Jared Hart Surprise-Releases First Solo Offering in 10 Years

Mt. Crushmore Records and Jared Hart (Mercy Union, The Scandals) present The Condor, the brand new, four-song EP from the revered New Jersey-based singer-songwriter. Serving as Hart’s first solo offering in 10 years, The Condor examines our mortality and the lasting imprints that close friends who have passed continue to place onto our own lives. Featuring three originals and a cover of Mac Miller’s “Come Back  To Earth,” The Condor is a rich tribute to the type of person who changes your world and your life entirely, and whose very existence makes your existence worthwhile. 

If we’re lucky in our short time on this planet, we’ll meet people who mean the world to us, and who will continue to do so after they’re gone. And though death means they’re no longer here physically, their memory, their inspiration and their love remains within every person who knew them. As Ernest Hemingway apparently once said: “Every man has two deaths: when he is buried in the ground and the last time someone says his name. In some ways men can be immortal.” It’s for that very reason that The Condor, the new EP from Mercy Union/The Scandals’ Jared Hart, exists — to pay tribute to, and ensure immortality for, a friend of his.

But not just any friend. One of those rare, true friends that some people are never lucky enough to find. It was a friendship that, in a way, began out of necessity, during a Sociology 101 class at college. “There wasn’t a lot of culture there,” Hart recalls. “Not a lot of people who have experienced life. There was a lack of identity. But one day this guy walks in with a shaved head and a Minor Threat shirt, and I’m there with blue hair and a Rancid shirt. We give each other this ‘What the f?’ look, because we were the only two on campus like that.”

Unsurprisingly, they became close friends almost instantly, soon transforming into what Hart calls “partners in crime” when it came to both life and music. They even lived together for a while, inhabiting each other’s worlds and inspiring each other’s passions and wild, youthful eccentricities. “He would tell everyone, ‘People call me The Condor,’” continues Hart. “And a running joke was that in front of people I'd be like, ‘No one fing called you that. There's not a soul on earth that calls you that!’”

It was a friendship built on mutual love and admiration, so much so that their worlds expanded and friends and family began to overlap. Eventually, though, because things never stay the same, The Condor made plans to move to California. The last time Hart saw him was in New Jersey before the move when The Condor gave him a copy of good mmornin, Rayland Baxter’s tribute album to Mac Miller. There were plans to visit, but the day that Mercy Union’s “Prussian Blue” came out in March of 2022, Hart received an unexpected and shocking call informing him his dear friend had passed away. “When I heard the news, I became pretty useless,” he remembers. “There was so much going on with the band and everything else, but at that point it hit me like a ton of bricks. 'Nothing is Important'. Everything stood still for a while. Making this EP was literally the only way I could attempt to make sense of any of it.”

That’s why The Condor is being put out under Hart’s own name, because it’s an incredibly personal project. In four songs, Hart, together with Matt Olsson, who plays drums and co-produced the EP — manages to convey the profound nature of his friendship and relationship with The Condor, as well as his love and respect that he has — and still has — for his friend. It’s not too much of an overstatement, in fact, to say that on the opening title track, The Condor completely fills the room, his presence haunting and underlining the song as it swells with emotional gravitas and then slowly fades away at the end. It captures him perfectly — even if you never met or knew him, you know exactly who he was when you listen to that song. "I needed to write something that showed that he always was that thing that he said he was," explains Hart. "He was larger than life, and that void just can't be replaced." 

While it’s a tragedy that this EP ever had to be made, with it, Hart has done his friend more than proud. It’s a perfect tribute, and one that assuredly secures The Condor’s immortality.

Jared Hart will be making the following appearance tomorrow evening in New Jersey to celebrate the release of The Condor. 

JANUARY

04 — Garwood, NJ — Crossroads (The Condor EP release party with Ben Nichols of Lucero) 

Photo Credit: Ryan Johnson

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