7th Angel

That was the name of my first Christian rock band.

As I mentioned in my previous post, The Hymn, my parents uprooted our family the summer between my junior and senior years in high school. That’s where a member of the band offered an acoustic guitar that set me on a whole new trajectory.

The pastor’s (of the church in Canton) youngest brother who is only a few years older than I also moved to town about the same time. He was a singer and super into rock with a harder edge. We sat in the sanctuary one Sunday after church, talking, and dreaming about putting together a band.

My drive to learn guitar was apparent, and as mentioned, my parents bought an acoustic guitar for me that Christmas. That was a full-on dousing of fuel on my fire. I didn’t have my high school friends to hang with as they were all a 40 minute drive away. I spent every free moment I had listening to the Beattles early records and playing my guitar.

My parents once again took note. I was graduating from high school that May, and had my eye on only 1 thing–an electric guitar. That April they bought a black Peavey beginner guitar for me.

Game on. My passion was a lock. All I wanted to do at that point was write songs and play guitar.

In the time between arriving to Canton and receiving the Peavey, my vocalist friend and I met a few others in the church. Our passion bubbled over and we convinced one friend to pick up the bass. He knew of a drummer that absolutely slayed and played drums loud enough to be heard 3 zip codes away.

We had the recipe. Guitar, bass, drums, vocals.

I chose the super dope name, 7th Angel, mentioned in the book of Revelations. That book alone will likely be a separate blog post, but know that I believe what many Jewish and Christian scholars have posited about the meaning of that book. The Christian community at large believes it is a prophecy of things yet to come. The scholars do not. Again… another post for another time.

By early summer, after my graduation at 17, 7th Angel was playing a show in the town square with 3 or 4 songs I’d written plus rock versions of worship songs I thought could be cool.

There was nothing cool about it. I didn’t know what I was doing. There was no, and still is no road map for how to go from the idea of being a musician to recording and playing live.

The gist here is a common theme. For so much of my creative pursuits in life, I didn’t know what I was doing. I hadn’t heard of “fake it ‘til you make it,” but that’s 100% what was going on.

7th Angel was set. Our oversized eyes were on getting to Stryper’s level, maybe even sharing the stage with them. We were gracious, so they totally could’ve opened for us.

I mean, we weren’t cocky. Adacious? Sure, but that almost implies intent. We were naive. Completely. We wanted to rock, but we wanted the message to be aligned with the values of that dogma. Rock-n-roll. People like rock-n-roll. And we can rock. And we can slip in messages of the gospel and help save the world.

While I no longer want anything to do with that dogma, I can say the pattern was set in me. I want to use the gifts I was born with and have the drive to develop for something more than just creating a party environment. I want the music and the message to have weight. To be compelling. Provocative. And that has never changed. And that is part of the reason I know Universal Sines and SAGRADOSE are the fulfillment of a lifelong drive and dream.

So the story continues.

Speaking of Universal Sines…