Brandon Jarod

Brandon Jarod (Jah-rod) "The Crush" was born in Milwaukee, WI to working class parents on March 16, 1986. A quiet yet inquisitive child, Brandon would often entertain himself with drawing and writing imaginative short stories. Though he didn't come from a musical family, Brandon's father was an avid listener of the band Parliament Funkadelic which Brandon would recount as "the first music I remember hearing." Seeing him play air guitar on a baseball bat, his mother made him his first guitar with rubber bands for strings, a cereal box for a body and a paper towel roll for a neck. Seeing his interest for music, she eventually enrolled Brandon in his school choir and orchestra playing the trumpet. The family eventually picked up and moved south to Virginia Beach, VA when he was 11 years old. The slightly traumatic event effected Brandon in such a way that he discontinued his singing, trumpet playing, and any other form of music for years. It wasn't until his 18th birthday that his mother bought him his first real guitar and for the next year, Brandon would spend up to 10 hours a day locked in his room teaching himself how to play it. Over the next 4 years Brandon would play in over 15 bands of various styles ranging from R&B, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Gospel and Blues, drawing comparisons to Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. It was these formative years that would prove to be irreplaceable in Brandon's development as a musician and an artist in his own right...playing along with and opening for Jasmine Sullivan, Jaguar Wright, The Clipse, The Zapp Band and The Cool Kids. In 2009 Brandon met drummer Bryan Adkins at a jam session at a popular open mic in Norfolk, VA. The two immediately found an admiration and chemistry in each other's playing and it wasn't long until they starting rehearsing together on a regular basis. Recording sessions came shortly thereafter producing new music that would soon come to be known as his debut 6 song EP entitled "The Crush." "Every 10 years music has to go somewhere. 50 years from now I want people to look back on the years 2010 to 2020 and say that I was among the pioneers pushing new music to where it was supposed to go."- Brandon Jarod