From Failed Rock Star to War Hero

Brad Fox | March 24, 2015
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Some people like to focus on past hurts and defeats and let that define them, a rare few push forward. 

Jason Everman was a guitarist for both Nirvana and Soundgarden shortly before they became well known. That didn’t stop him  from giving up on life however; being one of the most unlucky musicians in music history, along with Pete Best, (almost) from the Beatles.

Jason would eventually became an special forces member of the U.S. army and ride down Taliban from horseback in Afghanistan.

He was born in Alaska but his mother took him to Poulsbo Washington across the sound from Seattle after his dad left. The breeding ground for grunge and punk rock movements.

His mother was a depressive artistic type who abused pills and alcohol. Jason began to act out and after blowing up a toilet with an M-80, his grandmother hired a psychiatrist who happened to give him a guitar after talking wasn’t working.

Jason actually made a good amount of money fishing in Alaska and paid for Nirvana’s initial recording and got along with the band well. He eventaully proved to be too much of a head case for even Kurt Cobain, and the band quit their tour early to drive him back home. 

Accross from Kurt with the red hair below, photo credit Ian Tilton. 

Luck would then shine on him as Soundgarden’s bassist position needed to be filled and his connections got him an audition.

After touring all over Europe and America, with thousands of screaming fans wishing they could be him, Soundgarden kicked him out too for bringing down the bands cohesion. They wanted to tell him, cheer up, you’re in a band, but couldn’t. Road manager Eric Johnson said,

“He was funny and witty, and then a cloud would come over him. . . . I felt bad for the guy, and I feel even worse now, thinking about somehow he was suffering and nobody really knew how to address that.”

With Soundgarden, CreditJoe Giron/Corbis

Nirvana would soon become the biggest band in the world and Soundgarden’s next album went double platinum.

Everman eventually joined another band but quit after talking to an army recruiter about a fast track Army Ranger training program. Something drew him to the military.

After Cobain committed suicide, drill sergeants found out about his past and would give him grief about it, He was then stationed at Fort Lewis near where he grew up, where Soundgarden was performing less than an hour away. 

Everman was first stationed in Latin America doing covert drug war operations. 

“It was kind of like being in a band onstage, he said, only more so. Everyone looks around and you know — you know — something cool is going on here. I knew this was it. This is living.”

He felt like what he was looking for would be in the special forces and during training for them he watched the planes hit the towers on TV and knew war was coming.

He road horsebacks with the Pashtun, rappelled from helicopters for midnight raids, and encountered suicide bombers.

In Iraq he was in the midst one of the largest conventional military operations.

Shooting a grenade from a humvee with helicopters on either side, Iraqi tanks were blowing up all around, and turrets were shooting off into the desert.  “I saw stuff I never thought I’d see," he said.

A special forces colleague said Jason seemed to have found his place in wartime, noting his Combat Infantryman Badge, a photo from an antipiracy mission in Asia, and pictures with Rumsfeld, and McChrystal. He became a military rockstar.

Jason Everman, oddly enough, has also been Nepalese monk after hiking through the Himalayas.

He has  since received a bachelors degree in philosophy and is currently attending Columbia University where he has written short stories and written music for a short film about fishing in Alaska. He hopes to publish a novel and then try for a graduate degree in history. 

He told the NYT he might want to try being a bartender next.
H/T NYT

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