Bozeman Magazine

"Raised in rural Wyoming, Jalan Crossland is one of a very few “alt country” artists who still claims the “country” as home. This anchors the ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ wobble to songs about 21st century rural life. Dazzling guitar and banjo fingerpicking complete his kanky tales of hobos, tires, “mobile homes”, strippers, motorcycles, trucks, cars, shotgun-wielding vice presidents and methamphetamines (“Drugs are bad” says Jalan). Jalan has been touring both solo and with a band for twenty years. The first stringed entity that caught his young ear was his Uncle Dan’s banjo, though Jalan also plays guitar a lot these days (he finished second in the 1997 Winfield National Guitar Fingerpicking competition). Jalan survived his Wyoming Teenage Boy Instinct for Self-Destruction, and despite his strange banjo predilection, in his twenties he began playing electric guitar in Iron Maiden wannabe bands. But the ‘country’ was and is always with him, and so later Jalan’s metal phase gave way to touring with honky-tonk country and bluegrass bands as a hired gun. He went solo in the late 1900s, and began crafting his strange, new-old-timey tales of sagebrush and asphalt. While building his reputation as a solo artist, Jalan spent a lot of time at home in Tensleep, Wyoming (pop. 307 omitting dogs) either by the woodstove or on the porch picking and picking and picking, becoming a roots music virtuoso. By summer 2011 Jalan has a steady band and has recorded 6 cds: The first eponymously-named release is out of print; Poorboy Shanty was released in 2000; Moonshiner in 2004; Trailer Park Fire & Other Tragedies 2006; Driftwood Souls in 2010; and Portrait of a Fish in 2011, which is his first truly “solo” album, meaning that the instrumentation is only Jalan-and-whatever-he-is-plucking-at-the-moment, in which he does originals and covers from the solo sets he has been doing for 20 years. He is now touring national dates with the Jalan Crossland Band, Rocky Mountain regional favorites since forming in late 2005."