Jarad Miles

Jarad Miles was found in a boat along the Big Sioux River by farmer and huntsman, Mr. Miles, in Moody County, South Dakota on September 25, 1985. The infant was found in the boat’s center well wrapped in a combination of dried moss, cottonwood leaves and fish netting. He was taken to the hospital where he spent two weeks with life-threatening pneumonia and croup (a loud cough resembling the barking of a seal). During this time the newlywed, Mr. and Mrs. Miles, decided to adopt the boy and name him after fictitious cowboy character Jarrod Barkley from the 1960s western television show, “The Big Valley”. Jarad left the hospital with a new family and scars on his heels. Despite such turbulent beginnings, Jarad was a calm boy. They took special care of him, singing Beach Boys and John Denver while looking out the window. Most days they worked long hours on the farm, but had some fun swinging in the barn on the hay-mount rope and eating peanut butter clay. Eventually, Mr. Miles built Jarad a large den from parts of an old grain bin where he could keep all the snakes he’d been catching.

Jarad left the farm in 2002 and traveled under the moniker Jack Solingwa for approximately six years.  During this time he lived for brief times in various places, including: The Rocky Mountains near the Colorado River in an old fishing cabin rumored to have been used by Dwight D. Eisenhower; Minneapolis, Minnesota with a girlfriend in a Navy lieutenant’s victorian mansion while away at war; and overseas throughout India for a year before landing in Portland, Oregon in late 2008.

Miles quickly assimilated to Portland folk scene and began recording two music projects. In January of 2011, Miles co-released the debut albums: One Million Years [EP] in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist, Neil Goldstein, and full-length, ROCKETSHIP, with engineer Jake Kelly at Materials To Outlet (Kimya Dawson, St. Even). Ned Lannamann of The Portland Mercury has called ROCKETSHIP “A wonderful, weird record…” and his song ‘Lazy Old Sun’ was featured on the PDX POP NOW 2011 Compilation.

In February of 2012, his new project and band, Jarad Miles In Ancient Wave, began work on their eponymous new studio album with Adam Selzer at Type Foundry Studios in Portland, Oregon.

The Portland Mercury has called ROCKETSHIP “A wonderful, weird record, in which standard singer/songwriter tropes are submerged in a bath of spindly parlor piano, County Derry brass, Fantasia strings, and angelic old-Hollywood choirs, all led by Miles’ Isaac Brock-like bleating and braying. “He Once Was a Friend of Mine” is a gaspingly good funeral song…”. The song ‘Lazy Old Sun’ was featured on the PDX POP NOW! 2011 Compilation.

One Million Years [EP] is a unique glimpse at some of the young songwriters first original songs. Producer and Multi-instrumentalist Neil Goldstein paints Miles’ lyrical landscape with a kaleidoscope brush of phantasmagorian lightness and dark.

Press

“Rocketship is a wonderful, weird record…” – Ned Lannamann, The Portland Mercury (Read the full article)

“PDX POP NOW! unveils tracklist… names you might know soon (Lost Lander, Blouse, Bright Archer, Jarad Miles)” – Jeremy Petersen, OPB Music (Read the full article)

“Miles has developed his own rambling, lo-fi sound… an artist worth watching in years to come.” – Hans Werksman, Here Comes The Flood (Read the full article)

“The songs are touchingly personal… there is some absolutely blinding stuff on this record.” – Matthew Young, Song by Toad (Read the full article)

“Miles has power in his music… he has a voice and lyrics that could gain him quite a following” – Ryan Rudnansky, Oregon Music News (Read the full article)