Jaron's Biography
i was born
Yes I was born on January 7th, 1979. Many of you may have heard me claim that the world rejoiced on this particular day, but the older I get, the more I realize that perhaps that just wasn't the case. My dear Mother forced me out bright and early on that fine day, much to my distress, and I'm sure hers as well, in a small village named Castor. Castor in French means Beaver. Right. Well, for those of you that don't know where that is, which is likely most of you, Castor is about 25min. west of Coronation. Where? Coronation, that fine oil/farming town in which I spent the first 18yrs of my own life. Coronation is located in central eastern Alberta, which is located in Western Canada, which is located in Canada, which..... Well if you don't know where Canada is, then you probably don't know how to use a computer, so you wouldn't be reading this. Forget it. So I grew up on the great plains of North America.
i grew up
Well as you can see by the photos I managed to grow up. Physically at least. Now at the age of 26, I can look back on my youth with more understanding and appreciating eyes. Coronation was a small community with about 1000 people. As in most small towns on the prairies, the locals love their hockey. I could and probably would have gone on a few years ago about how hard it was growing up an artist/musician in a place like this, but I see now that that would be unjust. The fact was that being in the minority, as it were, I received far more attention then I would have had I not been. And for any of you that know me, I loooooove attention. Yes, like a dog. Like a baby. And that attention was most likely the fuel that kept my artistic fires burning. It counterbalanced the mean names the.................sniff, sniff......Just kidding. What I'm getting at, was that maybe there weren't all the facilities and fancy programs that a city could offer a young artist, but the support that I received from the people in my community, the teachers, my neighbors, the local grocer, was stronger and just as motivating as anything I can imagine. So to all those people, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
i grew up more
All in all, I took about 4 years of piano lessons from various teachers. Enough to teach me what I needed to know to do what I wanted to do. By the way, I did eventually try playing hockey. I laced up my skates at the age of 16 and had a crack at it. I sucked and got my assed kicked. But I had a great time and even managed to score a goal or two. Now, in everybody's life there are usually "turning points." Experiences that we go through that send us into another direction for one reason or another. We all have many, but there are two which I would like to share with you. This one experience and one moment played a major part of making me who I am, and getting me to where I am today.
Life changing experience # 1:
Two weeks after my high school graduation,
I partook in a federally sponsored exchange program called "Canada World Youth." CWY's mission is to increase the ability of people, especially youth, to participate actively in the development of just, harmonious and sustainable societies. They envision a world of active, engaged global citizens, who share responsibility for the well being of all people and the planet.
The first half of my exchange took me to the town of Perth, Ontario. This is where we were to spend 4 months with a host family and our "counterpart" from the country in which we were to go to; in my case, INDIA. The first day that I arrived in Perth, the community was in midst of hosting their annual ?Stuart Park Festival." Now having come from Coronation, which didn't have these kinds of things, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. There was live music everywhere. Music flowed down the streets and avenues from the stages, the bars, clubs and Cafes. People danced and sang and were swept away in the atmosphere that is a festival. There were stages set up with men and women doing the exact same thing that I loved doing. Performing. Playing. Making music. 
Needless to say, after spending 4 months in a community that was as artistically inclined as Perth, I began believing it possible to follow that dream that had always been inside me. During this time I was living with Rajan, my exchange partner from India. I was learning so much on so many different levels. It was during this time that I picked up the guitar and started strumming. So after 4 months of cultural and spiritual learning in Perth, we were off to India. When I say we, I mean my group, which consisted of 8 Canadians, all of different religious, socio-economical, and cultural backgrounds, and 8 Indians, equally as diverse. The village which we ended up staying in was called Vaso, which is in Gujarat. I worked at the hospital in the village. For any of you who have been to India, you will understand my meaning when I say that India is intense. In every sense of the word.
Coming back from India, I was a changed person. There is no point in trying to explain how, or why. A person must go through such an experience to truly understand it, not read about it. To watch a child die of hunger on television is one thing, to hold that child in your arms as it fades away is another My eyes were ripped wide open to issues on a global level, issues that were of far more importance than myself, or any individual for that matter. India greatly affected me and therefore played a large part in shaping my personal philosophy,
Life changing experience # 2
One word: Tom Waits. I know that's more than one word, but I don't care. It's the winter '99, in cabin country, Muskoka, ON. We're in a picturesque log cabin on the lake. The snow is falling from the heavens like feathers in a bedroom after a proper pillow fight. It's around 7o'clock in the morning. The fire's thinking about dying and me and my friend Steve are pondering sleep in some sort of stupor. The girls are in bed and have been for hours. We've been up drinking Guinness and Whiskey solving all the world's most pressing issues. Another log on the fire. One more drink and some of that summer sausage with those great little crackers. We hear some noise from the room and it seems the girls are going to attempt awakening. Sure enough one comes out of the door, far faster than we ever expected. BARFFFF!!! Yep. It's a barfaramma.. Fortunately, she does make it outside. Unfortunately, she's wearing my jacket. So the girls are awake and join us back at the table. You can tell the sun is thinking about coming up by the way the pines are silhouetting outside the window. I never was very good at silhouetting myself. Anyway, there we all were at the table munching on last nights leftovers.
It's December 25th, Merry Christmas. As it's Christmas morning, we naturally decide that we should open our stockings. This was always my favorite part of Christmas because mom always had great stockings for us. Every little present was wrapped up and it was so exciting digging down to the bottom of the sock. It seemed as though it went on forever. While making my way to the bottom of my stocking, I come across what feels and sounds, to the shake, like a cassette tape. I quickly made waste of the beautiful wrapping paper and sure enough it was a cassette. So there I was holding a cassette which had the name Tom Waits upon it. I had certainly never heard of him. My friend Steve told me that he figured I might appreciate Tom's music. We had a crappy little ghetto blaster with us so I popped it in. Now we?re getting to the "life changing" aspect of this story. The first song on this tape, was "ol' 55? There is a line in the song which goes, ''now the sun's coming up, and I'm riding with lady luck......" Well it must have been fate, because as I remember it, just as the song came to that particular line, the sun had in fact just cracked the horizon. I had never before been so moved by a voice, a sound. We listened to the rest of the tape which had other Tom greats like, Martha, Rosie, Grapefruit Moon, Postcard from a Hooker in Minneapolis. It was at that time, on that magical Christmas morning, that I decided that I would pursue music. I was inspired. And I told myself that if I was to, then I must do so with the intent of inspiring people the same way that Tom's voice, lyrics and melodies inspired me. So when I'm performing, wether for 2 people or 2000 people, weather I?m tired, sick, or unhappy, I always play my heart out. To do otherwise seems to me to be a waste of time. I've tried to apply this philosophy to other aspects of my life as well. Might as well get on living or get on dying.
i begin my career
I've been performing since I was around 10 years old, on stage, and off. Growing up in Coronation there was always a community function for me to play at, wether it be a Christmas Concert, a Rodeo, Wedding, or a funeral. So I've always felt comfortable in front of an audience. The bigger the better. I started playing with my first band down in Ontario, Canada when I was 19. We were playing a lot of Blues, Folk and old Rock and Roll. I played around the Ottawa area for about a year or so. On a trip down to New Orleans with my guitar player (Sean), I met up with an Australian (Chris) who was living in London, England. 
I moved to London to work and play in a Blues bar called ''Ain't Nothing But...''. I returned back to Canada and set up camp back in Alberta and ended up playing in an Irish Pub. I spent around 2 years living and working between Camrose and Edmonton. During this time I released two albums. The first album "Where Am I Going To?" I wrote and co-produced at Heartland Studios with Bruce Rawlings. The second was a live recording that I did with the band I was playing with. During all this time I was writing new original material. To date I have around 150 originals to my credit. Hopefully one or two of them are good. Around the summer of 2002 I got in touch with an agent in the US who books pianist worldwide. In November of 2002 I flew to Europe and have been working from Oslo to Athens, Dublin to Zurich ever since.
the future
Most artists, weather they be a musician, actor, poet or a painter, dream of making it "big." I too have had and still have dreams of grandeur. Success as it were. As far as my personal life is concerned, I feel that I am already successful. I have a great family and amazing friends. I'm always surrounded by love. As far as my career is concerned, there are still many mountains and valleys to cross before I could claim "success.'' One thing that I've learned in the past few years is that it is very important not to confuse the two. The journey of one's career and one's personal journey through life are not to be measured up to one another. Failure in one doesn't necessarily mean failure in the other. And what the hell is failure anyway. So the way I approach my career, is to look at it like a big, fun carnival ride. I'm going to get to the end one way or another, so I might as well have one hell of a ride while it lasts. Half the fun is in the journey. So no matter how high the ride goes, or how low, really isn't that important, so long as you enjoy it. What's important is who is around you when you get off. In the mean time, I'm just gonna ride it till the wheels fall off..............
