In a nation beset by disinformation and division, Oklahoma country soul artist Jared Deck has taken his truth, quite deliberately, to the nexus of music and politics. While writing and recording his latest album, he also marched his faith in progressive ideas and civil process to the public stage of the statehouse in Oklahoma City as a Democratic representative from district 44.
The crabby “shut up and sing” crowd simply won’t know what to do with him.
“I get asked a lot, how can you be both a musician and a legislator?” he says in the audio conversation offered here. “And it's interesting. The jobs are actually very similar, in the sense that as a songwriter, I'm a storyteller. I'm trying to paint a picture so that a point can be understood. As a legislator, it's not that different. I am telling a story, but it's maybe of my neighbors, of what people that I know and that I care about are dealing with on a day to day basis. On the musical side, I'm trying to create an intangible benefit for my neighbors - for my audience, if you will. But on the advocacy side, the legislative side, I'm trying to create a tangible benefit.”
The split screen of Deck’s life is unlike anything I’ve seen in roots music. One night he’s on stage at a roadhouse leading a full-tilt band with the gospel fervor of a preacher’s son. Another day he’s looking for solutions in the committee on rural development. But he traces much of the impetus and inspiration for his art and his work back to the same events.
“In 2007 I worked at a factory outside of my hometown in western Oklahoma, and we got off a 12 hour shift at 7 am and were told to be back in two and a half hours,” Deck says. “So we came back and we were informed that all of our jobs would be outsourced to overseas facilities. And that was a moment for me when I realized that the stories in the movies and the songs that I loved were not were not fictional, that the systemic issues that we talk about as a society, when they affect you and your family, they are deeply personal.” He started working as a community organizer and eventually decided to run for the state House. He just finished his second session and is unopposed in the next cycle.

Meanwhile, Deck has been touring behind his third album Head Above Water, a collection of mostly topical songs that investigate some of the same issues he deals with in the public policy arena. Opener “Three Things” touts direct action, noting “I’ve got a reason to talk/I’ve got a reason to walk.” The title cut evokes the working man and families doing their best to get by. “Fired Up” is a labor solidarity anthem. And all this is delivered in a chiseled soul voice that lends a churchy fervor to Red Dirt Americana. And keeping it country, he covers Garth Brooks with a swinging “Two Of A Kind.”
“As I have continued to grow into my voice, it's been interesting to see the crowd reaction to different sounds that I've created over time,” he says. “And I just continue to explore artistically what I'm capable of. And then on the writing side, there is definitely a tint of religious angst in a lot of my writing, political angst as well. I may not write, you know, acoustic folky Woody Guthrie style tunes, but I do aspire to have a message, to tell a story that resonates with folks.”
Our conversation covers the influence of growing up in a small town and a strict Christian church and his journey away from that flavor of faith, his take on the intersection of religion and politics today, and the care he takes to make his dealings with the Oklahoma Republican supermajority constructive instead of confrontive. If you’re like me, Jared Deck will give you some badly needed hope for the future of political discourse.