I was born…no, that’s way too far back.
I was schooled from 5th grade up at a Christian preparatory school in Orlando, Fl. It was here that my love of music bloomed and grew…and expanded. But really it started at home. My parents appreciated a wide variety of music, so I was exposed at an early age to Spike Jones and Ray Charles…and Willie Nelson…and Dave Brubeck. Lots of the old greats. I learned very young that all types of music had a different place and a different way of being. The only thing I really was not exposed to at that time was Rock-n-Roll.
I was in band at school from 6th grade on. I played the trumpet. I did not want to play trumpet (I wanted to play drums); but I was pushed into it by my parents. Good for them. I needed to be influenced in the right direction. I learned Sachmo Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie. I wanted to be Jimmy Page; but I didn’t know that at the time. I had this idea of what music would sound like if I could do it my way. I always figured if I could do it myself, I’d make it more fun and less of a serious, tedious thing. I’d get my shot at that. But first I had to put in a few years marching and learning that parts go together to make chord structure and such. Bo ring.
Then came that fateful day (…and I want to stop right here and point out to you that this is a cliche line! Every dramatic story has a line like “then came that fateful day, when Joyce learned that Ernest had eaten all of her cheese”…) when I was 14 that I met a new neighborhood kid and we started talking about playing and how much we’d like to be rock stars…and I brought my guitar over to his house…and he happened to know a drummer at his school…the public school…
What that situation turned into was a band (we called it a band) called Wolfenpage. We were quite a noisy group of young fellows. Had we not all picked up the nasty habit of smoking, we may have been able to carry a tune. It wasn’t all bad…it was my main outlet for creativity well into my 20’s. We clubbed around and gigged around…and slept around and all that. Then the lead singer got hooked on crack cocaine, the drummer went into the marines and I went to jail. Funny how the world just suddenly changes for you sometimes when you least expect it.
While incarserated I rediscovered Jesus. It wasn’t a jailhouse conversion, really. It was more of an acceptence of destiny. I was in a wing of the jail where only one station would come in clearly on the radio. A Christian station…WTLN. I didn’t have much else to do but listen, read and write. I did all three; and God began there to form in me what is now my lyrical base. Having had a firm foundation of the Word (but seeing no power in it at the time) I was able to recall scripture I had memorised in school (we were made to memorise lots and lots of scripture…a chore if you’re forced to do it). All those verses started coming back since my mind wasn’t all whacked out on weed and booze. Before I knew it, I was quoting scripture as I talked with people…not even thinking about it. The Lord was becoming real to me.
And now He’s more real than I am.
I have learned that rock-n-roll is not the devil’s music unless we’ve given that to him. He doesn’t have anything that man did not give him (or he did not steal from man). He is beneath us and we as Christian men and women FAR outclass him in the spirit realm. We just need to realise that fact and read the scriptures to find out how to reclaim the authority that once was Adam’s. Through Faith in Jesus the Christ.
You are now up to speed with the page “Meet the le Page band”.
Be Blessed!
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