How I became a Christian metal fan and Guitarist.

Hey, my name is Andrew Hopper, and I am a Christian Metal Guitarist,and for my first post, I want to tell you about how I got into playing the electric guitar, and also how I got into listening to Christian Metal Music.
   Most of my childhood I wanted to be a soldier or a police officer,I never planned on developing a talent as a guitar player and making that my profession.
 It's crazy how God can use something so small like an injury to direct your life in a whole new direction.
  I used to always be jumping on a trampoline and doing different stunts.Doing one of those stunts I ended up going too far and breaking my                                                                                             toe,Which is not too big of a deal.
 For the next month, I wasn't able to put a lot of pressure on my foot, so that meant not really being able to do anything outside and being stuck inside with nothing much to do.
  One day my dad was playing his electric guitar so I was watching him for a little bit, then he asked me if I wanted to try.So I decided to give it a try, and he showed me a simple guitar riff.And I caught on to it pretty quick, then he wrote out the guitar tabs for the song "Monster," by skillet.It took me at least a week or maybe even two, but I eventually learned it and then kept learning more songs, each one getting a little more difficult.
 After about a year of practicing and learning songs constantly, I could do some cool stuff on a guitar.
But after that, I was actually getting tired of rock songs, because, with the songs I listened to, they weren't that difficult to learn once you learned a couple of them because they often follow the same patterns in how they build their songs and what kinds of guitar riffs they used.
 I wanted to find a challenge and something different so I started researching different genres and found this one that sounds absolutely awesome, and that was"Metalcore."It had such a unique and different sound, and the guitarist used more than just a few power chords.But for quite a while after finding it I decided to forget about it because I didn't like the heavy vocals.
  But you can't forget about Metal Music, CAN YOU?
                   
                                                   PART  2

  At the age of sixteen is when I really got into heavy music, and here's how it happened.

   I just left the chiropractor and after leaving there, I decided to walk over and look at the local Christian Bible Bookstore that was right across the street.
  At this point in life I was always looking for cd's to add to my collection, so I thought I'd see what the Bible store had.
  As I was looking through what they had I saw one called ,"For Today, Fight The Silence."
I thought that sounded very interesting so I decided to buy it.
  Now I get in the car, open the cd and put it in, then the music started.
With a face-melting metal guitar chug then the vocals started and the first words that I heard were,"BURN IT DOWN,"and that caught my attention since I just got the cd from a local Christian Store.But this time I decided to keep listening instead of whining about how I couldn't understand the vocals.As I listened I found the lyrics to be more Touching, more convicting, and more truthful about personal struggle than anything I have heard in worship music, which was actually awesome to hear because I thought I was the only one who struggled with the things I struggled with, I found I'm not alone.
  About halfway home a song off this cd called ,"For The Fallen," started playing and during the chorus the vocalist was saying,"You are not what you've done, and this is not who you are, no matter how far you run, you have not gone too far."Basically, this song was a call to repentance and a call to return home and stop chasing the world.
And at this point in my life, I was questioning my faith, because of the loneliness I felt, and the sins I committed, and no matter how hard I tried  to make friends, I felt like an invisible freak.
  While I was listening to this song I heard the vocalist say several times,"You Are Not Alone,"
I had never felt a song reach in and tug at my heart like that, and it was a guy screaming at the top of his lungs.
   It was in this moment that the Lord used this song to call me back to Him, and also the moment in which I became a Christian Metalhead and forever will be.
  Since then my faith has become truly my own, and I will seek to glorify God with my musical abilities and to also call  others to the light, as I was once called to the light.
 
    There you have it, guys, that is why I am such a die hard fan of Christian Metal Music and a Metal guitarist.