SongVault Artist Profile

I don’t have many memories of age 5, but what I do remember involves Beatles. Who knows how or why, but somehow a 5 year old was affected for the rest of his life. That’s who I was. That’s what I wanted to be. As I got older, music became the center of everything. I picked up a guitar when I was 8, taught myself some chords and hung out with my dad and uncle when they played. When I was 13, I heard John Denver. Suddenly, this became real. Here was a guy with goofy looking hair and glasses, playing guitar, writing songs and singing by himself. I thought, hey I could do that!
After years of playing in bands, talent shows, and living the “rock and roll lifestyle”, I realized something was missing. This wasn’t what I thought it would be. The closer I got to the business, the less satisfying it became. Even finding a wife and starting a family wasn’t enough. It was better, but not quite enough. I met a guy named Eric Brown, a songwriter who was forming a band. He was well organized, dedicated, and had some really good songs. I didn’t realize they were Christian songs right away. But that didn’t matter, it was a good band with good music. I was learning more about songwriting while being witnessed to at the same time. Before long I began to realize there was something more to this than I’d seen before. God was with this band, taking me places I had never been, mentally, musically, and spiritually. I became a believer. One of my first prayers was “OK, now what? Where do I go? What would you have me do?”. Bands, of course, come and go. I drifted from band to band, gig to gig, until my path crossed with Jon Porter. He sat in one night at a gig in Greensburg. The connection was instantaneous, like we were supposed to meet. A few days later, he called to see if I was interested in playing in the church Praise Band he was leading. That was somewhere around 1995 and I have yet to leave. All these years I have been listening, learning, praying, and growing in my faith - Finding what was missing all those bands ago. My favorite lyric from John Lennon is “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans”. That is exactly right. I’m living day to day, enjoying my family, my church, and my life. I’ve never stopped writings songs. And the fever hits me from time to time to share them with people with the hope that maybe, someone might see or hear something that makes sense in their life. Maybe they too will find that what they’re missing in life is Jesus. I’m not chasing charts or glory anymore. That doesn’t really matter in the grand
scheme of things anyway. I try to please God, my family, and myself. That’s all I can ever really hope for.