Jackson Bard McLaren was born well after many of the classic albums that first inspired him were released. His parents raised him in the small Victorian country town of Warrnambool on a steady diet consisting of the likes of Bob Dylan, Nick Cave, Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen. This musical baptism fuelled his early passion for music, and set him apart from most of the other kids in town who were more focused on footy than on music, poetry or literature.