Jarred Taylor brings the Luke Combs Experience

SINGER and songwriter Jarred Taylor is heading on tour and stopping at Kingscliff with a new show, The Australian Luke Combs Experience.

The country artist is a busy man. Before he steps into a weekend of rehearsals, he is baking cookies, scores of white chocolate, macadamia, Anzac, and double chocolate chip varieties.

“My daughters had a cookie dough fundraiser, and we had 20 cups of dough leftover, so I’ve been trying to get through it,” the multi-tasking father of six, including five-year-old twins, said from his lively home in Quirindi, south of Tamworth.

Taylor’s debut single, Songs We Know, went to number #1 on the All-Australian Country Charts. His recent single, I Won’t Sleep Tonight, featuring the Crawford Brothers, won the International Song Writing Competitions Unsigned Section. He won the John Minson Scholarship to attend the Country Music Academy of Australia and has since played at the Tamworth Country Music Festival and The Deni Ute Muster.

The born and bred New Englander wasn’t always a country artist and was deep into rock as a teenager in a small town.

“Dad brought home a drum kit, and at my school, there were a bunch of other drummers, so I picked up a guitar,” Taylor said.

“I didn’t know musicians were in my family until Mum said she, her sister and my grandmother were all singers in churches and bands, which I never saw as a kid.”

From there, it was the well-trodden path of working all week and playing all weekend for years until he quit his job as a hospital laundry assistant and focused on music full-time, mostly metal and heavy rock.

He found country music in a flash of serendipity, or perhaps it found him.

“When I started writing and went into a studio, the producer asked me how long I’d been playing country,” Taylor said.

“I said ‘I don’t play country; these are rock songs’. He’s like ‘Bro, we’re putting a banjo on this. This is country’.”

“He gave me some artists to listen to, and down the rabbit hole I went. Now it’s all I live and breathe.”

US country artist Combs is a multi-platinum, award-winning artist and twice CMA Entertainer of the Year. His duet of Fast Car with Tracy Chapman at the 2024 Grammy Awards was a massive treat for fans of both.

It’s hard to miss the similarities between the two singers. They share a distinctive look and a husky rock/country sound.

“People told me that I sounded like him. I always liked his music, and it’s in my cover sets,” Taylor said.

“He’s a role model for me – someone that’s not the six-pack, cowboy hat, good-looking, styling guy. He seemed genuine and just always himself.

“I try to do as much justification to his songs as he would perform them, but in my way.”

Taylor plays Kingscliff Hotel on May 10. For tickets, visit kingscliffbeachhotel.oztix.com.au