The Story of Voice of the Spirit

The majority of the songs for this CD were written in early 2004, thought the project began much earlier than that. Two of the songs, For the Love of Miss E and Follow Me, were written much earlier. For the Love of Miss E was written around 1998 after I saw Rik Emmett in concert. I was inspired by his acoustic numbers and came up with the chord structure and main melody. Follow Me came together in around 2001 when I was with Al’s Neighbors. About that time I had begun to get frustrated with playing in a cover band and was considering my musical direction. Something in the back of my mind kept calling me to do a CD of “Praise” music. In 2003, I recorded a CD with the St. Pius X Common Folk, which is how I met Brian. I decided to record a CD with my original band, the Real Emetics. During these sessions, we recorded Follow Me and I recorded For the Love of Miss E. However, everything came to a standstill after a few songs were recorded. We couldn’t get the three of us in the studio at the same time.

While rollerblading one day, it suddenly dawned on me that perhaps the Lord didn’t want me to record a CD with the Emetics. I gave it one more shot with the Emetics, and it was horrible. I then finally gave in to the Lord and began writing the songs on this CD. I had written about seven or eight songs in the preceding 10 years. Once I gave my music of to the Lord, I managed to write 10 songs in about 2 months. It was the most productive time of my life, musically speaking. Recording the CD has been inspired for me. I’ve gone into the studio not knowing what I would do and the most amazing things came to me. I can only say that the Spirit was working through me on these songs.

The name for the song and the CD came to me one day driving back from the public library. I was thinking about a good name for a spiritual group and that name came to me for some reason. It just happened to fit with a riff I had lying around that I planned to use for this project. I think that title says it all for this CD. I really feel that the Spirit has been moving me throughout this project and in these songs. I don’t know if they’re any good or not, but I’m proud of the result. I’d wanted to record a CD where I played all the instruments for some time, and I think this was the right vehicle. The songs came out pretty much the way I wanted them, with some guidance from Brian. He was instrumental in pointing me back on the right path when I wasn’t sure where I was going on some of these songs. He always just suggested things, but he was almost always right.

This project has taken a long time to complete, but it’s nice to have it finished. Additionally, this is probably the last time I will record a CD doing all the instruments myself. It’s way too much work! I hope you enjoy listening to the music as much as I enjoyed making it.