Many would say that Jam Alker did this whole thing backwards. As the story usually goes, a meteoric music career comes crashing down after a heroin-addled implosion. Jam flipped that script like Brad Pitt’s Benjamin Button—from his downfall came a career that’s just beginning to boom. Recovering heroin addict and musician, Jam Alker put his ultra-supportive family through more trials than the needle did to his merciless veins for the better part of a decade. Today, celebrating five years in recovery from addiction, and immense spiritual and emotional growth, Jam has wiped the veneer off his profound talent and transmuted the immeasurable pain of an abusive childhood through his subsequent rock bottom and into an open-source travel log of a revitalized, fascinating and exhausted soul. With the rock star’s downfall behind him, Jam began to share the story of his demise and renewal through music. Through his gritty iteration of blues-heavy rock, his songs explore the soul-wrenching despair that compels bad decisions, turning away from judgment and condemnation, and imbuing them with compassion and hope. Jam’s painfully honest diatribe culminated in his first solo record, Sophrosyne, released in 2017. A highly calibrated blend of loose-limbed and tightly textured riffs, and Jam’s gutshot vocals, akin to Chris Robinson of Black Crowes, is a celebration of redemption that is inspiring, and fearless.