Jason Everman, the man who got booted from both Nirvana and Soundgarden, two of the most iconic bands in music history, and then became a US Army Ranger and Green Beret.
Born on a remote Alaskan island and mostly raised in small-town Washington, Everman discovered the guitar in an unusual way. After he and a buddy got in trouble for blowing up a junior high toilet with a firecracker, therapy sessions led him to pick up the instrument. It clicked. By the late ’80s, he was living the rock and roll fantasy most people only dream about.
He joined Nirvana on guitar, personally funding the recording of their debut album Bleach, and later switched to bass for Soundgarden.
Yet somehow, he became the guy both bands ultimately let go, the very groups that would go on to shape an entire genre. As he later admitted, it crushed him.
Plenty of people would have milked that “I was in Nirvana and Soundgarden” story for the rest of their lives. Everman chose a completely different path. He traveled the Himalayas, spent time in a Buddhist monastery searching for answers, and when that didn’t provide them, he did something almost no one saw coming: in 1994, he enlisted in the US Army.
He earned a spot in the elite 2nd Ranger Battalion, left, then returned to tackle the notoriously brutal Special Forces Qualification Course. He ultimately became a Green Beret with 3rd Special Forces Group and deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan. The former long haired rocker had transformed into a quiet, highly capable soldier.
Even that wasn’t the end of his reinventions.
After leaving the military, he earned a philosophy degree from Columbia University (with a recommendation letter from General Stanley McChrystal) and later returned to music as part of the all-veteran band Silence & Light.
Artist, soldier, philosopher, the three identities he always said he wanted to cultivate within himself. Few lives are as unlikely or as genuinely inspiring as Jason Everman’s. It’s powerful proof that with enough courage, a person can reinvent themselves as many times as it takes.