“There was no way that I was going to get enough attention being a rock artist in 2018,” he says, “unless I did something to get people to pay attention.”
That's how a new Rolling Stone piece on Jered Eames, aka Jered Threatin begins. The whole story is pretty fascinating if you've been following the whole Threatin drama. If you somehow missed this story, Threatin kicked off their European tour playing to empty venues, and the venues realized they'd been duped by a fake promoter and that Jered created an entirely made up online presence. The whole con kept unraveling and what's even crazier is his own bandmates didn't realize it until the story broke. Jered Threatin's real identity was exposed and the story kind of took a dark turn.
He might be knocked down, but he's not knocked out. Here are some highlights from the Rolling Stone piece:
He knew he had to get out of his small town:
Eames had no illusions about growing up in Moberly, Missouri, a blue-collar burg of 13,000. “The first thing you see when you pull into the town is a tall hill that has a graveyard,” he says. “Every time I would leave town or pull back into town, that would make me think, ‘This is the perfect metaphor for this place — I do not want to die here.’ ” Eames, whose father is a drug-and-alcohol counselor, vowed to make it out ASAP. “My entire existence was trying to figure out how to get away,” he says.
He studied marketing in college:
When Jered was 17, he moved in with his then-girlfriend, Kelsey, supporting himself at a fast-food job and attending nearby Columbia College, where he earned a bachelor’s in psychology and began pursuing a master’s. “I’ve always been fascinated with human behavior and marketing,” he says, “and how you can implant an idea in someone’s mind.”
He eventually decided to leave his hometown after he started coughing up blood one day and began questioning his own mortality. That is what drove him to try to succeed as fast as possible. He spent years saving up money and claims that's how he funded the project:
While Kelsey took an office job, Eames obsessed over his music, living cheaply off savings in a home they purchased in Hesperia, about 80 miles from L.A. After a year, he had some 70 songs in the classic-rock vein, playing every instrument — guitar, bass, drums and keyboards — on all the tracks, including the anthemic “Breaking the World” and what he thought could be his single, “Living Is Dying.” He spent upward of $10,000 on recording, insisting he got the money from more than a decade of savings. “I’m not some fucking rich kid,” he says. “All this is, is good money management.”
“If you think you’re halfway to death, you’ll be like, ‘Let’s get this shit going fast,’” he says. So he decided to manufacture Threatin as a star. [..] “I’m just trying to manufacture the bandwagon effect,” he says. “The fact that people look at these numbers that are so easily fictionalized and hold them as any kind of merit — that shows a huge flaw in the music industry as well.”
Jered is still in hype mode, saying he would only reconcile with his brother if it were for some documentary about the experience:
"If it served the story and it would be more interesting for there to be a reconciliation, then I’d consider it,” he says. “Other than that, I have no interest.”
The whole story is worth reading and Jered says he plans to pull more stunts and release more music.
Do you want to hear more Threatin?
