Speaking of music recently, I had the honor to do an interview with an amazing and dynamic Christian Indie/worship band called Rivers and Robots.For all those Christian Indie or Worship or just music lovers this interview is for you! Sit back and get ready to be empowered, inspired and moved.
(
CP=Me (A Christian Sister Perspective)
J=Jonathan Lead Singer, of Rivers and Robots)
I always like to begin with how an artist
came to have faith, before reflecting on the aspects of their faith
through their music.
CP:
How did you come to know the Lord( salvation story) and how did this tie
in with your love for music?
J: I grew up in church (my dad is a pastor) and spent a lot of time in
church meetings, listening to worship music. I come from a very musical
family and learnt piano, guitar and a couple of other instruments when I
was growing up. I ended up playing bass in the church worship team, and
later drums. We're a small church, and so I just filled in wherever
there was a gap. Doing that gave me a really good understanding of how
each of the instruments work within a band though!
It
wasn't until the age of 15 that I really started to take my
relationship with God seriously. Until then I just believed in God, and
that I was going to heaven, and that was mostly it. But at age 15 was
when I finally realised that there was so much more to God than I had realized, and I started to develop a real relationship. Around the same
time I started to ask God where he wanted me. I had read that we were
all different parts of one body and I wanted to know what my part was!
A
week or so later I was in a worship time, and felt so much love for God
I thought I was going to explode, and I was trying to figure out what
else I could do to just express worship and what I was feeling, and in
that moment I felt God say "this is why I made you", and I knew from
that point that worship was what I was meant to be doing. I spent a year
just worshiping at home before I was brave enough to get up in front
of anyone and sing but eventually I started to lead worship at church.
CP:
How
did you form a band?
J: Out of those time worshiping at home though, these songs would
come out and I'd start recording them and saving them on my computer. A
year or so later, God told me that this was what he was calling me to as
well, not just leading worship in church, but writing songs that are
all about who He is, and that help others to worship in a different and
creative way. The kind of songs I was writing didn't always fit in
church, so I would record them and put them out online.
Eventually
I started to put albums together and when I was 18 I released the first
Rivers & Robots album "The Great Light". It was pretty rough, and
all recorded and mixed at home in my bedroom. I was still figuring out
how to do this creative worship thing, and by the time I did my second
album I had a lot better idea of what I was meant to be doing. You can
still hear the beginnings of it in my first album, but there was some
definite moments that I would go back and change if I did it again.
The
second album, Take Everything, was still recorded in my bedroom, but
this time I had a lot clearer vision of what these songs were meant to
be, and I made it much more God-centered and worshipful. That album
started to do pretty well online, and by the time I finished it in 2012,
I met these 3 guys that became great friends, and were also great
musicians. I took a weekend out to pray about it all and the more I
prayed the more excited I got, so I sent out an email and all 3 came
back and said yes! We spent a year learning how to play the songs from
Take Everything live, and then worked on some new songs together. It was
my first time working with other musicians, my first time recording
somewhere that wasn't my bedroom, and my first time letting other people
to come in and help with the mixing and mastering. But it's a much
better sounding album for it! We released All Things New in 2014 as a
free download, which did really well and spread by word of mouth. So
that's how it all started!
CP:Very inspiring to see how everything started out!Entering
into the Christian music scene is huge. Some Christian artists have
been pressured to compromise, as the Bible says how the mighty have
fallen. Keep My Fire Burning lyrics are deep and real. As new music
opportunities arise what is your anchor to keep you rooted and grounded
in God and the purpose behind your music?
J: There's certainly pressure in the christian music industry to conform to a
certain style or sound, and we've had lots of great opportunities come
along that just weren't the right fit for us. The thing that keeps us
rooted is prayer, and coming back to the things God has spoken. God gave
us a few clear prophetic words at the start of the band and a few big
verses that have meant a lot to us, we often come back to these things
in big decision moments to see if it lines up. But with every
opportunity we take on we're learning to pray about it, no matter how
big or small it is. We're aware that God is leading us as a band, and we
don't want to try and take over at any point and start making
everything happen by ourselves. We're learning that not every
opportunity that comes along is necessarily from God, and sometimes,
particularly the more people hear about you, you start getting invites
to all sorts of things that aren't where God wants you. So we simply ask
God about each opportunity that comes our way, and wait for a
confirmation that we should or shouldn't do it.
The
other major thing that keeps us rooted is our one-on-one times of worshiping and praying at home. We talk a lot about living a lifestyle
of worship, and really the times that we get on a stage and sing our
songs are just an overflow of what we do at home. Our friend James runs a
ministry called Prayer Storm, and he often says that it's one of the
most tragic things to have a growing ministry but a shrinking heart
towards God. As our ministry grows it's important that our relationship
and intimacy with God is growing at the same time.
CP: What are your aspirations for
your music is this something that you guys currently do full-time?
We're
working towards going full time as a band. Two of us are already full
time, and one of us is part time, but we're in the process of setting up
our own non-profit organization to help us do more with the band, as
well as helping other artists to do creative worship and give them a
platform to share what they do.
CP: I love that your songs are surrounded by scriptures and that you've
given away music for free. The new album is full of great songs.Could
you tell me the story behind Light Will Dawn and In the Family?
In The Family is one of the few songs I wrote that started with a
lyric. I tend to start with music first and lyrics come later, but for
song God was speaking to me about being in the family of God and the
relationship that we have to Him. I knew that I wanted to write a song
with the line "I'm in the family now" in it, and I sat at my piano and
the song just came together. Verse 2 took a while to write, and we
actually went to recording with it unfinished. In the middle of doing
the vocal recordings I ended up sitting down with my notepad and writing
something out just before we recorded it.
Light
Will Dawn is one of the few songs that was a co-write. I tend to write
most of the songs myself, I just never learnt how to do it with other
people well. But our bass player Nathan sent me an idea for a song, and
it fit really well with something I was already writing. So I ended up
writing the verses, and the tag near the end of "You are really coming
back", and I used Nathan's song for the chorus and the last tag. It just
seemed to fit together well. A lot of our songs are written about the
second coming, and this one is no different! It's a song about Jesus
coming back and the hope of the light that he will bring in the midst of
darkness.
CP: Another artist that I love to worship to is Misty Edwards she
brings you into the presence of God and worship.What are some fellow
worship artists that inspire you and artists that maybe you'd like to
work with or had the pleasure to work with?
J:We love Misty Edwards as well! I went to IHOP in Kansas City a few times
for their one thing conference, and there's so many great worship
leaders and artists there. We're also friends with United Pursuit who
are writing great songs at the moment, and we're slowly getting to know a
lot of other creative worship bands around the UK and beyond. Part of
the reason we set up our Set Sail website is to share some of these
artists that we like. We also put together a Spotify playlist of indie
worship bands that we're regularly updating.
CP: Besides being incredibly talented musicians, what are some other hobbies/things that you guys enjoy doing in your spare time?
J:When we're not doing the band stuff we love going to gigs
(Manchester is great for that!), watching movies, eating chicken and
doing some of our other creative hobbies. I'm a graphic designer too,
and our guitarist Dave is a video editor. We all have our little side
projects and things we enjoy as well as playing music.
CP: Lastly, I saw you guys mention tea and cakes. I'm from the U.S and have quite a sweet tooth,I have seen in times pasts the custom of tea times, is there still such a tradition? What are
you guys favorite tea and cakes?
J.:Tea is still a big deal in the UK, we maybe don't have the
traditional 'tea time' quite so much, but it's rare that I go more than a
few hours without having a cup of tea. Every now and then we go traveling somewhere where they don't do tea, and it's just not right.
People shouldn't have to live like that.
Well that's the interview! It's refreshing to hear from musicians who are just as passionate about their
personal walk with God as their music.Our relationship with God is more important than anything in this
world.Thank Rivers and Robots for doing the interview and may the Lord bless you.
Photo Credits: http://riversrobots.bandcamp.com
