Name: Jason Everman Went from Being in Nirvana and Soundgarden to Being an Army Ranger
Uploaded: 2023-04-11T17:16:03.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jason Everman Went from Being in Nirvana and Soundgarden to Being an Army Ranger' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-04-11. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jason Everman Went from Being in Nirvana and Soundgarden to Being an Army Ranger' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-04-11. Transcript available.

The Joe Rogan experience. How the fuck does one go from playing in Nirvana and
Soundgarden to being a soldier?
It's it's it's a longer story. I don't know. I want to hear it. How long an
answer you want. We got a plenty of time, okay?
Hmm so
Guess being a professional rock musician was something I kind of fell into it
wasn't something that I like had a dream of
You know, it's like oh, I'm gonna be you know, I love playing in bands. I love
playing music, but it was like at this punk rock level where
You're never gonna make a living at it, you know, it's just something fun to do
and then
started playing with Nirvana and
Even at that levels, you know, still not making money from it, but you know
touring was it the early days of Nirvana?
Yeah, yeah, so Nirvana wasn't worldwide now at that point. No
There
Even on the Seattle level like one of the the smaller bands, you know, like
there's bands like Mudhoney and Soundgarden that were
Better known than Nirvana was at the time for you play for Soundgarden, too.
Yeah, which is also hilarious
Yeah, and when when did you like so you're in the beginning so did you just
have did you have friction with the band?
Like why did you wind up leaving?
so
with Nirvana is just
It I guess initially like when I came on board like Kurt wanted a second guitar
player
for the live show basically like
Have a heavier sound live take some of the guitar playing responsibility off
him so he could concentrate on vocals like that
kind of thing and
And initially like I thought I was gonna be able to contribute to the band
creatively and then it got to the point where I realized
That wasn't gonna happen then the same thing happened with Chad the drummer, I
think and
It was like everyone in the band including myself was like very
Poor communicators like a lot of passive aggression and
You know, I mean we were kids, you know, how old were we at the time 20? I
think hmm and
Yeah, I did I just I wasn't equipped for it and it
Became more and more unhappy with the situation and then ended up leaving so
was it that like when you would try to
Put creative input in it would get shut down or they weren't interested or Kurt
wasn't interested. Yeah, so
Like on the rare time
Where we actually rehearsed as a band which was not a lot
Um, Kurt would kind of half-heartedly like hey
You who has ideas and like I'd throw a couple ideas out and then Chad
Like a very accomplished musician in his own right would throw some ideas out
and
Then it just kind of be glossed over and like
Okay, here's the new song I wrote, you know and start learning that
So it was very
He goes that cursory, you know, it's like he he kind of like threw it out there,
but then it wasn't gonna go anywhere
mmm, and so
Did you see you went for Nirvana first and then the Soundgarden?
Yeah, like I left we did a US tour like the first full
US tour that Nirvana did and
88 or 89 and I can't remember what year it was but I think it was still the 80s
and
like I I left at the end of that tour like again
I'm done like nice little four way foray into into rock and roll, but I'm gonna
do something else and when I got home
I was planning on going trekking in the Himalayas
Like we know yeah, that was the next that was the next thing. It's like okay.
This was a nice diversion
But I'm gonna kind of fulfill this dream. I've had since I was a kid of like
trekking in the Himalayas
So like I went to Metzger's maps in Seattle and was buying maps of the Himalayas
of Nepal and Tibet and all this stuff and like
getting gear sorted and that's what I was gonna do and then
some point that summer or
Fall I can't remember what time of year it was into summer
Kim from Soundgarden called me and
was like hey
Hero the their bass player then like quit. Do you want to audition for the band?
I was like, you know at that point like Soundgarden was my favorite Seattle
band like hands down and it was like, okay
You know fully not believing I'd ever get chosen
And then you did yeah, and how did that end? I
Got fired what happened? Um
It's complicated, but I think at the end of the day
But I wasn't getting along with Chris that well the singer and you know
obviously
You know who's gonna go right? Yeah, it was me
Yeah, so how does that translate into
becoming a soldier?
I mean there's more
There's there's more to the story than that because there was still like oh
I basically like getting fired from Soundgarden like put me in a pretty bad
tailspin
It I mean it was a rough patch in my life for sure and so
in order to kind of
You cut this tailspin off like I've I had to do something radical and what I
did was ended up moving to New York and
So I mean there's more to the story than that
um
But move to New York like basically
You know I grew up in rural Western Washington like so it's kind of polar
opposite to what I what my experience was like got a job in a warehouse
got an apartment and
And kind of started my New York life and did that for a couple of years
What was your plan when you moved to New York just want to try it?
Experience life in the city. I think the main plan was like
Like get out of this funk that I was in, you know, how old were you at the time?
21 22 maybe just young guy trying to figure out life. Yeah, I like the Soundgarden
thing
Getting fired from Soundgarden like it broke my heart. It was it was a bad spot
for me and
Because I love that band and it wasn't it wasn't about you know, I never
thought they would get as big as they did
Honestly, it kind of surprised me when they did
Because yeah, they're a great band, but I think I always thought they were a
little too quirky to be
Huge despite you know the Chris factor like you know this
Genetically engineered rock star, you know
But I always thought they're a little little too weird to be have like
mainstream success, which was fine with me
I thought they'd be like like a big indie band like sonic youth or butthole
surfers like that level, you know
And um, but it's more like I just love that band and I love playing with them
and like
Having that taken away. Yeah, it really they fucked me up for a bit. So what
happened?
So during this period 1993
I started I guess crafting the next the next chapter right for me
And I'd always been really intrigued by the military
My grandfather both my grandfathers were world war two vets
um
so my
maternal grandfather was a tank commander in world war ii
And he was kind of my
Introduction to like military stuff, you know, and i'm a little kid
So i'm intrigued by it like you know tank commander. That's cool
Like he on d-day
He was an e4
Corporal like gunner on a sherman tank
on ve day
His unit had made it all the way to vienna, and he was a company commander
And it was just survival like attrition
Like you know, i'm sure he was a fine soldier
But it was just attrition that he went from corporal to captain and you know
A year or whatever
um
My grandmother's second husband
Um
Was a a corpsman in the navy, so his story is super funny
Like he grew up in the small town on the columbia river in washington state
So his i think there was like 20 dudes in his graduating class in high school
and so they graduated june 1942
So right after graduation like 201 like every every male in his class went to
the recruiter and enlisted
And so he went in the navy
um, his navy mos was like a
Pharmacist made or something like that
So he's like oh i'll be on the ship like working in the dispensary or whatever
Like wrong like he graduates like they give him a helmet
And attach him to a marine platoon infantry platoon and like you're the medic
And so he did like seven amphibious assaults in the pacific
Like the crazy stuff, right?
Yeah, like it was super hard and he had amazing stories, you know
um
And then my my father's father was in the coast guard and he did a lot of
coastal patrolling
Um oregon coast washington coast columbia river during the war
um, just you know looking for japanese subs or whatever
And so you because you had this sort of wanderlust that made you want to go
trek in the himalayas and
You had this family that this background the military you
Were thinking that this would be something that would be
adventurous or intriguing to you
yeah, like i've always
I've always had a taste for like high adventure like as a child like before
Probably even before i was school so like sat saturday morning cartoons like
how old are you 55?
Yeah, we're same age. So
I imagine probably grew up with similar cultural influences
So I remember in the like mornings watching tv shows like cartoons like johnny
quest was the big one, right?
Uh speed racer marine boy like all this
You know speed racer and marine boy were were anime, but they were like great,
you know marine boy was basically speed racer but underwater
You know, it's just super cool fantastical stuff
um
Great to feed the imagination
Like the writing for johnny quest was so good, you know
And like
The show in in retrospect was like kind of progressive. It's like
Johnny had two dads and like they had this like
um
A multi-racial like composite family like is like
But the writing was so solid like super creative
um
Every I think it was only 26 episodes, but each episode is distinct and well
written
And just just cool, you know, so
I would watch this as a kid and be like i'm not sure what that is, but I want
to do that
You know, so that was kind of the initial impetus for like and then growing up
in the woods in western washington like
I was expected, you know, I was kicked outside
After breakfast and not expected to be seen again until dinner time
And what I did between then was like on me and so i'd go out and
Do stupid stuff like climb high tension power lines
You know to the top like you get like five six years old like so so so stupid
right
But it was like oh, this is cool, you know, um like in my mother
She definitely facilitated this stuff like um
much to her credit
Like we'd go camping
In the olympic rainforest on the peninsula and there's like a couple rivers
there
But one of the main ones is the hoe river
and
I had this as a child. I had that like this 20 dollar
You know kmart inflatable raft with the oars
And my mom would drive me up river like like 10 miles or 15 miles or whatever
in our volkswagen bus and like
drop me off
Me and my my 20 dollar kmart boat
In a life vest and she'd be like all right. See you at the campground
And so I would be doing this like
You know white white water rafting by myself in my in my cheesy little boat for
Several several several miles and you know didn't drown obviously
But it kind of instilled again this or reinforced this sense of adventure, you
know
And i'm sure my mom would go to jail for that today
You know
Probably not jail, but yeah
Definitely be discouraged
um
So that's background for the high adventure thing the military thing
um
So 1993 i'm like okay
um
Like I need to do something. I need that punctuated equilibrium, right?
I need a
A dramatic event in order to promulgate like the next period of growth or
evolution or whatever
So you really actively thought that way. Yeah
You were trying to achieve growth
Yeah, I didn't want to stagnate. I didn't want to
um
fall behind, you know
um
as
Like I guess as soon as I figured out what life authorship was or the concept
even though I made may have not have known the term
Yeah, I kind of endeavored to actively author my own life
Um, you know pursuing the ends of
Making a life that kept me engaged kept me interested
Um then was was meaningful to me, you know, so the military seemed like
Like more and more like a viable option