Jeremy Wilson: Pursuing Musical Dreams Through God

Chasing your dream often means changing your life and giving up the stability of working a regular job. People often struggle with this decision in life to abandon the "real world" and get with their dream world. For Jeremy Wilson, giving up his not-so-normal life to play music full time was not a decision he struggled with because his faith made it easy for him. Since then he's recorded two CDs (My Unknown Paradise and The Sheep In The Mustard) and has played in several area venues. This interview reflects what it's like to make the life change.

What made you quit your day job?

"I was a jet engine mechanic on the C-5s at Travis Air Force base...for 5 ½ years. I got honorably discharged. I think just the passion I've always had for singing and sharing love of God for music (helped me quit). Music is such a universal language that enables you to share with people who might not listen to you otherwise about spiritual things but they might listen to your music. I can share the gospel of God and what God has done for my life and how he's impacted the people around me.

I assume you were playing at the church for awhile before you decided not to reenlist.

I think we (he and his wife, Melissa) were there for 2 years before I got out. I was doing full time at the church. I was the youth pastor and the worship pastor.

While you were still in the Air Force?

I was helping lead worship while I was still in, but then as soon as I got out I was there full time as the youth pastor and the worship pastor at the same job for a year. After words I scaled down to just the worship pastor. Now my actual title is artist-in-residence, which basically means I'm a Christian music artist which has residence at my home church (Solano Valley Church in Fairfield, California). I'm there part time and the rest of the time I'm working on music and getting around the area to different churches and venues to share music. This gives me a chance to pursue my music full time instead of having a job like the Air Force when I worked 12-hour shifts.

Why are you doing faith-based music as opposed to anything else?

A lot of times I think of my music as music about life because I write about things that happened in my life. But the most significant thing that's happened is my relationship with Christ. Because of that my only natural response is...where it overflows out of my heart and my mind and my mouth. It's interesting because before I gave my life to Christ I was never really good at writing lyrics. It was usually about somebody else's poems or ideas and not necessarily works of my own. I was mostly writing about girls and material possessions, but after I gave my life to Christ, I took out all the old songs that I had and threw them out. Even now I don't remember how those songs go, almost like it was wiped from my memory. I take that as a symbol of what he's done for me.

Do you think its ok for faith-based artists to listen to other music?

I think it's just something you really want to monitor (what you're listening to). I enjoy listening to other kinds of music because it gives me a flavor of what other people enjoy and what's out there. One thing I really try to do is monitor what I'm listening to. Certain songs that have swear words and different things that are...maybe songs that have a sexual theme or something (I won't listen to). I'll try to turn it down if there's a swear word. There's a lot of good stuff out there that doesn't have those themes or swear words and they're secular songs.

That's a good point that you make because some people believe they can only do Christian music, whereas you believe that the world is out there and if you can take a piece of that music with you, you can bring more people to you. Some churches won't allow a worship team to begin with.

I would love to have my music playing on any radio station like Carrie Underwood's "Jesus Take the Wheel."

U2 is getting a lot of songs played into ministry.

A lot of their earlier songs dealt with God.

Are we looking forward to any new music anytime soon?

I'm recording another song right now; I'm still working on the title. It's going to be a little bit harder than any of the other stuff I've done. I'm excited about this one and I hope it opens other doors for me musically. It's pretty electric-driven; the drums are going to be pretty, uh, rock drums that my friend Dan Mikkola is playing on. It's a song about purity and standing up for a pure revolution.

I'm looking forward to hearing you play that over the world.

I'm looking forward to getting a band together so I can do that (laughs)

What are some of the more interesting places that you've played?

The most interesting to me was Stand and Be Counted last year in Vacaville because that was the first music festival I'd been to. It was kind of neat to be able to share the stage with Mercyme and The Afters.

I would also say back in 2001 I played with a band at my church in the Air Force. We played all kinds of stuff from "Mr. Jones" by Counting Crows" and then we played one by Natalie Imbruglia called "Torn". It was cool because we were playing for a few hours while air planes were flying by and different people were coming by to see us.

You can catch Jeremy Wilson live most Sundays at 10 am at Solano Valley Church.