more inspiration

First of all, let me just tell you that I'm not trying to be all profound. I'm not like that.

Friday night was the Eikon show at the Loft to release their new EP, The Great Wall of Sound (to Keep the Mongols Out from the North). The actual title might be slightly varied...I've heard it like 502384 different ways and I still don't know which is technically correct. ANYWAY. It's events like this that remind me why I'm doing all of this.

I KNOW the guys in Eikon. I have had real conversations with all of them. I get to learn from Aaron every week and I used to see Ben almost every day just walking around my school like any other kid. I think it's things like this that make bands like Eikon so popular. They're just normal people, and you KNOW them, and then you get to see them doing what they love to do at shows and everything. I can watch someone like John Mayer, and yeah, he's awesome, but I don't know him. He doesn't really inspire me. All I know about him is what I gather through his lyrics. But with someone like Eikon, I can talk to them directly anytime I want AND get the chance to be in awe at their musical talent at the same time.

I had this conversation on my birthday with Monty, and he helped me indentify my reason for this whole music-writing-recording-playing-teaching-learning type thing I've gotten into. I don't do it because I want a bunch of people standing at the front of the stage yelling my name. That may or may not eventually happen, and either way is fine with me. I do it because I know there is probably a core group of people who see more than a kid on a stage with a guitar. All I want is for my lyrics to really be a big deal to someone. Maybe it will change something in them, and they'll be a little bit different to the people they know. And those people pick up on it, and something changes in them, too. And after time, all these people are changed because of God's work through me, even though maybe hardly any of them know my name or my music.

I don't care about how "big" I become. Whatever it is that's big inside of me, I just want it to swell to a point where I can't contain it anymore and it has to be passed on.

Aaron singing "Redundant" at the Loft, 05.30.08