Happy New Year everyone! Hope everyone’s year is off to a great start. As I look back through the years of my musical career I can’t help but reflect on the unique path that God has led me on. As I think about where I got my musical start, I am so grateful to those that had the patience and willingness to mentor me in guitar, vocals, and worship music in general. Brian Burke, Rex Anderson, Chris Cepulis, my father (who is really where my music began with), and all those that invested in me as a young energetic teenager. Without these people, my path may have looked very different. I doubt I would be leading worship every week at Riverside Church with an incredible worship team and church family. I also may never have met Matt White, who has created a lifetime of music with me and whose musical strengths have always filled the void in my musical weaknesses. Everything started for Matt and I when we were teenagers in the youth band at Mount Ararat Baptist Church.
Looking back, something magical happens when you are young, naive, and fearless - you create great art. You don’t overthink anything… you just create. I believe this is why so many musical artists become famous when they are incredibly young. They haven’t been indoctrinated to believe anything, they haven’t been wearied by the demands of responsibilities. Perhaps Drew Holcomb said it best in his song Tennessee when he sings “When I was a boy I didn’t know nothing. I didn’t have a care in the world. I had innocence and ignorance of things I wish I still did not know.”
The first independent band I played in during high school was named Cliffs of Insanity. We named our band after our favorite movie… The Princess Bride. When we wrote our first song “Funk 119” in the late 1990’s based off of Psalm 119 and the movie, I thought we had written the greatest song known to man. Looking back, it was a fun song, and the joy we had making it comes across in the music… I can still see Matt almost laughing in the studio when he sang “I draw my sword on the R.O.U.S.’s… they fight and tug upon my soul”.
Along with “Funk 119”, we ended up writing and recording an entire album of music with our band Cliffs of Insanity. It was an album titled “As You Wish” and included a locally popular song that told the entire story of The Princess Bride movie in rap format (yes, it was my rap debut, and ended up being my rap finale :). I had some of the most fun I’ve ever had jamming with BT Burke (our drummer) and Matt White for hours on end. We had more time to write than we could even comprehend. We emulated our favorite bands… which was a complete diversity of hard rock, acoustic, funk, etc. And the album reflects all those styles. I’m not really sure how, but it actually ended up being a decent album. It’s honest and authentic, and maybe that’s why even as ridiculous as it is, it somehow works. Our carefree spirit is characterized by the entire album… even up to the last 2 minutes where we had our drummer BT Burke sing the rock ballad “To Be With You” by Mr. Big in a hidden song.
In honor of getting old, and this album being (almost) 20 years old, I’m releasing it on our website for anyone who may be interested. You can listen to it on our Music page and buy it on our Merch page here: “As You Wish” Digital Download … maybe sometime I’ll get around to getting it posted on Spotify, Amazon Music, and iTunes which didn’t yet exist when we recorded it. :)
May your 2020 be filled with joy, and a lack of R.O.U.S.’s…
-Josh