Jars of Clay began with Charlie Lowell and Dan Haseltine, two college sophomores who had a vision to be parts of a band. Charlie, whose major at Greenville College was CCM, had studied II Cor 4:7 in high school, and he liked the Jars of Clay title as a name for a band. In 1992 he met Dan Haseltine, who were both majoring in CCM and both lived on the same dormitory floor. As this came together, it evolved into a four-piece group with Charlie on keys, Dan Haseltine on vocals, Steve Mason on guitar and Matt Bronleewe on guitar. They performed on campus and surrounding areas and were very well received. "People seemed to really enjoy and dig what we were doing," said Charlie, "and we were enjoying ourselves, so we did a CD demo just to see if we could pull it off. It was more for fun. We didn't have intentions of going to Nashville and trying to get a record deal."

Last April they submitted a demo tape to the judges of the Gospel Music Association, and they were selected to be one of ten bands slated to compete in the Association's Spotlight '94 talent competition, attended by a number of Music Industry people. Jars of Clay ended up taking the competition by storm - essentially, GMA was naming them the best unsigned band in the country. Their achievement naturally led to a flurry of attention: many of the top record companies in the Christian music industry wanted to sign this talented foursome. "We were getting calls on the pay phone on our dorm floor," said Charlie. "We weren't even sure how some of them got our number. We finally put a sign by the phone that said 'If anybody calls regarding Jars of Clay, take down their number and tell them "this". . .but don't tell them "this."' School ended three weeks later and we came to Nashville and started meeting with people."

The group's members decided to put their college educations on hold, and they began to explore the possiblity of moving to Nashville and committing themselves full-time to the band and its potential ministry. One of the band's members decided to leave the group at this time to pursue his business degree, and Charlie thought of his friend Matt Odmark as a new guitarist (they had played in a Christian band from 1987 to 1990 called Simple Truth). Matt had just completed his second year at the University of Rochester. He was serving the Church as an active volunteer youth leader and he also gave himself away to the kids as a leader with the Gates-Chili Young Life Club. After praying for 2 months over Charlie's offer, Matt decided to accept and move to Nashville.

Since that time, the band has signed with Essential Records, and has experienced tremendous success with the release of their self-titled debut album. The band has toured as an opening act with PFR and Michael W. Smith, and has headlined with with such opening acts as Duncan Shiek, The Samples, The Gufs, and Sarah Masen. Their self-titled debut reached the gold mark in the Spring of 1996, and the platinum mark in September of 1996.

Based on the history of the band as told by Jack Cleveland