Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons’ present a final tour before taking a hiatus of an unspecified amount of time. Jerry has released over 30 albums in his 3-decade career. His songwriting is raw, both joyfully pissed off and achingly bittersweet. Jerry’s live show is ‘blistering take-no-prisoners.’ Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons’ play Hodi’s Half Note Sun, December 2, 2018, at 8:00 PM.
Beyond the songwriting, Jerry travels to war-torn areas bringing supplies and teaching music. He has been to Kabul, Afghanistan, to teach at an underground co-ed rock school and to a permanent refugee camp in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
Jerry believes in the power of giving those experiencing trauma a voice, and through music, letting them know they aren’t alone. “I just got back from this refugee camp. These girls stories are ‘Isis killed my sister and sold into slavery,’ genital mutilation, they cut off my fucking clit, or I am the third wife of a 64-year-old man, that’s insisting on taking my virginity before I’m 11, you know, talk about horrific,” Jerry says, “We still live in a society where we can talk about it where no one will shoot me at this point. From a lot of the world, they don’t have a voice, and even if they can say something, but even that’s a little heavy. Traditionally younger like that wouldn’t talk to a single middle-aged white man like me.”
Jerry is devoting a season of his life (as he already started this work) to reaching the voiceless with his non-profit, Music relief. His focus is to break down these barriers and create a movement of change, with music. He takes donations and delivers instruments to villages across the globe that have experienced war gripping fatal lives or experience fettered injustice. He leads camps, teaching them how to express themselves through music. Jerry says, “We forget that these worlds coexist all the time, and how do we bridge them?”
Jerry recently released Full Metal Burqa, coming about a year after releasing Weird Blood on Cavity Search Records in late 2017. The themes of Full Metal bring in an international aspect of life that is underground or not invisible mainstream media. The impact of war and adversity has strewn into these cultures, and it takes just one person to open our eyes to the struggles that exist in foreign lands. Full Metal Burqa offers a window into a moment in these places, and Jerry’s travels ring through the rhythms and lyrics. These societies are shackled by imprisonment, and Jerry paints the pictures lightly with each song on the album.
Jerry formed the Jackmormons 22 years ago in Utah, and while there have been changes and various solo and side projects and tours have woven in, the power trio (and sometimes quartet) has been Jerry’s mainstay. The Jackmormon’s are Jerry Joseph on guitar and vocals, Steve Drizos on drums, and Steven James Wright on bass. They are not calling it quits and will play 2019 with limited shows. Steve James will play with other people, Steve Drizos will move deeper into producing albums, and Joseph will record a solo album besides focusing on his non-profit.
