I have always been a stunt dude and was very into parkour during high school, but one day I was doing some stunts on the trampoline and decided to try doing this trick while getting off the trampoline and ending up breaking a toe...funny right? Crazy how something like that would change the direction of your life in what seemed an instant! It wasn't too big of a deal, I would definitely be back to doing the same thing once my toe healed because that's just how I was. For a few weeks, I had to wear one of those annoying boots, and couldn't do many outside activities which is what I loved to do.
During this time my dad was learning some songs by skillet, and at some point, I wanted to give it a try, So I did! After some practice, I could play that smoke on the water riff that every guitarist on earth knows. I could also play that iron man song which was a pretty popular one for beginner guitarists.
The first full song I learned was, "Monster," by Skillet. After a few months, I was a decent guitarist, I started learning a lot of popular songs from Christian rock bands like Disciple, Thousand Foot Krutch, and Decyfer Down. I wasn't into metal when I first started playing guitar, but I soon found myself.
I got into metal during a rough time in my life, I was struggling with who I was and where I wanted to go in life. I also was dealing with physical issues, a lot of back issues (probably from my parkour days) but I had to go to a chiropractor a lot, and there was a Christian Bible Book store, right next to the chiropractor I went to so I liked to visit it every time cause they usually had some good Christian rock cd's, and also some Christian metal stuff so I decided to check out this band called...can you guess who it was? It was a For Today cd!!!!! I was pretty sure I had heard one or two of For Today's songs on youtube, I didn't like the heavy vocals but decided I'd give it another try and got For Today's album "Fight The Silence." and it was legendary when I put that cd in!!! When the first song started and that breakdown hit like a freight train, it shook me to my core, and I was like HOLY HEYBALE!!! The music, the passion, the aggression, it was everything I was feeling and going through at that time! During this time I was just very broken down by life and it's storms and when the song For The Fallen played, I was drenched in my own tears by the end of the song, the words, "You are not what you've done, and this is not who you are, no matter how far you've run, you have not gone too far!" shook me so hard. God reached out to me and pulled me from the darkness in a way that I still can't understand, and He told me, "You are never too far gone!"
After that experience, I was really growing in my guitar skills after getting into metal and learning new awesome songs, and I was like, "I gotta do something with this! I can't just sit here plating my guitar by myself and not sharing it with people, I wanted to help and inspire people with my talents!
Since then I have been set on being a guitarist and doing all I could to succeed. For a while, I tried joining a band but it just never worked out, so I realized God put the keys in my hand, I didn't need a band to succeed so I started writing and composing my own songs, and started a youtube channel to share my music and passion for Christian Metal Music.
Now I'm here and thank God for all He has done, there were so many hard times and still many yet to come but God has taught me He will always be there and give us the strength to embrace the storms and grow ever closer to Him through them!
I pray my story is inspiring to you, if you take anything from this I hope that it is, God is good and He has a plan, trust Him and lean not on your own understanding.
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