Story

Jordon Taylor grew up in Jackson Michigan where he took an interest in music at a very young age. He was eleven years old when he started playing the trombone in the school band. He was was immediately drawn into the world of music. “My folks were really supportive, they set me up with lessons forced me to practice and learn to read music.” Jordon loved to steal his dads records to try and figure out how to play the melodies to rock and roll tunes on the trombone. He continued to play the trombone through college and still does today.

The point at which Jordon recalls wanting to pick up the guitar was during his freshman year in  high school. “I went to the battle of the bands and was completely blown away by the fact that these high school kids not much older than I was were able to rock out. I promised myself I would be up there by my junior year.” That weekend Jordon went out and bought his first acoustic guitar and started teaching himself to play. “I would sit in my room for hours and listen to albums front to back trying to figure them out. Every once in a while my folks let me on the computer so I could find an Oasis tab and I would have it memorized in thirty minutes.”

Jordon started wringing music very early on. “Every two or three new chords I learned I would try to write a song. I can’t recall most of the earlier songs. They were probably all garbage anyway.” He shakes his head uncomfortably and grins. Jordon went on to write several songs the first couple of years and started toting his guitar around with him almost everywhere he went. He ran into Brent Clore at a party and they started talking about getting a band together. They joined with Erik Osmond and Mike Greanya to form Shrump. Shrump entered and won the battle of the bands Jordon’s junior year in high school.

Shrump went on to play into Jordon’s college career touring all over the midwest. They were approached by a booking and promotion company Madcap-PDC. Through Madcap they were set up with gigs opening for national touring acts such as Brian VanderArk of the Verve pipe, Seven Mary Three, Fiction Plane, Flickerstick, and Michael Glabicki of Rusted Root among others. Jordon segweys to a story about Joe Sumner (Sting’s son) of Fiction Plane pounding on his hotel door in the middle of the night wearing a nightgown. “I was blown away that nightgowns existed outside of -A Visit from St. Nicholas-.” After many ups and downs Shrump dissolved when Brent went on to law school and Jordon’s family moved to Phoenix.

Once in Phoenix Jordon’s solo career started. “I didn’t have any friends so I went back to writing a lot and started playing open mics.” He wrote an entire album and released it in 2003 “Blister” He continued playing all over the states east to west as well as the UK while studying psychology at ASU. “Took me a couple of extra years, but I finally did graduate. I’m actually pretty proud of that even though it’s not all that rock and roll.” He says with a sheepish grin.

Recently Jordon has been continuing to work with Madcap-PDC as well as Paigeless Productions. He released a compilation live album in summer of 2013 “live @…” which can be heard in its entirety on his website. Click Here Jordon is planning to release an EP in summer of 2014 and has several supporting shows already planned. “This EP is going to be a little different, it’s been ten years since the last album. I tried to get away from one single discs and do something that can be listened to front to back like I did growing up.”