron explained.
"He called me and said 'would you like to be in a movie?' I said
I don't like to act. I'm a musician and songwriter. He said 'I put your
songs in movies - you can do me a favour by acting in one.' I liked it
- a cute silly script that was fun. I spent two weeks filming it and I
played the choir director actually. I didn't sing in the movie."
The break was fruitful for both Jaron and Evan.
"My brother and I got into writing screenplays for movies and TV,"
Jaron said.
"We wanted to take a back seat, we needed a break. We wrote a lot,
sold a lot but didn't get anything made. We sold stuff to Fox, MTV etc.
My brother and I joked we left the music business to become successful."
GETTING DRESSED IN THE DARK
"You got lines on your face from sleeping on me/call me at work cos you lost your key/ you go to buy a dog and come home with three." - That's Beautiful To Me - Jaron Lowenstein.
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The
music hiatus heralded a downsizing of sorts. "I used to drive a Porsche 911," Lowenstein said. "Now I drive a Hyundai Genesis. Hyundai, it's not a very rock star car. They work well." The break was more than a pit stop for Jaron. "It ended up I was compelled by the art," Lowenstein revealed. "I just felt like I needed to connect with people and share - this fuelled my return to music. I had stories to tell and something to say. I was no longer in hate with the music." So Lowenstein collated his ruptured romance songs for his new album that he produced and released for his label Jaronwood, released on Big Machine-Universal. He plays piano, organ, acoustic guitar and percussion on a disc featuring engineer Jimmy "Flash" Dulin on bass and electric guitar and loops. |
Lowenstein
prefers to write alone - he penned seven of the ten songs solo.
"It's some overwhelming profound plot bothering me about something
that happens that's usually what propels my songs," Lowenstein said.
"When I'm tweaking and editing I might think about the video for
the song. My songs usually come from a real story."
But he believes his new songs have celluloid appeal.
"Some of the new songs could be used in movies and TV shows,"
Jaron says.
"There are a couple of movies coming up that are likely to use some
of these songs."
GREG BARNHILL AND SARAH BUXTON
Lowenstein
collaborated with Nashville hit writer Greg Barnhill on Beat Back Love.
"A friend introduced me to Greg quite a few years ago," Jaron
said.
"I don't co-write that often. It's usually to finish a song. I tend
to write by myself."
Sarah Buxton, writer of Keith Urban hit Stupid Boy and latter day
writing and recording partner of expatriate Australian Jedd Hughes, has
a credit on It's A Good Thing.
"My brother Evan wrote the majority of song," Lowenstein explained.
"He and Andy Davis got together and decided to bring in Sarah. I
don't think she wrote any of it but we gave her 10% of the song. She was
only in the room for a short time. We just put her name on that because
we thought that was the right thing to do."
Jaron's brother Evan, now a father of two, is also his co-manager.
AUSTRALIAN TOUR?
Jaron's band
has performed on shows in the U.S. with another sibling act - the Grafton
born McClymonts.
They played in Nashville during CMA week and also radio station tours.
Now, the singer is aiming his music at Australian radio and TV as a tour
stimulus.
"We did a Detroit radio concert with The McClymonts," Jaron
recalled.
"I have a commitment to come down there if there is an audience there
for me. That would be your summer. I'm not on tour in the U.S. in December
and January. That's the earliest I could come down."
REX BOB LOWENSTEIN
"Now Rex Bob David Saul Lowenstein/quit his job a week later, but before he'd leave/ he locked and bolted the control room door/and played smash or trash till they cuffed him on the floor/well they drug him into court and the judge said, "Rex "I've got to lock you up, for what I'm not sure yet/but your boss here says he thinks you're wrapped too tight/by the way, thanks for playing Moon River last night." - Rex Bob Lowenstein - Mark Germino.
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Lowenstein
shares the surname of the DJ in oft-recorded Mark Germino song Rex
Bob Lowenstein. The song was partly inspired by famous Nashville DJ Captain Midnight - real name Roger Schutt - who defied corporate radio bosses by defying their tight formats. He also backed his beliefs with action in the studio. One of the firings took place in 1981 at WUSW, a station located near Nashville in Lebanon, Tennessee after he locked himself into the control room to protest against the management's decision to shorten its music playlist. "I'm just going for a little creative freedom," he said at the time. "The radio industry in this town needs to turn around and be creative and catch up with the rest of the town." |
Germino wrote
Rex Bob in the early eighties and Schutt died at 73 in Nashville on February
8, 2005.
Rex Bob's namesake confessed he has never heard the song.
But what about other high profile Jewish country stars?
Like latter day Texan singing crime writer Kinky Friedman and Asleep At
The Wheel front man Ray Benson?
Yes, Jaron was aware of The Kinkster and Benson's legendary western swing
band.
He was born into the Jewish faith but enjoyed spoofing it in Keeping
Up With The Steins.
Jaron, Evan, an older brother and two sisters were raised in Congregation
Beth Jacob.
"I go back to Atlanta occasionally but haven't been back to synagogue
in many years," says Lowenstein.
Jaron's brother Evan remains Orthodox.
"I'm in a state of flux, taking religious inventory. Perhaps in time
I'll give it another look with an adult pair of eyes," Jaron said.