Jason Everman
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Jason Everman
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Everman serving with the U.S. Army Special Forces in Afghanistan
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Jason Mark Everman |
| Born | October 16, 1967 Ouzinkie (then-part of Kodiak), Alaska, U.S. |
| Origin | Poulsbo, Washington, U.S. |
| Genres | Alternative metal, grunge, heavy metal, grindcore, hardcore punk |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, soldier, philosopher |
| Instruments | Guitar, bass, drums |
| Years active | 1989–1994, 2017–present |
| Labels | Sub Pop |
| Associated acts | Nirvana, Soundgarden, OLD, Mind Funk, Stonecrow, Silence & Light |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  United States of America |
| Service/ |
 United States Army |
| Years of service | 1994–2006 |
| Rank |  Sergeant First Class |
| Unit | .svg){kind=small} 2nd Ranger Battalion 3rd Special Forces Group |
| Battles/wars | War in Afghanistan Iraq War |
| Awards |  Combat Infantryman Badge |
Jason Mark Everman (born October 16, 1967) is an American musician and soldier who played guitar with Nirvana and Mind Funk, and bass in Soundgarden and OLD. He later served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan with the U.S. Army as an Army Ranger and Green Beret. As of May 2017, Everman plays the guitar in a military veteran band called Silence and Light.
Early life[edit]
In a 2013 interview with The New York Times Magazine, Everman said when asked about his birth, “My birth certificate says Kodiak, but I’m pretty sure it was Ouzinkie, where my parents lived in a two-room cabin with a pet ocelot named Kia.” His parents had moved to the remote Spruce Island to, as guitarist and writer Clay Tarver put it, “get back to nature”, but their marriage did not “work out”. His mother left with Jason when he was a toddler, moved to Washington, and remarried to a former Navy serviceman; the family eventually settled in Poulsbo, across Puget Sound from Seattle.[1]
According to Everman’s half-sister, with whom he grew up, “My mother was extremely depressed, an artistic genius who was also a pill-popping alcoholic. Jason and I learned to walk on eggshells and really learned to take care of ourselves.” After an incident in which he and a friend blew up a toilet with an M-80 firecracker, his grandmother put him in therapy sessions to deal with his emotional issues. Everman began playing guitar during the therapy sessions; he initially picked up one of the guitars the therapist kept around his office, and the therapist then decided to play with him, hoping it would help him open up. He went on to play in several bands during his high school years. Also, he reestablished contact with his biological father, who by that time owned a fishing boat in Alaska, and worked several seasons on the boat.[1] Prior to joining with Nirvana, he played guitar in a local band called Stonecrow with future Nirvana drummer Chad Channing.[2]
Early musical career[edit]
Everman joined Nirvana in February 1989 as a second guitarist. He is listed as being second guitarist on Nirvana’s Bleach and appears on the cover, but did not actually play on any of the tracks. Nirvana founder Kurt Cobain said the credit was a token of thanks to Everman for paying a fee of $606.17 to record the album. On the 2009 remastered edition of Bleach, Everman is no longer credited but can still be seen on the front cover and he is given special thanks in the booklet.
Everman toured with Nirvana the summer of 1989 in support of Bleach. He can be heard playing guitar on Trust No-One, an unofficial release of a live performance in Boston. Cobain had broken his guitar the previous night and only provided vocals, leaving the guitar playing to Everman. Everman can also be seen in the bootleg video of Nirvana playing an “in store” performance at Rhino Records in Los Angeles on June 23, 1989. During his time with Nirvana, he could sometimes be seen using Fender guitars, generally the Fender Telecaster. Nirvana fired Everman after the tour ended[1] due to his moodiness.[3]
A two-song Nirvana session featuring Everman on guitar is available, albeit in separate releases. A Kiss cover called “Do You Love Me?” was released on the 1990 tribute album Hard to Believe: A Kiss Covers Compilation, [4] and “Dive” was released on 2004’s With the Lights Out.[5] Both tracks were recorded at The Evergreen State College‘s 24-track studio in June 1989.
Everman next joined Soundgarden in 1990 as Hiro Yamamoto‘s temporary successor on bass. In April of that year, he played on the band’s cover of The Beatles‘ “Come Together“, which appeared on an EP called Loudest Love. Everman appeared in Soundgarden’s Louder Than Live home video. Everman left immediately after Soundgarden completed its promotional tour for Louder Than Love in mid-1990 to play bass for the band OLD (Old Lady Drivers) and Soundgarden found Yamamoto’s ultimate successor, bassist Ben Shepherd. Later, in 1993, he played guitar in Mind Funk.
Later life[edit]
In September 1994, influenced by Renaissance icon Benvenuto Cellini (who stated that a well-rounded man is an artist, warrior and philosopher), he left Mind Funk to join the United States Army, subsequently serving with the Army‘s 2nd Ranger Battalion and later with the Special Forces, serving tours in Afghanistan and Iraq.[6] After completing his service, he took a break from the military and lived in New York City where he briefly worked as a bike messenger. He then traveled to Tibet and worked and studied in a Buddhist monastery before returning to the U.S. He reentered the Army when offered the chance to join Special Forces.
After receiving an honorable discharge in 2006, Everman went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Columbia University School of General Studies on May 20, 2013.[6] General Stanley A. McChrystal wrote a letter of recommendation for his application.[1] In September 2010, Everman conducted an interview with Music Life Radio detailing his life.[7] He also briefly appears in a 2010 documentary on Motörhead frontman Lemmy where he described Motorhead as “Good go-to-war music.”
In July 2013, The New York Times published a portrait on Everman, written by guitarist and writer Clay Tarver.[1] The article features interviews with Everman, his family members, former band colleagues, music industry people, and soldiers. A 2014 The Daily Beast interview mentions that Everman was invited to attend Nirvana’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, that he lives in New York, has participated in writing workshops and “still goes overseas regularly, working as a consultant for the military.”[8]
According to his biography on the homepage for The Pat Tillman Foundation, of which he is a member, Everman is currently pursuing a Master’s in Military History from Norwich University.[9]
In May 2017 Everman met fellow veteran Brad Thomas in New York and the two decided to start a band. By July the band, named Silence & Light, had a complete lineup consisting of military veterans with Everman playing the guitar. They began recording an album in January 2019 in Van Nuys California. One song was released in October 2019 and the complete album was released in December 2019. The band’s profits are dedicated to helping members of the Special Operations Community, the Military, and First Responders. The band says they consider their genre to be modern rock.[10][11]
Discography[edit]
With Mind Funk
- Dropped (1993)
With Nirvana
- Hard to Believe: Kiss Covers Compilation (1990)
- With the Lights Out (2004)
With OLD
- Lo Flux Tube (1991)
- Masters of Misery – Black Sabbath: An Earache Tribute (1992)
With Soundgarden
- Loudest Love (1990)
- Louder Than Live (1990)
With Silence and Light
- Volume One (2019)
Awards and decorations[edit]
Everman’s awards include the following:[12]
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| Yesterday, the California State Legislature saw the introduction of two more anti-gun bills that continue the assault on lawful gun ownership in the Golden State. On the heels of passing legislation to violate gun owner privacy during the 2021 legislative session, for which the NRA has already filed a lawsuit, legislators have now introduced Senate Bill 906, to require disclosure of firearm ownership and storage methods for parents of school-age children. This is one more attack on the privacy of lawful gun owners in this state. NRA will fight this legislation during the session and will be prepared to pursue litigation in the event it receives the Governor’s signature. Additionally, Assembly Bill 1769 was introduced prohibiting the sale of firearms, ammunition, and firearm parts at gun shows in the 31st Agricultural District. Both SB 906 and AB 1769 are still awaiting committee assignments and policy hearings. Your NRA will continue to keep you updated as these bills are scheduled.
Senate Bill 906, introduced by Senator Anthony Portantino (D-25), makes it mandatory that parents of students disclose firearm ownership status to the schools their children attend, including how they are stored. It requires that these questions be placed on the forms used to register or enroll students, and these forms may be made available to law-enforcement under certain conditions. Assembly Bill 1769, introduced by Assembly Member Steve Bennett (D-37), prohibits officers, employees, operators, lessees, or licensees of the 31st District Agricultural Association from entering into any agreement to allow for the sale of any firearm, firearm parts, or ammunition on property or buildings that comprise the Ventura County Fair and Event Center or properties in Ventura County and the City of Ventura that are owned, leased, operated, or occupied by the District. This imposes a one-size-fits-all restriction to prevent officials from deciding how to use venues. |
Adam Kredo • January 31, 2022 1:10 pm
The ATF disclosed to lawmakers that it manages a database of 920,664,765 firearm purchase records, including both digital and hard copy versions of these transactions. When a licensed gun store goes out of business, its private records detailing gun transactions become ATF property and are stored at a federal site in West Virginia. The practice has contributed to the fears of gun advocacy groups and Second Amendment champions in Congress that the federal government is creating a national database of gun owners, which violates longstanding federal statutes.
Rep. Michael Cloud (R., Texas), who led an investigation into the ATF database following a November Free Beacon report that the Biden administration had stockpiled records of more than 54 million gun transactions in 2021, expressed shock at the number of gun records being kept by the federal government. Cloud maintains that the ATF’s database could be exploited by the Biden administration to surveil American gun owners as it pursues new restrictions on firearms.
“A federal firearm registry is explicitly banned by law. Yet, the Biden administration is again circumventing Congress and enabling the notably corrupt ATF to manage a database of nearly a billion gun transfer records,” Cloud told the Free Beacon. “Under the president’s watch, the ATF has increased surveillance on American gun owners at an abhorrent level. The Biden administration continues to empower criminals and foreign nationals while threatening the rights of law-abiding Americans. It’s shameful and this administration should reconsider its continued attacks on American gun owners.”
While the ATF denies that these records are used to track gun owners, it transfers hard copies of the information into a searchable digital database that it says is used to trace firearms tied to crimes. The ATF reported that 865,787,086 of the records are already in a digital format.
As the ATF stockpiles gun records, the Biden administration is seeking to alter a federal law that allows gun stores to destroy their records after 20 years, preventing the federal government from getting them. The Biden administration wants gun stores to maintain their records in perpetuity, meaning that when a store closes, the ATF receives all of its records. The ATF’s gun records database has long been a flashpoint between Second Amendment advocates and the federal government, with the latter claiming the ATF is exploiting legal loopholes to expand the database. The Biden administration’s push to ensure that all out-of-business records ultimately make their way to the ATF has sparked fierce pushback from 52 Republicans in Congress.
The proposed change, Cloud and his colleagues wrote to the ATF in a November letter, “means that 100 percent of all lawful commercial firearm transfers would eventually end up in an ATF computer system, thereby creating a permanent database”—in violation of the law.
The ATF maintained in its response to the 2021 investigation that the “sole purpose” of its database and ongoing efforts to digitize out-of-business records “is to trace firearms used in crimes.”
More than half-a-million traces were performed in 2021, according to the ATF, and just under half a million in 2020. The ATF, however, says it does not have the ability to determine if the database actually helps solve crimes. The ATF’s National Tracing Center “has no ability to determine the successful prosecution of hundreds of thousands of crime gun traces it completes annually, nor does it have any way to link a trace for a specific prosecution for a particular year,” the agency informed Congress.
Aidan Johnston, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America, an advocacy group that has closely tracked the ATF’s database, told the Free Beacon that it is becoming clear the Biden administration is on its way to creating a national gun registry.
“Make no mistake—this is clear evidence that a partial national gun registry exists,” Johnston said. “If the American people don’t stand up for their rights now, Biden’s anti-gun ATF will be able to track gun owners, infringe on our rights, and potentially even confiscate our firearms.”