The post-Sin Embargo page of

LEFT: Jason at Watchtower Recording studio, March 1996. (Photo by Kyle Kipp.)
RIGHT: Jason at practice in Cat Box Studio, June 1996. (Photo by Vita Kipp.)

Jason became Sin Embargo's 4th drummer in November of 1993, but handed the percussion tasks over to successor Ed Stark in January 1997 because he was preparing to get married and relocate out of the Lapeer area in June 1997. Jay was born in Lincoln Park, Michigan on December 18, 1972, and was raised in Clarkston, MI before moving to Lapeer in 1987 and graduating from Lapeer West High School in June 1991. Jason attended the Recording Workshop in Massieville, Ohio in June & July 1996 to obtain three certificates for studio recording engineering. That was one reason why he co-engineered on Sin Embargo's CD, Super Fugue, which was finally released in late June 1998 after more than a year of frustrating delays that were beyond Sin Embargo's control. In addition to playing drums, Jason's musical talent extended into playing guitar, bass, and keyboards. He usually spent his free time playing computer games, playing guitar, writing and recording songs for himself or his friends, and listening to plenty of good music, such as Metallica, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Tori Amos, Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, Korn, NIN, Quicksand, Chris Whitley, Low, My Bloody Valentine, Hum, and Sunny Day Real Estate - to mention just a few.

Jason married his long-time girlfriend Sandra Pilly on June 6, 1997. They then resided near Detroit in the town of Canton, Michigan. Jason became an assistant engineer at the legendary Studio A (which specializes in jazz, R&B, gospel, rap, among other things) in Dearborn Heights in early November 1997 after about four months of interning there, and quit in late May 1999 before he and Sandy moved to Provo, Utah that June.

During the summer of 2000, Jason hooked up with three other musicians from the Provo area and formed a new underground-emo rock band called Gift Anon . He played with that band until June 2002.  In March 2002, Jason began his own recording engineering company called 5x5 Sound, but it only existed for about a year.  On August 18, 2003, Jason & Sandy had a baby girl named Elizabeth Kate.  By the end of 2003, Jason and his family had re-located back to Clarkston, Michigan, but no contact was made to the old Sin Embargo camp until late July 2006, when Jason unfortunately bore the bad news that he and Sandy had just ended their 9-year marriage. 

Jason married his current wife Kelly in 2007 and currently lives in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, with their blended family of 4 daughters, and works in the IT field.  Kyle and Eric have re-connected with Jason a few times on-and-off since August 2006, and have entertained the idea of possibly getting back together for a one-off "classic" Sin Embargo reunion at some point....

Jason Hofer playing guitar in Utah with his 1st post-Sin Embargo band "Gift Anon" in November 2000.

The last Sin Embargo gig that Jason drummed at as a full band member was the January 18, 1997 show at Olde Jamestown Hall near Saginaw. During Jason's remaining weeks with the Sin Embargo camp from late January to late May '97, he had the opportunity to play drums or even rhythm guitar as a guest performer at a few of their shows, but due to work, moving, and wedding preparation duties, he was unable to do so - with the exception of the January 29, 1997 gig at Rubble's in Mt. Pleasant, where he played some rhythm guitar while then-new drummer Ed Stark took over. Jason was still able to assist with the early stages of the completion of Super Fugue, as well as the new Sin Embargo website during the spring of 1997, at least. Kyle and Eric missed Jason's input, but realized that he needed to move on upon getting married in June 1997.

Additional post-Sin Embargo encounters with Jason Hofer:

• Sin Embargo (with Ed Stark drumming) played a show at Churchill's in downtown Flint on October 11, 1997. Jason and his then-wife Sandy made a surprise drive up from Canton to check out how his former bandmates were doing. Because it was such a zany gig to begin with, Ed Stark let Jason sit in on drums for one song, namely the Violent Femmes' "Blister In The Sun" for shits and giggles. It was fun...
• Jason also sat in on drums for Sin Embargo at an entire show at Rubble's in Mt. Pleasant on January 14, 1998 because then-departed drummer Ed Stark had just relocated to South Carolina could not perform at this last gig, despite earlier claims that he was going to. This was the first time that Jason had played with Kyle and Eric to any great extent in about a year...
• Jason was to drum for Sin Embargo one more time at the February 21, 1998 Cactus Club gig in Mt. Pleasant since then-new Sin Embargo drummer Chad Calton had just joined the band and was not ready to play any gigs yet, but the Cactus Club's moronic show promoter canceled the gig at the last minute for certain pathetic reasons.
• Jason stopped off at the Kipp residence in Lapeer for an hour or so on May 23, 1998 while in town to visit family and happened to catch Sin Embargo practicing for that night's appearance at the Spider Trap Lounge in Clio. Jason was quite impressed with Chad Calton's ability to replicate his old drum parts pretty well.
• Jason stopped by to see Sin Embargo at the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor on May 18, 1999 to check out his former bandmates live for one last time before moving to Provo, Utah.
• Jason swung by Lapeer on June 15, 2001 to visit with Kyle.  (Eric, unfortunately, could not get to Lapeer in time to meet up...) Jason & Kyle hung out for a couple hours and Jason gave Kyle a copy of Gift Anon's debut 5-song CD-R that Jason recorded and engineered during the spring of 2001.
• After literally years of not hearing from Jason, he called up Kyle out of the blue on July 24, 2006 and stated that he had just finalized his divorce with Sandy the day before, and felt like getting together to hang out & catch up.  Interestingly, Jason and his family had returned to Clarkston, MI in late 2003, but had not contacted Kyle or Eric during the intervening 3 years.  Jason ended up meeting up with Kyle at a 77s show in Ypsilanti later that week.  This was the first time Kyle had seen Jason in person in over 5 years...  
• Jason came out to a 77s show at the Elbow Room in Ypsilanti on October 14, 2006 and hung out with Eric & Kyle.  This was the first time that all three members of the "classic" 1993-1997 lineup of Sin Embargo had been together at one time since May 1999.
• Since 2006, Kyle & Eric have gotten occasional Facebook messages from Jason, but haven't been able to meet up in person.