For Jared Bond, making music isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about being brave enough to ask hard questions and finding beauty in not knowing. His new project, “existentialism,” looks at big ideas like death, awareness, meaning, time and gratitude, inviting listeners to sit with life’s biggest questions instead of trying to answer them right away.
The project came from Bond’s curiosity about existence and his changing views on psychedelics, especially through his experiences with psilocybin. Instead of acting like an expert, he approaches these topics with an open mind, real curiosity, and a growing thankfulness for simply being alive. That feeling of gratitude connects all the deeper ideas in the project.
The music also shows Bond’s belief in working together with others. He teamed up with Daniel Smith on “nothing lasts forever,” producer David Bennett on “miracle,” and his nursing coworker Carson Kropp, who added trumpet to the project. Even his son took part by creating the artwork.
In this interview, Jared Bond talks about the ideas behind “existentialism,” recording drums in a public library, working with people from different parts of his life, and why making music still feels like a way of pushing back against becoming passive.
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“existentialism” explores themes of existential thought and gratitude. What inspired you to explore these ideas through music, and what did you hope to express with the release?
I’ve always been fascinated by the big questions and recently become more interested in sitting with them. What does it mean that we’re here? How strange is it that consciousness exists at all? What happens when we die? Does anything have inherent meaning, or do we create meaning ourselves? Let me be clear, I am in no way qualified to answer any of these questions, but I have them nonetheless.
Those thoughts can sound pretty heavy, but I actually think confronting them can make you more grateful rather than less. Mortality gives things weight. The fact that something ends is part of what makes it beautiful.
That’s really the heart of the project. I wasn’t trying to answer those questions. I was trying to become a little more comfortable asking them. And I wanted the music to feel like an invitation to do the same.
You have described mushrooms, existentialism, and gratitude as influences on the project. How did these different inspirations come together during the songwriting and recording process?
Mushrooms came into the picture pretty naturally. My wife is a clinical therapist, and she became curious about the emerging research around psilocybin and mental health. That curiosity rubbed off on me. I had grown up with the same general cultural idea most people have—that mushrooms were a little weird, a little dangerous, and definitely something you weren’t supposed to take seriously.
But that attitude is changing. There’s some really interesting research happening around psychedelics and mental health, and I think we’re finally starting to separate the actual questions from the cultural baggage that surrounded them for so long.
I’m not a scientist or a psychedelic evangelist. I’m just a guy who was curious enough to try something I’d previously written off as taboo. And honestly, I’ve gotten more out of that experience than I’ve gotten from drinking a beer after work. It made me pay attention. It made me think differently. It made me appreciate being alive more than I did before.
That fit pretty naturally with what I was already writing about. I was thinking about mortality, consciousness, deep time, the universe, and all these enormous questions that we tend to avoid because they’re uncomfortable. Psilocybin didn’t give me the answers. If anything, it made me more comfortable with not having answers.
Then gratitude became the thread connecting everything. I don’t understand why we’re here, or why consciousness exists, or what happens when we die. But I’m here. You’re here. We’re having this strange little experience of being alive together.
That’s pretty incredible.
So I think the project is really about leaning into curiosity and embracing gratitude.
You worked with Daniel Smith on “nothing lasts forever” and producer David Bennett on “miracle.” What did each of them bring to the creative process?
Daniel is someone I trust creatively, and there’s something really nice about making music with somebody who also has a life outside of music. We are in a similar season of life. Our kids go to school together, and we have careers outside of music, while maintaining it as a hobby. Making music was a great excuse to hang out with another adult. That can be hard to do early on in parenthood.
Daniel did a great job on the drums for “nothing lasts forever,” which we actually tracked back n the public library! That was a cool space and I will definately try to work that into my streamline of work for future projects. We recorded the rest of that song in the comfort of his home. There’s an intimacy to that recording that I really like.
I was already comfortable enough to leave drafted lyrics over there and record the vocals while his family was in and out of the house. It was a fitting environment to be singing about such big themes while sittings my amidst the mundane day to day life of meals, errands, and appointments.
David is just incredibly solid to work with. He has a good instinct for the song rather than trying to impose himself on it, and he consistently wants to do what serves the music. That’s a rare quality. “Miracle” benefited from having somebody who could hear the larger shape of the song and help me get it there. He also adds a lot of instrumentation and harmonies. He is a gifted singer and an excellent guitarist.
You and Daniel recorded the drums for “nothing lasts forever” at a public library. What made you curious about that recording space, and how did the experience shape the music?
My mother was a librarian and she used to tell me about the recording studio there.
The ironic thing is that this happened during a period when I was pretty creatively dry. I was in nursing school and music had taken a back seat. I didn’t really have songs to record.
When these songs started to emerge I thought, “I should actually go see what that’s like.”
It was soundproof, surprisingly user-friendly, and completely isolated from the rest of the building. You could be surrounded by thousands of books and then shut the door and just play drums without bothering anybody.
Daniel did a great job getting the drums recorded in there. I love that the song now contains this weird little piece of its own history. It started in a library.
“miracle” features trumpet performed by your nursing colleague Carson Kropp. What made you decide that trumpet was the right sound to give the song something special?
Honestly? I just thought it would be fun.
Carson works night shift and I work days, so we cross paths pretty regularly giving report to each other. At some point I found out he casually that he played trumpet. We instantly connected over music, and having a hobby outside of nursing.
There wasn’t some grand artistic scheme behind it. I just wanted to be creative with somebody I work with.
And then when he played on it, I was thrilled with the decision. He elevated the song. Sometimes you don’t need a complicated reason to add something. You just hear an instrument and think, “Yeah, that belongs there.”
Your music brings together collaborators from different parts of your life. How important is that sense of community and collaboration to your creative process?
Extremely important. I actually love that the people involved in my music aren’t all from the same musical world.
Daniel is a friend and fellow parent. Carson is a nursing colleague. Nathan is my literal oldest friend, and first musical companion. Collaborating with him felt like a coming home, and so natural. He’s also in a band called enjoyer, which everyone should know about. He is the best guitar player in the world, and such a large part of my musical DNA.
I think collaboration also keeps the music from becoming too precious. You make something, somebody else touches it, and suddenly it becomes something you couldn’t have made alone.
Also, my son did the artwork for this project, which might be my favorite collaboration of all! I love using my son and daughter’s art for most of my music. It gives us something to bond over and shows them that you can continue creativity into adulthood.
“existentialism” invites listeners to think about life’s bigger questions. What questions were you personally exploring while creating the project?
A lot of the questions everybody eventually encounters, I think.
What are we doing here? What happens when this ends? Does our existence have some larger meaning? How small are we in relation to the universe? How much of reality can a human brain actually comprehend?
I was thinking about outer space, Neil deGrasse Tyson, mountains, Brian Cox, mortality, and especially deep time.
When I was writing “nothing lasts forever,” I became fascinated by the idea that entire mountain ranges have formed and crumbled before humans were around to witness any of it. The Earth existed for an unimaginably long time before there was a human mind capable of processing it.
Earth, in its infancy, was different in ways that are difficult for us to intuit—the planet spinning faster, its relationship with the sun still settling into something recognizable to us. There was all this time happening before there was anybody around to experience it as “time.” Accepting these hypothesis unravels a lot of our cultural dogma around religion, ethics, and meaning.
And I think that realization can be terrifying for about five minutes.
Then it becomes beautiful.
You have said that you simply love making music and want to keep a steady stream of it. What keeps you motivated to continue creating and releasing new music?
I genuinely believe the world needs art, and so much more of it. Maybe I don’t see it as much, being in the work environment I am. There is little room for creativity and spontaneity in the medical field, and it can feel stifling. It makes want to lash out against it. So counterintuitively, I think, it might be what keeps me hungry for it.
And I think it’s human to create. Before we had careers and industries and algorithms and all the machinery we’ve built around culture, humans were making things. We painted walls. We made instruments. We told stories. We danced. We carved things.
Sometimes I look at the world and feel like we’re losing some of our capacity for creativity and critical thought. There’s so much emphasis on consumption, vanity, distraction, and immediate gratification. I think those things can crowd out relationship, attention, curiosity, and our connection to the natural world.
So making music is, in a small way, an act of resistance for me. Not resistance in some grand political sense. Just resistance against becoming passive.
I’ve always felt like making music is something I’m supposed to do. I don’t necessarily know what that means, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be particularly successful at it. But I know that when I’m not making music, some part of me feels like it’s being neglected.
So I’m going to keep doing it.
The project combines different sonic textures while maintaining themes of existential exploration and gratitude. How did you balance the musical side of the project with its deeper ideas?
I tried not to overthink it.
That’s probably the honest answer.
The ideas are important to me, but I don’t want them to be too precious to agonize over every choice. I’m gonna make what I make, and people will either like it or not. In fact, people liking it isn’t even the goal for me. I just want the release of having made something.
In some ways this mindset mirrors the theme of the project. Making art about grand themes amidst mundanity, and realizing the profound and the ordinary aren’t really separate things, They’re happening at the same time.
Now that “existentialism” is out, what do you hope listeners take away from the music, and what would you like this release to say about Jared Bond as an artist?
I always check myself when hoping how others receive my art. I don’t view it as any of my business. But if I were to sum up a message, and the mentality that I sit with;
Sit with the uncomfortable unknown questions of life, and be as truly honest as you can be about them, and see how it changes your perspective.
I think we spend a lot of our lives trying not to think about death, uncertainty, meaning, and how little control we actually have. And I understand why. Those things can be frightening.
But I’ve found that when you actually turn toward them instead of running away, they become less frightening. Mortality can make you appreciate being alive. Uncertainty can make you curious. Not knowing can make you pay closer attention.
And as for what I want it to say about me as an artist—I’m willow my to embrace the unknown and see what comes out on the other side!
