In answer to the most obvious question, yes I am a Christian.
Next, no I was not always a devoted one and yes I did grow up listening to nothing but Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin.

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, this is what I believe about music.

A true musician is not someone who is good at the instrument they play. A true musician exerts passion in the music they play and compassion towards their fellow musicians. Being able to work with a team is essential, unless you plan on sitting in your basement doing all the recordings yourself like I'm doing right now. But I still play in multiple other bands.

There's only one that totally gels, and that's the Living Water Band. The sweet thing about this band is two of the singers, one of our drummers, and I (the fill-in wherever), are all young musicians ranging from 14-19 years old. The rest of them are all between 35-50.

But we all work as a team and we rock out. We don't do this for money, because there is none involved. We do it because we love to worship with our musical talents and because we love music in general. As my dad says, "We're playing the greatest gig on earth."

Yes, I have my pet peeves in music and I can be critical about over-use of things or intonation (painful), but I have the utmost respect for any band who's in it for the right reasons. Even if they suck.

Now as far as writing music goes, I tend to write sappy stuff if I write lyrics first. But I found if I reverse it, I may be able to make it rock (Although my first one like this was very 60's, but totally sweet). The most important thing about songwriting is to vary things up. You don't want people to expect what's coming, but you don't want it to be outlandish.

Second, you want to appeal to your crowd (keep in mind age variations).

Third, you want to relate to your crowd. You could write about life expereinces...or someone else's life experiences. But hey, you're the artist, you can figure it out.

Fourth, check your message. Is what you're writing going to make a positive impact on kids? A song can be sad or funny, but if it's written in coldblooded hate, what could that do to your audience?

Really, what you write is a reflection of your disposition. You are reflecting who you really are when you write, so don't write songs just to get attention.

Finally, It doesn't matter what other people think. You are who you are. If you are happy with your reflection of yourself before you hear what others say about you, you are one of two things; concieted and closed minded, or one cool cat. If you know that you reflect everything morally right, then you are most definately the later of the two.

Now go rock on with your bad self!