Rising Stars: Meet Jared Chance Taylor of West Nashville (the Nations)

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jared Chance Taylor.

Hi Jared, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
From a young age, I was always fascinated with music. I didn’t come from a musical family per se, but my father is a painter and would always be playing different kinds of music in his studio while painting. Eventually all that exposure stuck for me in a big way. I started on piano at age 7 and moved to guitar, bass, and singing when I became a teenager. I got really involved with singing and playing at my church. I also started a band and we would play all over Phoenix. All of those experiences were a really good foundation for me branching out.

I went to LA for college. While there, I fell in love with scoring and recording. I made friends with lots of film students and young directors, writing music for their assignments & short films just for the fun of it. Today I get to continue working with many of them professionally!

Once I graduated, I went at full-time composing & producing with no safety net. The first year or so was really tough, but through stubborn passion & drive, and God’s grace, opportunities did open up and I took them head on.

In 2020, I relocated to Nashville where I really embraced the change in scenery and industry dynamics. It really felt like a breath of fresh air in so many ways. I’m thankful I get to wake up each day enjoying what I do, creating music with people I love.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Everyone’s road looks relatively smooth from the outside looking in. Social media fools us into buying that. Growing up, my grandpa always said, “Nothing’s easy” and that feels all too true for the most rewarding things in life.

As I said, my first year after college was hard, but it was also so necessary. I had no money and I was pretty stressed about it, so that fear was constantly motivating me. Also, when you’re a young adult, there’s something about resolving to do what you love at all costs that is inherently energizing. At least it was for me. The choice to “burn the ships” and not have any backup plan forced me to dig deep to create really good music, and, on the practical side, observe whatever deadlines I had for creating that music; because in my context of work, you can’t just make good music, you have to be fast at making it too. Struggling to make end’s meet genuinely brought that out of me.

A few years ago, I began to feel like that work ethic had soured over into workaholism. I was creatively burnt out. I remember feeling like I had no creative vision of my own because I was spending all my time partnering with other creatives in their vision, both artists and filmmakers.

I took a step back and carved out some pretty serious chunks of time where I could experiment and create music for myself at my own pace. That proved to be extremely uncomfortable and difficult at first, but then it slowly became a lifeline. Since then, I’ve learned to implement that posture of slow play and personal expression into my professional work with others. It leaves me feeling much more fulfilled in my work!

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I write music for film and TV. Sometimes that looks like writing music directly to picture for a film or documentary. Other times it looks like writing songs or create tracks that editors or music supervisors then put into commercials or TV shows.

Most recently I’ve done music for Drive to Survive (Netflix), Neighborhood Wars (A&E), Very Scary People (Max), NASCAR (Xfinity), American Ninja Warrior (Netflix), and The Kardashians (Hulu).

I enjoy a diverse range of different kinds of music and often feel like I’m always doing something different. I never want to put creativity in a box or see it through a formula. That way writing music always feels like a new experience!

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
Find time to do what you love and share it with people!
You know you want to. And other people can truly benefit from it so please don’t keep it to yourself.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jaredchancetaylor.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaredchancetaylor/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jared-chance-taylor-21b773ba/
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/29GfkEnuiaWJrX3uM4PPLt
• Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8001019/