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New Jersey singer-songwriter Jared Hart (Mercy Union, The Scandals) celebrated the first few days of 2025 by releasing a brand new solo album. The four song EP is titled The Condor and is the first solo release from Jared in a decade. The album, out now via Mt. Crushmore Records, features a cover of Mac Miller’s “Come Back to Earth.”

The Condor examines our mortality and the lasting imprints that close friends who have passed continue to place onto our own lives. In describing the meanings behind the album, Hart shared a story from his younger adult years, when he met another like-minded person in a Sociology 101 class in college: 

“There wasn’t a lot of culture there. Not a lot of people who have experienced life. There was a lack of identity. But one day this guy walks in with a shaved head and a Minor Threat shirt, and I’m there with blue hair and a Rancid shirt. We give each other this ‘What the fuck?’ look, because we were the only two on campus like that.”

They became instant friends and ‘partners in crime’ when it came to both life and music. They even lived together for a while, inhabiting each other’s worlds and inspiring each other’s passions and wild, youthful eccentricities.

“He would tell everyone, ‘People call me The Condor. And a running joke was that in front of people I’d be like, ‘No one fucking called you that. There’s not a soul on earth that calls you that!’”

As the two grew into adulthood, The Condor decided to move to California. Plans were made to visit, but on the day that Mercy Union’s Prussian Blue came out in March of 2022, Hart received word that his friend has passed away. 

“When I heard the news, I became pretty useless. There was so much going on with the band and everything else, but at that point it hit me like a ton of bricks. ‘Nothing is Important’. Everything stood still for a while. Making this EP was literally the only way I could attempt to make sense of any of it.”

That’s why The Condor is being put out under Hart’s own name, because it’s an incredibly personal project. In four songs, Hart, together with Matt Olsson, who plays drums and co-produced the EP — manages to convey the profound nature of his friendship and relationship with The Condor, as well as his love and respect that he has — and still has — for his friend. It’s a perfect tribute, and one that assuredly secures The Condor’s immortality.

Stream The Condor in full below and grab your copy today! Jared Hart will be celebrating the release of the new EP on January 4th along with Lucero in Garwood, NJ at Crossroads.

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