Jason Ringenberg (Songwriter, Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica)

Jason Ringenberg was born in Kewanee, Illinois on November 22, 1958. He was raised in nearby Sheffield on a hog farm. Jason learned to sing and play guitar and harmonica at an early age, often on train tracks and in cornfields. In 1977, he enrolled in Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. For the next three years, he took classes there, majoring in Forestry and playing in various bands. Jason's summer jobs during these years were romantic, outdoor manual labor, such as working on the Burlington Northern Railroad. Jason was in the proto-alternative country bands Shakespeare's Riot and The Catalinas in 1980 and 1981. In July 1981, abruptly he decided to move to Nashville.

Arriving in Nashville on July 4th, Jason took a room near a punk rock club and began frequenting the shows there. Here, he met Jack Emerson, a Vanderbilt law student. Ringenberg quickly formed Jason and the Nashville Scorchers, and Emerson managed to have the band open for Carl Perkins and REM. Jeff Johnson, who was into the Nashville rock and punk scenes, saw Ringenberg at the Perkins show and convinced his friend Warner Hodges to come and see him open for REM. Johnson, Hodges, and Ringenberg soon decided to play together, and after a few months, Perry Baggs came on board, and Jason and the Nashville Scorchers were off and running. After two independent vinyl releases in 1982 and 1983, EMI America signed Jason and the Scorchers.

Jason led the band through the eighties with his mixture of songwriting, singing, and dynamic stage presence. He was the most sober member of the group, as the rest of the band lived the rock n' roll life on the road to the fullest. Jason's down-home, rural personality made an intriguing contrast to the more urban, rough-and-ready antics of his bandmates. Jason and the Scorchers earned a reputation through the 1980's as an amazing live act, and along the way they helped solidify the genre now commonly known as alternative country. Ringenberg found a way to exercise (or exorcise) his desire to sing rock and country on the same stage each night through the mixture of styles the band created.

Jason was married in the mid-eighties and moved to a farm in Fairview, west of Nashville. He had a daughter, Kelsey. By the late eighties, his band and bandmates were suffering from increasing commercial and personal strife. Jason and the Scorchers' sound veered steadily away from country and more toward mainstream hard rock. Bassist Jeff Johnson left the band in 1987. By the time the Scorchers toured to support Bob Dylan in 1990, the band was on its last legs. When Perry Baggs contracted diabetes, the Scorchers broke up. Ringenberg was divorced in 1991. He worked odd jobs and eventually released a solo album, "One Foot in the Honky Tonk." While a polished production, the album and succeeding tour didn't ignite a spark commercially.

In early 1993, Jeff Johnson doggedly solicited the original members of the band to re-group for a reunion tour. Ringenberg eventually agreed, thinking, 'ah, what the hell.' The group was surprised by their own intact musical chops, the hysterically grateful fan response, and the relative lack of tensions within the band. This was due in part to the newfound sobriety of some of the band members. The reunion tour stretched through 1993 and was announced as a permanent reunion that fall. Jason wrote many of the songs that became 1995's "A Blazing Grace," with North Carolina's Mammoth Records their new company. 1996 was a huge year for the band, as they re-released 1982's "Reckless Country Soul" and also put out "Clear Impetuous Morning" to widespread critical applause.

Record company hassles continued to dog the band, though, and Johnson quit again in early 1997 partly because of these. Ringenberg, Hodges and Baggs recruited Kenny Ames to be the new bassist. The remainder of 1997 was a blur of activity for Jason, as he re-married, toured, and recorded the live album "Midnight Roads and Stages Seen" in November. Addie Rose Ringenberg was also born in November. Jason settled down on a farm west of Nashville. 1998 brought the release of the live album and an extensive tour. Disney closed down Mammoth Records by this time, adding another chapter to the ridiculously bad luck Ringenberg has experienced with record companies. Jason toured with the Scorchers in Europe in the spring of 1999, but otherwise entered a new phase as he enjoyed home life.

In 2000, Jason released "A Pocketful of Soul" on his own record label, Courageous Chicken. Its folky quality surprised only those who weren't well acquainted with his work up until then. Ringenberg toured extensively in the US and Europe to support the record in 2000 and 2001, playing small halls with only his guitar and harmonica. In this way, he has come full circle, to a place that closely parallels how he started enjoying music as a teenager. Jason is unsure about the future of the Scorchers, but has hinted that the band will do something to commemorate their twentieth anniversary year, which falls from the end of 2001 through 2002.