The Person at Home

Jaret’s interests away from work are both broad and comfortingly ordinary.

He loves Pulp Fiction, the 1982 version of Arthur and nearly anything associated with John Hughes. His television tastes range from Game of Thrones and Peaky Blinders to true crime. Favorite books include The Catcher in the Rye, Rob Rufus’s Die Young With Me and the work of Christopher Moore.

He follows the Pittsburgh Steelers, Dallas Mavericks, Dallas Stars and Texas Rangers.

The ideal breakfast is a sausage, egg and cheese burrito or bagel sandwich.

He loves Joshua Tree, particularly the “dude trips” he takes there with Linus. He likes golf enough to continue playing despite golf’s refusal to become easy. He loves the pool, his animals and evenings at home.

He is also remarkably interested in people.

Touring has placed him in front of thousands of strangers, but it has also taught him to see individuals. Fans sometimes apologize for approaching him in public. He is quick to tell them, “Please never stop saying hello to me.” A conversation after a show or in a coffee shop can stay with him for years, and he often remembers the details when he sees someone again.

Travel has reinforced one of his strongest beliefs: most people are fundamentally good. News and social media can distort the picture, but face-to-face, people around the world tend to want the same basic things—to feel safe, to care for their families, to laugh, to belong and to be treated with dignity.

Jaret tries to give people a break.

You never know what another person is carrying.

“Anytime I hear someone say, ‘That guy’s an asshole,’ I am quick to ask: Is he? Or did he have the flu and just get into a fight with his girlfriend when you asked him for a picture in the bathroom?”

That lesson connects his childhood in Alateen, his songwriting, his management style, his mental-health work and the community around Bowling For Soup. He believes honesty and openness matter.

So does grace.

He describes himself as positive, caring and driven. His bandmates might add passionate, funny, commanding and incapable of leaving a manageable task unmanaged.

They would almost certainly call him a workaholic.

He would agree.