JARED JAMES

HAILING FROM WAUKESHA, Wisconsin — the home of Les Paul — Jared James Nichols has spent the past few years reigniting the heavy blues-rock fires, strangling his Les Paul into pick-less submission with some of the most incendiary fingerstyle licks in modern blues. “You have to commit and you have to mean every damn note you play,” he says.

What led you to the blues??

I came — and I saw a force of nature. I had no idea what I was watching, but it hit me upside the head. I was like, “I want to do that.”