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The profile · researched 10 September 2026
Jared James Nichols: the pick-less power trio turns up the volume
The Wisconsin-born, Nashville-based blues-rock guitarist released his fourth album, Louder Than Fate, on 5 June 2026, spent the summer opening George Thorogood's farewell shows across Europe, and has an eight-date club run through the American Midwest booked for the end of November.
From East Troy to the Sunset Strip
Jared James Nichols was born on 14 March 1989 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and grew up in East Troy, a small town south-west of Milwaukee. In 2010 he moved to Los Angeles, studied at Musicians Institute and left with its Most Outstanding Player award. In the same period he won Gibson's Les Paul Tribute Contest, the start of a relationship with the guitar maker that has run through his whole career. His first release was a three-song EP recorded at the Viper Room on the Sunset Strip, cut in the power-trio format he has never abandoned, and the support slots came before he had a full-length album to sell: Kid Rock, Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top all had him on the bill.
Two things separated him from the wave of young blues-rock players who surfaced in the same decade. The first is that he plays without a pick, using his fingers on solos as well as riffs. The second is the instrument, a white Epiphone Les Paul Custom with P90 pickups that he calls Old Glory, later joined by a 1953 Gibson Les Paul nicknamed Ole Red and a 1952 model, Dorothy, that survived a tornado. Blackstar built the JJN20 signature amplifier with him in 2019, and Gibson named him a global ambassador in June 2021. A 2016 documentary, Uncharted, made with Honda and Uproxx, followed him on the road and passed seven million views. He has since settled in Nashville.
The records before the loud one
The debut album, Old Glory & The Wild Revival, came out in 2015, followed by the Highwayman EP in 2016 and a second album, Black Magic, in 2017. Rather than disappear between records, he kept a steady drip of standalone singles going: Nails in the Coffin in 2019, Threw Me to the Wolves in 2020, Skin 'n Bone in 2021 and Down the Drain in 2022, with the Shadow Dancer EP in 2021. Several of those singles are still in the set today.
A self-titled third album followed in 2023. By then the band had settled into the line-up that still tours with him: Brian Weaver on bass and Ryan Rice on drums, both singing backing vocals. Alongside the music he co-hosts the No Cover Charge podcast, which has found a following among guitarists, and became a father during the run-up to the fourth record.
Louder Than Fate
The fourth album was announced on 22 January 2026, with the single Pretend and an accompanying video released the same day. Louder Than Fate arrived on 5 June 2026 through Frontiers Music Srl, his first record for the Italian label. Jay Ruston, whose credits include Anthrax, Stone Sour and Amon Amarth, produced and mixed it, and Roger Alan Nichols added production on three tracks: Killing Time, Show Me and Looks Like That Felt Good. The ten-song running order goes Let's Go, Ghost, Way Back, Bending Or Breaking, Killing Time, Dust N' Bones, Show Me, Looks Like That Felt Good, Runnin' Hot and Pretend, with an acoustic Killing Time on the Japanese edition and The Death Of Love as a digital bonus. Of Pretend, Nichols said the song was about a relationship that is all smoke and no fire, a borrowed desire.
The reviews landed in the week before release and were unusually consistent. Blues Rock Review gave it nine out of ten on 1 June 2026, with Lee Clark calling it close to a heavy metal album and describing the sound as the Allman Brothers heard through a Black Sabbath lens; his pick was Bending Or Breaking, for its psychedelic guitar and organ arrangement. Two days later Andy Thorley at Maximum Volume Music also gave it nine out of ten, arguing that the record was not just about solos, that the riffs were on point too, and that the whole thing oozed authenticity. Two of the new songs, Bending Or Breaking and Killing Time, add keyboards and orchestral colour that the earlier albums never attempted.
Release week and the Thorogood run
The album was launched in Britain rather than at home. On 15 May 2026 Nichols announced an in-store at Banquet Records in Kingston on release day, 5 June, and a performance and signing at Rough Trade East in London on 7 June. On 8 June he played a half-hour set at Le Studio in Paris, a small room inside the Kimpton St Honoré hotel, with Rice on acoustic guitar and maracas rather than a full kit. Even in that format he took his solos out into the crowd, sent Weaver out after him and talked his drummer into a maracas solo. When a fan offered him a bed and a beer he declined, because he had to be back in Nashville for a show that Wednesday, which turned out to be The Basement East on 10 June.
From there he joined George Thorogood and the Destroyers for the European leg of Thorogood's final tour: Ancienne Belgique in Brussels on 21 June, Berlin on 23 June, the Bataclan in Paris on 26 June, Wolverhampton's Civic Hall on 29 June and indigo at The O2 in London on 30 June. Nichols described Thorogood as a ground-breaker in taking the blues to the next level, in the line of the Stones before him and Jack White after. In Wolverhampton the set was Ghost, Way Back, Killing Time, Baby Can You Feel It, Runnin' Hot and Keep The Light On Mama, and the reviewer noted the band had unfinished business in the city after a show the previous November was cut short when Rice fell ill mid-set. This time, he wrote, there was not much better than a power trio absolutely bringing it, and Runnin' Hot was all fire and swagger. Nichols came back for the encore, Born To Be Bad, which the same review called two generations of volume, feel and mischief meeting in the middle. In London the following night the trio played seven songs, opening with Let's Go, and the reviewer's note was simply that Nichols can sure play guitar, finger-picking all the solos and riffs with ease, before he rejoined Thorogood for the same encore.
Where he stands in September 2026
On 21 August 2026 Nichols announced the Louder Than Fate US 2026 Tour, an eight-date run that deliberately stays in clubs. It opens at the Southgate House Revival in Newport, Kentucky, on 27 November, then moves to the Token Lounge in Westland, Michigan, on 28 November, the Winchester in Lakewood, Ohio, on 29 November, Rochaus in West Dundee, Illinois, on 1 December, Shank Hall in Milwaukee on 2 December, Cowboy Monkey in Champaign, Illinois, on 3 December and Mojo's Boneyard in Evansville, Indiana, on 4 December, before closing at Chief's on Broadway in Nashville on 5 December. The Milwaukee date is his first hometown show in more than three years. Nichols said the run would be loud, raw and intimate. No support acts have been named.
Before that there is a single European stop, at Debaser Nova in Stockholm on 29 September. His position is that of a working road act with a strong new record behind him rather than a crossover name: the venues are small, the reviews for the album are the best of his career, and the Thorogood dates put him in front of larger rooms than he usually headlines. Nine years of endorsements, a signature amplifier and the Gibson ambassador title have made him better known among guitar players than among general rock audiences, and the new album is the first that critics have treated as a songwriting statement rather than a showcase.
What a show is like now
The band is still a three-piece, with Weaver and Rice behind him, and the format has not changed since the Viper Room days: one guitar, no pick, solos taken from the front of the stage or from the floor. Since June the sets have leaned hard on Louder Than Fate. Ghost, Way Back, Killing Time and Runnin' Hot appeared at every show reviewed this summer, with Let's Go, Bending Or Breaking and Pretend rotating in, alongside the older singles Nails in the Coffin and Threw Me to the Wolves and a couple of songs from outside the new record, Baby Can You Feel It and Keep The Light On Mama. Support slots on the Thorogood tour ran to seven songs; the Paris in-store was nine songs in about half an hour. No set length for the coming headline dates has been published.
The consistent note in this year's reviews is physical energy rather than polish. The Wolverhampton reviewer's praise was for texture, tone and feel combined with the playing; the Paris review recorded Nichols promising the room he would not calm down just because the venue was small, and the band staying on afterwards to sign, take photographs and sell merchandise. The staging is minimal, and that is the point: a trio in denim, loud amplifiers and a guitarist whose right hand is the show.
The show, now
Jared James Nichols tours as a power trio with Brian Weaver on bass and Ryan Rice on drums, and plays every solo with his fingers rather than a pick, often from the floor of the venue. Sets in summer 2026 were built around the new album Louder Than Fate, with Ghost, Way Back, Killing Time and Runnin' Hot at every reviewed show and Let's Go, Bending Or Breaking and Pretend rotating in beside older singles such as Nails in the Coffin and Threw Me to the Wolves. Opening for George Thorogood in Wolverhampton and London on 29 and 30 June he played seven songs and returned for Thorogood's encore, Born To Be Bad; a release-week set at Le Studio in Paris on 8 June ran nine songs in about thirty minutes and ended with the band signing and taking photographs at the merchandise table. Reviewers this year singled out the tone, feel and swagger of the playing, one calling it a power trio absolutely bringing it. The next dates are Debaser Nova in Stockholm on 29 September and an eight-date American club run from Newport, Kentucky, on 27 November to Chief's on Broadway in Nashville on 5 December, with no support acts announced and no published set length.
Researched from en.wikipedia.org · blabbermouth.net · bluesrockreview.com · maximumvolumemusic.com · metalshockfinland.com · hardforce.com · maximumvolumemusic.com · markosgigarchive.blog
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Photographs from Wikimedia Commons, credited
Summerissweet2021 · CC BY-SA 4.0
