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 Now you can preview Mark Weber's new book about Christian and Gospel music artists right here on ChristianMusicDaily.com! Click on 'Read more' to get a glimpse of this informative new book, which features BarlowGirl, Charlie Daniels, and many more established as well as up-and-coming artists!
Aaron Greer Band
Q) Describe your sound.
A) The Aaron Greer Band is striving to appeal to as many people as possible as far as our sound. We enjoy having a contemporary sound, with a slight focus on guitar— acoustic and electric. People who have heard our CD have compared it to the likes of Matthew West and Steven Curtis Chapman.
Q) What are some of the themes your music conveys?
A) Great question. As a Christian artist, I do feel the importance of trying NOT to hide the message. Our songs are clearly about the grace of Christ, the love of Christ, and sometimes the struggle of living a Christian life. I find that in the struggle, it is the love and grace of Christ we need the most. I hope anyone listening to our songs would hear that within them.
Q) Who is your primary audience?
A) Like I said, we are trying to appeal to as many people possible. Our recent shows have seen us performing for church congregations. So, we really are covering a wide demographic. I would say that we are best suited performing in church sanctuaries.
Q) In concert, what song gets the biggest reaction? Why?
A) I would say our song “Air” goes over great all the time. Why? I would say because I don't think it is your typical Christian song. Sometimes we are subjected to Christian music that sounds happy and positive. While I think there is a place for that, we must all admit that our walk isn't always happy and positive. “Air” is a song that talks about the struggle. It's just a song that is true in its realness.
Q) What gets on your nerves?
A) Non-Christians who accuse Christians of being hypocrites, liars and having a Sunday faith. We aren't perfect...that's probably the biggest reason why Christ gave His life. I keep reminding myself to love people who make those accusations like Jesus would.
Q) When you have bad days, what keeps you going, pressing on?
A) Honestly, I have bad days often. Not all the time...but often. Each time I do have a bad day, I find that the Lord always gives me the hope to keep moving forward, whether it's encouragement from a friend or an email from someone who attended one of our shows and says how much they appreciate our ministry.
Q) What is something you'd tell a struggling young person who doesn't go to church and “doesn't know the Lord” to encourage them?
A) That God will meet them where they are at...and that at one time I was just like them. I was a loser...only Jesus could make me into someone. I would sincerely tell that person that if Jesus could do what He did in my life, there is hope for you, too.
Q) What do you struggle with and how are you dealing with it? How does God help you with it?
A) I struggle with the things that most young men do. We all know what those are :) haha. God helps me by reminding me of all the wonderful promises in His Word. If we keep those promises in our hearts, Psalm 119 promises that if we “hide the word in our hearts we can stay pure.”
Q) Where do you live? What is the spiritual climate like there?
A) Wow...great question. I live in Western Pennsylvania—Pittsburgh to be exact. The spiritual climate is below freezing.
Q) Talk about your past with the band Witness Protection Program. How did that prepare you for having your own band now?
A) Oh wow...it prepared me in so many ways. Most importantly, it introduced me to faith in the Lord. I had friends to support me. God again used my talent for His purpose. I wish I could tell you all of how it prepared me, but there would not be enough time :) haha.
Q) I think I once heard you say you admired the rock band Kiss because they brought theatricality to rock. In your new band, is there anything dramatic or theatrical about your stage presentation?
A) When I was growing up, yes, one of my favorite bands was KISS. They probably have the strongest image of any secular group. When I was a kid that strong image they put forth enabled me to make them my idols. In hindsight, that really messed up my life. When I came to know Jesus, I realized what I had done in making friends with the world, and giving a place in my life that belongs to God to earthly beings. But to get back to the question, yes, visual impact is an important part of our show. However, we want to do that in a way that doesn’t put too much emphasis on the band members. So one great thing about our show is that it's very multi-media. We have a video screen that shows images and text to further enhance the message of the songs.
Q) What instrument(s) do you play, Aaron?
A) I actually started as a drummer when I was a kid...but moved to guitar at the age of 10 or so. So I have been playing guitar for 19 years now. But I still love playing drums, and I have been concentrating for the past 5 years mostly on becoming the kind of singer that needs to front a band.
Q) What's something you do on a weekly or monthly basis that you'd recommend others should do, and why?
A) I think Bible study and fellowship is so important on a weekly basis. It enhanced my life so much and my relationships with other Christians. We all gotta stick together :)
Q) What's your goal or vision for the Aaron Greer Band?
A) Well, I think my goal for the band is for us to minister. If we can effectively do that, then everything else doesn't really matter. My hope and goal is that people be ministered to at our shows and enjoy a night of worship.
Q) If someone wants to pray for you, what should they pray about/for?
A) Please pray that we might be effective as a ministry, and that the attacks we have been experiencing from the enemy might be temporary. God has given us peace...we know that He is bigger than any problem that might be in our way :)
Q) You're ministry-oriented. What are some of the ways you serve others?
A) Well, when we do perform, we love to be in a position where if the worship band needs a break for a week, we'll perform the contemporary worship service at that church for the weekend. We are also offering a project called the Worship 101 Project. This is something the band performs for churches whom might not be all that familiar with contemporary praise and worship and want to know what it is all about. Like I said, the spiritual climate in Pittsburgh is below freezing. God is doing a new thing, and churches and congregations need to adapt to new things for the un-churched and for the future of our congregations.
If you're enjoying this preview of "Anointed Voices" the new book from ChristianMusicDaily.com, then click here to buy it from www.lulu.com/christianmusic.
BarlowGirl
Q) Where are you from and what’s the spiritual climate like there?
A) Lauren: We live in Chicago, Illinois. I'd say black and white. People don't pretend to be someone they're not.
Q) What are some of the themes your music conveys?
A) Alyssa: Challenging people to stay pure in an impure world.
Lauren: Purity. Not conforming.
Alyssa: Trusting in God.
Q) You're sisters, you're young, and you're in a band together. You really seem to be connecting with teens. Why?
A) Rebecca: Teens are so hungry for the truth and we're real with them.
Lauren: We share our own brokenness.
Q) Talk about what the song “Never Alone” means to you and your sisters.
A) Rebecca: We wrote this song during a hard time when everything we hoped for fell out of our hands. But we trusted God's Word and not our circumstances.
Q) In concert, what song(s) gets the biggest reaction?
A) Lauren: “Never Alone” and “Average Girl.”
Q) Do you pray together?
A) Alyssa: Everyday at 10:30 we listen to a teaching and then pray together. We've done this for as long as I can remember.
Rebecca: Even on the road we make it our priority.
Q) Talk about the song “I Need You To Love Me.”
A) Alyssa: “I Need You To Love Me” came out of our journals. It was based on the fear that we're unlovable to God. We felt challenged to stop convincing Him of the reasons why we deserved His love.
Lauren: Instead we needed to accept God's love in our lives as a free gift.
Q) What's your favorite Bible verse?
A) Rebecca: Isaiah 62.
Alyssa: There's so many. I'll go with Isaiah 49.
Lauren: I Corinthians 13.
Q) What is something you'd tell a struggling young person who doesn't go to church or “know the Lord” to encourage them?
A) Alyssa: That God has a calling for them. He has a plan and purpose on their life.
Q) What do you struggle with and how are you dealing with it? How does God help you with it?
A) Rebecca: For me, being on the road. I love alone time and my own space and touring doesn't offer that. But I know God has called me to this. And I hold on to His Word that I can do all things He has called me to, and He will give me strength.
Q) What do you and your sisters do to prepare for a show?
A) Rebecca: Take prayer time.
Lauren: Put on make-up.
Alyssa: 30 minutes before each show we quiet down and focus and pray.
Q) Does the band go to church on Sundays? If so, where?
A) Alyssa: When we're home, yes.
Lauren: Our church is in Chicago.
Rebecca: When we can't make it home we listen to teachings.
Alyssa: We do bus church.
Q) Since being signed to a record label, how has your life changed?
A) Lauren: Our lives are much busier. This life makes you grow up a lot quicker. There is a lot of pressure on you to be mature in circumstances.
Q) Your parents are obviously important to you. What have they taught you about life that you'd like to share with other young ladies who might be reading this that will help or encourage them in their lives?
A) Lauren: My parents, our parents...always told us to make God our own.
Alyssa: That He couldn't just be their faith but we had to make Him our own.
Q) If someone wants to pray for you and the band, what should they pray about/for?
A) Rebecca: That God's will be done.
Alyssa: This life is very busy. And we don't want our hearts to be distracted but, rather, to grow closer to God.
Lauren: For grace on the road.
If you're enjoying this preview of the informative new book, "Anointed Voices," you can click here to buy it at www.lulu.com/christianmusic.
Brett Rush
Q) What are some of the themes your music conveys?
A) Worship is central. I like to encourage the listener as well as challenge them.
Q) Who is your primary audience?
A) I would have to say my music reaches a broad spectrum of listeners. If I had to specify a primary audience it would probably be the teenager to young adult audience.
Q) In concert, what song gets the biggest reaction? Why?
A) “Yahweh La De Da” seems to be the song that people have the most fun with. It’s hard to listen to or sing the song without smiling. “Talk To Me” has been the strongest ministry song. I get comment after comment on how that song has touched lives.
Q) What gets on your nerves?
A) Church people. Let me explain. I really can’t stand the pious attitude that most church people carry. I say “church people” because I wonder sometimes just how many people who go to church have really experienced the life changing power of the gospel. I am tired of seeing the church hurt hurting people. We are supposed to help hurting people. It may sound harsh, but I believe the most powerful gospel that is preached is that which is lived, not spoken.
Q) When you have bad days, what keeps you going, pressing on?
A) 1 Corinthians 15:58, “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable. Always abounding in the work of the Lord; knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” Philippians 1:6, “I am confident of this one thing, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” It’s the unchanging, life-giving Word that keeps me going.
Q) What do you struggle with and how are you dealing with it? How does God help you with it?
A) I struggle with focus. Sometimes I get myself involved with too many things. Before long I don’t feel like doing anything. So I surround myself with the right people and that helps me stay on track. Another thing that has really helped me is something I read in “Wild At Heart” by John Eldredge: “Find out what makes you come alive. Do that, and drop the other stuff.”
Q) Where do you live? Talk about “Shiloh Tabernacle”—how did that come about and where'd you get the name? Where is this church and what is it like? Details please.
A) I live in the little town of Quarryville, PA. After graduating Bible College my wife and I spent about a year in Statesville, North Carolina, where I served as the Youth Pastor of Shiloh Tabernacle. We felt the Lord wanted us to plant a church back home, and Shiloh Tabernacle was born in Quarryville, PA. Shiloh Tabernacle is an inter-denominational Christian fellowship geared towards edifying and equipping the body for the work of the ministry. We emphasize worship as a lifestyle and not a style of music or something that we do on Sunday mornings.
Q) How is today's modern, contemporary Christian church failing the youth?
A) I believe it is a matter of listening. We must learn to take the time to listen to where they are, rather than assuming we already know where they are based on the decisions they have made or the circumstances they find themselves in. I firmly believe that if you take the time to listen, you will know what to say.
Q) If someone wants to pray for you, what should they pray about/for?
A) Direction—Being a full-time pastor, worship leader, husband, father, singer, songwriter, and hope to be upcoming Christian music artist… I want my steps ordered by the Lord.
Q) How old are you? What other jobs did you have before becoming a singing pastor?
A) I’m in my thirties and I have done a number of things before becoming a singing pastor. I worked in construction as a finish carpenter during the first 3 years of pastoring. Then I spent 2 years in an office as the office assistant and mechanical engineer of a machine shop. (My first year of college was spent at Penn State as a mechanical engineering major.) Since then, I have been full-time at Shiloh. The singing part just started about 5 years ago. I had a strong desire to be able to worship God in my own way so I decided to try my hand at the guitar. A few months later I was leading simple praise choruses at the church. Four years later I have completed two full-length worship albums with all original material. It has been a wonderful journey with the Lord.
Q) What are your expectations with your CD “Invitation?” Why is it called that?
A) My hope is that “Invitation” will encourage and challenge everyone who listens to it. The title “Invitation” is one of the tracks on the project. But the reason we choose it as the title of the project was because worship is the central theme throughout the album. Worship can be packaged in many different ways, but the one constant is His presence. “Invitation” is just that, an open invitation for the Lord to come and fill our lives with the fullness of His glory.
How do you like the preview of the new book "Anointed Voices" so far? Help support ChristianMusicDaily.com by clicking here to buy the book from www.lulu.com/christianmusic.
Charlie Daniels
Charlie Daniels has a thoroughly enjoyable bluegrass Gospel album out on Koch/Blue Hat Records entitled “Songs from the Longleaf Pines.” Listening to him intersperse spoken word scripture in between songs like “Preachin,’ Prayin’, Singin’” and “Softly And Tenderly,” you wouldn’t guess that Daniels was born way back in 1936. The man with the bushy white beard sounds as young and spry as ever on this fairly recent release, and shows no signs of slowing down.
Daniels is a country music legend, best known for his fiddle-playing and the hit song, “The Devil Went Down To Georgia.” Even though he’s been in the music business for several decades, he says he still really loves what he does. With recent forays into Gospel music, including 2001’s “How Sweet The Sound” (Sparrow Records), as well as blues and Southern-style honkytonk, the good-natured Southerner finds himself endlessly touring these days, playing mostly secular music for thousands of fans from 7 to 70. In fact, “We’re on our third generation of fans,” he says.
So what keeps him going? What’s he passionate about?
“My relationship with Jesus Christ, first of all,” he says, as we chat by phone. “Then, my family, my country, the military, my music, and I love art, paintings and sculptures and things people have made with their hands.”
Daniels is a truly passionate man, quite outspoken about a number of issues, and patriotism and America rank high on his list of things to talk about.
“I’m very passionate about my patriotism and my country and what I see happening to it. I don’t know how much longer we can travel down this road,” he says. He’s not impressed with people trying to erase God from public life.
“In the grand scheme of things, all these intellectual people who say things like, ‘there is no God, God is dead, God’s not concerned, we’re all our own gods,’ are pitiful. It’s like a flea trying to move a bowling ball. It means nothing at all except that it deceives people,” he says. “The more people feel a certain way about something, the more they are convinced that they are right. But they’re not right. They’re wrong. And it says so in the Word of God.”
Daniels, who is pro-life, anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage, thinks that government buildings should be able to display the Ten Commandments because, in his opinion, they’re not hurting anybody. He says he gets offended when he sees X-rated movies advertised on public theatre marquees, but says, “I’m not going to get a court order to have them removed. If I don’t want to look at it, I don’t look at it. It’s that simple.”
When asked if people who seem to be anti-God have succeeded in removing the deity from public life, Daniels gets noticeably worked up. His voice sounds more aggressive.
“There are people out there, a lot of good Christian people in this country, millions and millions of them, who don’t subscribe to new age theories and thoughts. Those thoughts are not pervasive, just well publicized,” he explains. “Where Satan is so smart is he’s moved in on the mass media and gotten a hold of school boards and the machinery of education. That’s the thing going on right now.”
Many people have said Christians shouldn’t be involved in politics, but Daniels wholeheartedly disagrees.
“Christians should be involved in politics, and anything that has to do with morality and stability in this country,” he says. “The Christian community needs to stand up and say ‘we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore, we will not put up with these judges, these laws, these panty-waist politicians who blow like a flag in the wind whichever way the wind blows.’”
Daniels definitely wants to call Christians to action, whether it means taking opposing sides to court or voting for politicians who espouse similar beliefs. To those who oppose Christian values being validated in American government, Daniels says this: “You want to fight for America? Okay, you just took on the most powerful people on Earth, you just took on God’s people, so let’s see who wins.”
“If the Christian community would get together and do that—be active and involved,” he says, “you’d see a different country because there are a lot of good people out there.”
As a writer and someone continually in the public eye, Daniels holds strong convictions, and isn’t afraid to speak up for what he believes. He writes two columns a week on his website, www.charliedaniels.com, and gets a lot of responses.
“I get emails from the things I write and some are vehemently drippin’ green saliva, just hatin’ me and everything I stand for and I can tell the ones who respect me for my opinions although their opinions are 180 degrees from mine,” he says.
With Daniels, finding common ground is a theme he brings up again and again. He thinks reasonable people can find common ground, and though they may not agree on the subject they’re discussing, they can still get along.
“You can get along with anybody who wants to be gotten along with,” he says. “I’m not right all the time. And I’m certainly not the wisest person in the world. What I write and what I say are my opinions, and they’re put there for better or worse, for whatever you take them for, but know this—they’re very deeply held convictions.”
As a man of faith, Daniels credits God for helping him get through every day.
“I’ve been through some painful experiences—everybody has. I look at God as being responsible for every breath I breathe, every step I walk, every note of music I write, sing or play, everything that has to do with me,” he says. “I try to live life day to day, make something good happen each day, and never hold grudges.”
Daniels believes forgiveness is the cornerstone of Christianity and that grudges will “eat you up,” so it’s important to forgive others.
“You don’t have to like somebody. You don’t have to approve of what they’ve done to you or somebody else, but you have to forgive them if you’re going to be a Christian,” he says. “Everyone has to make peace with God. I think we all have a lot of sin behind us, and if we drag it behind us, it’s going to weigh us down. We need to get rid of it.”
Besides sin, something else Daniels doesn’t like is dissension and arguing.
“Arguing for the sake of arguing—saying things to make the other look bad—is wrong. I don’t like that in my life,” he says. “I try to cut dissension out of my life because I think it’s a total waste of time and I don’t have time to waste.”
Daniels continues to make vibrant music, even though he’s already obtained legendary status in the music business. He says the golden rule—treat others how you want to be treated—is something he believes in. It’s something he tries to put into practice on a daily basis. If he had to give advice to young people, he sums up what he’s learned through the years succinctly: “Be honest, be yourself, trust God, and never give up.”
This was just a taste of what the new book "Anointed Voices" offers-- a chance to get to know a nice variety of Christian music artists, some famous, others up-and-coming. Now you can buy "Anointed Voices" and read it for yourself, or give it as a gift to that friend of yours who loves Christian music! Click here to get "Anointed Voices" from www.lulu.com/christianmusic. |
