I started going to Clovis Hills church on the recommendation of an old drinking buddy of mine. I had a young daughter and Michelle and I felt that she needed to become educated about God (not that either of us knew much about God other than what we learned in Sunday School). I knew though that I did not want to go to the type of church I went to when I was a kid. No suits. No ancient hymns. No fire and brimstone and passing judgement on me. And no blatant pleas for my cash. My buddy told me about this church where “normal” people went. You could wear jeans and a t-shirt and you could even bring your coffee into service with you. I was in.
So we went, thinking we’d give it a try and if we didn’t like it, we wouldn’t return. A few months later we were still going and I decided that I wanted to become part of this family. I wanted to help with what was going on because I truly felt it was something special. So I sent an email to Mitch, the music pastor at the time and told him I could play drums and wanted to play on Sundays. He told me that I’d have to try out, so I sent him an MP3 of some stuff Frank and I did with our side project Smoke This. He scheduled me for the next Sunday and told me to come pick up a tape.
And that was that. I was in the band. Within a year or so I was the full time drummer and playing weekend and Wednesday services. Playing at Clovis Hills was pretty awesome back then. It was a young church and was meeting in a gym and so it really had this underground vibe to it. Like we were really out to change the world. We played rock music and I could be me behind the kit. They never asked me to tone it down or do anything different. Of course I knew enough to not play double bass riffs on a ballad… but other than the obvious things a musician should do, I was never asked to be somebody I was not. I love that.
I learned a lot about being a musician at Clovis Hills too. I was asked to play all kinds of music that I had never even thought about playing before and that grew me immensely. I have also been involved in playing along with videos and with dancers and actors and all of that is something that bar bands just never get to do. And to top it off, I’m playing in front of several thousand people every weekend. And that’s what all musicians want to do isn’t it? So it’s been absolutely fantastic.
There was a time though when I had to step away. I was being asked to play way more than I was able to reasonably commit to, but since I did not want to say no, I simply burned out. On top of that I had not been nourishing my spiritual side properly and that let to selfishness and some bitterness. The result was that I stepped away for nearly two years, only playing when absolutely necessary, to fill a spot or something. And so from that experience I’ve learned to set limits and not be afraid to say no. A burned out, bitter Christian is not a very good testimony.
Despite that, it’s been a fantastic 12 years of playing at Clovis Hills. My long time guitarist Frank Matthews joined Clovis Hills not long after I did and together we’ve been rocking the stage for Christ for many years. We also were reunited with our old friend Chris Chimelewski who played with us on our Smoke This project and is now in the Clovis Hills band. And my fellow hair metal circuit musician bud Alan Yerxa also did time at Clovis Hills. So it’s been an awesome time growing together with all of these guys.
Several years ago we released an album of worship music and I’ll be posting some of that here soon.
