Kat and Jared On Being Part of Flyleaf to their Own Sound to Their New EP

Kat and Jared Hartmann have released their brand new self-titled worship EP.  The Hartmann are worship leaders and songwriters whose passion is to help people discover the life that comes from friendship with God and spending time in His presence.

Married for ten years with two loud and joyous children, Kat and Jared spent the first eight years of their marriage traveling the world with Flyleaf, a platinum selling rock band from Texas, of which Jared was a founding member, guitarist and songwriter. Through their ministry with Flyleaf they saw thousands of lives transformed by the Gospel message brought through music, and developed a deep hunger to help others discover their unique value and purpose.

Currently, Kat and Jared lead worship at Bethel Church in Temple, TX and oversee a worship ministry of over 40 people. Their debut EP is a small collection of songs that celebrate the power that changed their lives: an invitation to enter into the presence of Jesus Christ and discover what life is really about. 

Q:  Jared, you have spend time as part of Christian group Flyleaf.  What were some of your highlights travelling and working with Flyleaf? 

Being a part of the Flyleaf family has been a great honor!  It's been so much fun and we're humbled to partner with God in spreading His message of hope.  Some of my favorite moments with Flyleaf have been traveling the world with my wife and hearing stories of how our music brought people closer to Jesus.

Q:  Have you left Flyleaf?  And why did you leave?

Flyleaf is on hiatus right now.  I'm enjoying being at home with my wife and kids every night, being really connected to what's going on in our local church, pursuing some of my other passions like real estate and cuisine, and making music with my wife.

Q:  Tell us a little about your ministry now as a worship leader at Bethel Church? 

Kat and I are a part of a great church in Temple, TX called Bethel.  Kat is the worship pastor at our campus and she oversees five other worship leaders that she has developed as well as the rest of the music and audio/visual crew for our campus.  We devote our time at Bethel to building the Kingdom through developing a deep, family-focused, faith culture.  We meet with our team regularly to celebrate what God is doing and to dream about what is to come.  We're really enjoying being able to be connected to our home church.

Q:  What prompted you to record your own EP? 

Recording music is something we always knew we would do together, but whether it was traveling or recording with Flyleaf or having our babies, it seemed like it was never the right time.  But at the beginning of 2016, we attended Bethel Worship Nights in Austin and we got a renewed vision and passion for our music and what we felt God had spoken to us.  We were both 30 at the time and we thought, "What is it that we will regret five or ten years from now if we don't do it?"  We knew we would regret it if we didn't record the journey we had been on and the songs that came from it.  So, we decided we would just take a leap and put our music out!

Q:  How would you describe your style of music?  And who very much influenced you in terms of your sound?

We always have a hard time describing our sound when people ask.  We think when people listen to our music they can probably pick up on who influences us, but we don't know how to categorize it other than, "This is how Kat and Jared sound when they worship God."  We both have a wide variety of influences ranging from Third Eye Blind to Bethel Music to local bands we listened to growing up like Greatness in Tragedy.  We love the worship culture of Bethel Music, the musicality of bands like Third Eye Blind, TV on the Radio, Arcade Fire, and Bjork, the authenticity of many country music and jazz artists, and the lyrical depth of Lacey Sturm, Pedro the Lion, and John Mark and Sarah McMillan.

Q:  What are your hopes and vision for this EP?

We wrote the songs on this EP while we were going through a difficult season to remind ourselves of all of the reasons we have to be thankful and praise God.  Our hope is that our music would be able to awaken others to the overwhelming joy and fulfillment we find by magnifying the Father.  We believe that God wants us to be happy and enjoy life and our desire is that people would lay down their burdens and find peace as they worship along with us on the Kat&Jared EP.

Q:  Are you following it up with a full-length album?  And when will that be released?

We have a lot of big and exciting plans for our music!  Later this year we will start recording a collective worship album with several of the worship artists we are developing and we hope to release that by early 2018.  A full length Kat&Jared CD will follow as well.

Q:  On this new EP you sing about knowing Christ.  What are some truths about Christ you have learnt over the passed year or so? 

This is what we know is true:  God is close, He is crazy about His kids, He wants to co-labor with us, He wants us to accept the invitation to abundant life that He gives, He is mighty and able to do exceedingly beyond our best hopes, and He is so, so, so good. 

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