It’s been a while, blogosphere. But I need to write… I find myself repeating the same things and stories to lots of people lately… so instead I’ll write everything down and direct them here! Yay for blogs!
So, I moved to Nashville. For those of you who know why, you can skip this blog post and just refer to future ones for updates. For those that don’t… this is going to be long so bear with me!
It all starts with my Dad really… he introduced me to Rock N’ Roll when I was a baby… singing my sister and I songs from the Doors, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Hendrix… he was in rock bands growing up and is an amazing singer/songwriter/pianist himself, and wanted Ally and I to have the same passion for music that he had. It worked. At seven years old he took us to our first concert: The Who. Growing up music has always been my favorite thing - listening to it, making it, seeing it preformed live… I live for music.
My sister was reading one of those teeny bopper magazines one day when we were about 8 years old… and came across an article about a band named Jars of Clay… who were making a splash in the contemporary rock world - not only for their great music, but because they had a very different message and mission behind it… to glorify God. Well we went out and picked up their CD immediately… and researched other popular “Christian Rock” bands at the time… and came home with a hand full of CDs that are still some of my favorites today. “Going Public” & “Take Me To Your Leader” by the Newsboys, “Jesus Freak” by DC Talk, and “Jars of Clay” & “Much Afraid” by Jars of Clay.
In April 1998 we went to our first “Christian concert” (Jars of Clay) and started going to many thereafter which we favored tremendously over the secular rock concerts due to the lack of drunkenness, second hand smoke, cussing and vulgarity. It wasn’t until attending my first ATF event (with the Newsboys as the headlining band) that I truly started to question my faith and get deeper into prayer and the word. In 2003 Ally and I decided to go to a one week Christian summer camp in Garden Valley, TX at the Teen Mania headquarters… which changed my life forever… It was then I decided I wasn’t going to care about what other people thought of me. I wasn’t going to care about material possessions. I wasn’t going to care about pop culture, dating, or sex. My life wasn’t going to be about me anymore, and all the “unfair” things that had happened to me. It was going to be about living for higher purposes, things much greater than myself. It was going to be about everything I had been singing about for years and never fully engaged myself in.
I’ve stumbled many, many times since then. But my ultimate goal has remained the same: carry on the work of a ministry that helped save me from becoming the pathetic, selfish, pop culture obsessed, boy crazy zombie that the world had started to mold me into.
When I was still fresh in my life changing experiences in Texas I started to research ways in which I could start making a difference… I was just starting to get into web design and photography… and I breathed music… so I started making fan websites for my favorite Christian bands. Then I started taking pictures at shows and giving the pictures to the bands for publicity photos. Then I joined the street teams of my favorite artists. I kept going to lots of shows and worked to promote the artists all around town before the events. After going to another ATF (Acquire the Fire) event in 2005, Ally and I decided to go on a mission trip to Mexico with my favorite band, the Newsboys. That mission trip was the greatest experience of my life, and I’ll never forget it. My missionary days are far from over. Around this time I also joined an awesome local church band named Pierced. I primarily played the keys but I also filled in on drums a few times, and it was a blast. I miss it like crazy and still long to be in another serious Christian band, wether it be a local church band or an actual touring band.
Well now we are to the year 2006 about, and I’m trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Since I love Jesus, music, graphic design and web design my ideal choice would be to simply work in Christian media somewhere. Only problem is I’m going to school in Orlando, and the only company there that I’m interested in is Relevant Media Group… LOVE this company and I’ve been planning on doing an internship for them for a while now. Even been on the podcast (a UCF reconciliation) and gone to a Magic game with the crew. Gotta say as much as I love Relevant - there has always been one company that I had dreamed of working at before I even knew Relevant existed - and that’s Inpop Records.
Sometime around 2004/2005 my friend Emily told me I should join the Inpoparrazi - Inpop Record’s street team - because they actually send you free stuff when you join that you can promote the bands with. Well to my amazement this was true, and I learned that almost all my favorite Christian bands at the time were signed to Inpop records. The Waiting, Petra, Superchick, Newsboys, Phil Joel, Ian Eskelin, Tree63… I joined the Superchick street team to start off with, and started promoting them in my area with all the great stuff they sent me.
So last October I got an email Inpop sent out to their street teamers saying they need interns. Well pretty much everyone I told except a few good friends and my family thought I was nuts for wanting to move up here and do it. But I jumped on it immediately… and now here I am. In Nashville, working for Inpop.
YAY!