Jars of Clay gets back to nuts and bolts

Jars of Clay, a three-time Gram­my Award win­ner, will play the Goth­ic The­atre tonight. Pho­to spe­cial to The Den­ver Post.

Over­com­ing the inter­nal con­flicts that are in all of us is the over­whelm­ing theme from Jars of Clay’s new sin­gle, “Two Hands.”

The band will bring its “Two Hands” tour to Col­orado this week, play­ing in Grand Junc­tion on Wednes­day and the Den­ver area’s Goth­ic The­atre on Thurs­day.

The “Two Hands” cho­rus resounds, “I use one hand to pull you clos­er, the oth­er to push you away,” and res­onates in all of us, espe­cial­ly our dai­ly rela­tion­ships.

“Two Hands is about that inter wran­gling that we all do,” said gui­tarist Stephen Mason said. “We strug­gle to believe that we can do good. We ques­tion if we have what it takes — to fol­low through. And the truth is we don’t. If that makes sense? But if we rely on our faith, we are able to rec­on­cile.

“And we have to try. Don’t wor­ry about the con­se­quences or doubt. We all have that. We are human and will always have that but we need to push through that. One human can make a huge dif­fer­ence in anoth­er and in a com­mu­ni­ty.”

Jars is liv­ing proof that push­ing through and fol­low­ing through has its rewards. The band’s Blood: Water Mis­sion char­i­ty builds wells in Africa, and is approach­ing its goal of 1,000 wells. The char­i­ty also earned the band the Gospel Music Asso­ci­a­tion’s Angels Award in April for inspir­ing oth­ers to pos­i­tive­ly change their lives.

“It’s been pret­ty remark­able — 1,000 wells,” Mason said. “Our next goal? Add a zero, pos­si­bly. Start over with anoth­er 1,000? We want­ed to cham­pi­on peo­ple to com­mit to some­thing they are pas­sion­ate about. And they can do it by giv­ing their gift.”

If Blood: Water Mis­sion is not your pas­sion, the band urges its fans to take what they are pas­sio­ni­ate about and mov­ing for­ward with that — “If I had two hands doing the same thing” — and mak­ing an impact in a com­mu­ni­ty. The band is also try­ing to make a dif­fer­ence in the com­mu­ni­ties in which they are play­ing by work­ing with local radio sta­tions and Habi­tat for Human­i­ty.

“Take that les­son of two hands and go with it,” Mason said.

Jars of Clay hit the music scene with a deludge in 1995 with its mul­ti-for­mat hit “Flood.” Since, the Chris­t­ian rock band has col­lect­ed three Gram­my Awards, along with more than 6 mil­lion in records sales.

“It’s our faith that dri­ves us,” Mason said. “We want to be cham­pi­ons of love and grace. And if it’s good news then it’s the Gospel. We love hav­ing the sup­port of main­stream radio.

“Cer­tain­ly, we are labeled. Peo­ple hear Chris­t­ian music and they assume X, Y and Z. I think we strad­dle the line. We haven’t been enough of one thing. That’s our job, and it’s a unique space to occu­py. It’s impor­tant to us to get peo­ple in con­ver­sa­tion.”

A con­ver­sa­tion is how Mason describes the band’s new CD, “The Long Fall Back to Earth.”

“This CD is a con­tin­u­a­tion of ‘Good Mon­sters’ (released in 2006). But this is more nuts and bolts. It’s more fresh,” Mason said. ”

‘Good Mon­sters’ was a slick look at our con­flicts, of com­ing togeth­er, iso­la­tion and stug­gles and con­nec­tions. This is more per­son­al con­ver­sa­tions.”

Mason said this tour is heavy with the band’s newest offer­ing, so for a lit­tle con­ver­sa­tion look no fur­ther than the Goth­ic The­atre.