I recently got an email out of the blue that sounded like a great little article for this website.
It said:
Wanted to reach out because I thought you might appreciate this one.
My roots in Christian music go back to the early days of Christian hip-hop when I cut my teeth on tour with Ill Harmonics, followed by years playing in worship bands. Like a lot of us, I thought I’d probably spend my life somewhere in the CCM world, but things took some unexpected turns and eventually led to multiple gold and platinum records in the mainstream world.
After all these years, though, I recently found myself back in familiar territory contributing to John James‘ comeback album (God Of The Second Chance), which has been a pretty surreal full-circle experience.
Looking back, it’s been a strange journey through Christian hip-hop, worship music, mainstream records, and somehow ending up right back where things started.
Not sure if it’s something you’d find interesting, but I figured if anybody would appreciate the weird interconnected nature of the Christian music world over the last few decades, it’d probably be you.
Thanks,
Chad Gerber
I read that email with a big smile. It was so cool to hear about his journey. I wanted to hear more. I wrote back and asked him if the new music he was working on was heavy or edgy enough to feature at heavensmetalmagazine.com.
He wrote back as the conversation kept flowing:
Man, closest I’ve gotten so far is hard rock back in my Warped Tour days, but I keep toying with a metal project for down the line lol. Who knows if I’ll ever get to it!
Basically I grew up in a blue-collar oil refinery town in Montana called Billings. Music hit me crazy hard after hearing Newsboys on the radio. I’d been taking classical guitar lessons since I was 7 and found it incredibly boring, but all of a sudden music clicked. After that I joined any and every band or worship team in town while sneaking backstage at Christian concerts and badgering people into telling me how they got into music, haha.
I finally had a breakthrough with my now close friend John Kavanaugh, who was touring with Out of Eden and Smalltown Poets. I sent him some demos, and at 17 he was flying me down to play in worship bands and record demos. Those demos eventually made their way to ill Harmonics in Dallas, and they just happened to need a guitarist for a tour. Next thing I knew, I was on my first tour. It was like living a dream. A smelly Taco Bell dream, but a dream nonetheless.
After that I ended up back in Montana doing church band stuff until I threw everything in my car and moved sight unseen to Los Angeles. I locked my ghetto apartment in place while driving through Vegas, and within 24 hours of moving in I was, thanks to God, making friends with Aloe Blacc. He started recording with me, and after several years of grinding in the underground scene and getting kicked around by the industry, I got a call from some major label artists. Through one of those weird God stories involving a recently saved manager and some friends from church, doors opened that eventually took me to Amsterdam, Brazil and beyond. Those records and relationships lead to gold and platinum records, and I just figured that was where life had taken me.
Then at random I came across John’s 700 Club interview while showing my kids my favorite bands on YouTube and was blown away. I decided to send him an email with strict instructions NOT to email me back, haha. I basically told him he was the reason I got started in music and that when he vanished, I carried that with me and was always bothered by never really knowing what happened. After watching his interview, I felt this weird weight off my chest.
Sure enough, the next day I had an email from him. I had hoped it was just going to be a “cool story mate, thanks,” but instead he wanted to jump on a call because he had checked out my music. I was hesitant because John was sort of my Paul McCartney and I didn’t want the magic ruined, haha.
I took the call and he told me how God was pulling him back into music for the first time in 30 years and asked if I’d play on some of it. That turned into months of sending stems and tracks back and forth (even while I was in the hospital for a near death experience, haha) before I found myself down in Tampa recording with him. The album itself started to blend the lines between John’s story and things God was doing in my life while we were making the record. It was something I’d never experienced before.
Obviously there are a million steps in between all of this, but that’s sort of the broad strokes. The whole journey has been a paint by numbers with God revealing things one hazy step at a time.
Anyway, thanks for asking. I appreciate you taking the time to read through all that. And thanks for mentioning Logan (Sekulow, new owner of CCM Magazine). I can definitely see why you thought of him. No pressure or expectations there, but I appreciate you thinking of me and I’d certainly be grateful for any connections you think make sense! I feel John genuinely deserves a win. I can’t stress enough what an incredible person he is. I’m fully aware he probably used to be a monster during his dark times, but he’d be the first one to tell you that God squashed that right out of him, lol. Plus this album is kind of dope. I am a bit biased of course.
You’re a legend Doug.
Well, if someone calls me a legend, an interview has to follow. Not really, but I wanted to share more of Chad’s story, so here goes my follow-up questions:
What songs or albums by The Newsboys did it for you?
“Shine” was one of those musical breakthrough moments for me. I can’t put into words how that song lit my brain up when it came on the radio. We didn’t really listen to music in my house growing up, but my Dad said it was fine if I listen to the Christian radio station and not even joking, I got to a point where I just knew when it was on and would flip the radio on and it would be playing. So “Shine” woke something up in me and then by the time Take Me To Your Leader hit, my room was full on covered in Newsboys posters. I learned how to play every single song from Going Public, Take Me To Your Leader, I’d riff over the Not Ashamed album for hours, and I kept listening even after John was gone up until Love Liberty Disco (which I enjoyed as well).
How much/what kind of music training (theory?) was inside of you when you got whisked into working at it in sessions, etc.?
My first instinct is to say not much but to be honest I used to watch music theory guitar videos after I stopped doing classical guitar lessons and theory, but the classical lessons actually made the transition into rock pretty easy considering how much harder classical is. The part that gets a bit murky is that I’ve never technically been a “session” guy, I just tell people it’s going to sound like Chad Gerber if I’m on it, so if they want a full-on session guy, they’re going to need to track down the Nashville players cause I can’t seem to sound like anyone but myself no matter how hard I try. Maybe I could have solved that had I stuck to my theory lessons.
What were some highlight memories of touring with Ill Harmonics?
Man, so many. One of the greatest experiences of my life. Some that jump out are Playdough sneaking on stage in a fake beard disguise crashing other band’s sets, Blake always being mad at our bass player who was perpetually late for everything, my first night on tour totally shanking the opening guitar part on live radio in Albuquerque, Blake and Playdough saving me fro me from a homeless guy trying to attack me in Chicago, or this one wild show where the power went out in the theater, the guys kept the crowd hyped while the venue figured things out, then ultimately the crowd rushed the stage and was all around us as we performed. Those guys are some of the sharpest, funniest people I’ve ever known. They thought me how to tour, handle the insanity of the business, and just overall how things worked under the hood.
You got married and had kids? What’s the story of meeting your wife/mother of your children, etc.?
Yeah somehow that worked out in the midst of all the chaos. I actually met her at a summer camp in high school, had a crush, then, as she says, “ghosted her” for nine years (I was 110% in the music circus). After the nine-year blip we reconnected and were married three months later, haha. She took over the business side of music and now runs the business side of everything else we do in tech like Meloscene. So in the end, I pulled her into the circus and it worked out.
What’s the basic story of Meloscene?
As a Gibson artist I was working on some technology ideas I had for guitar stuff and mentioned this project I was kicking around that lets you go into VR/AR virtual music studios and make real music using your real studio gear. They encouraged me to make it so I built these virtual spaces that allow for us to pull our computers in and work off each other, file share, and finally get to create music together, remotely, in ultra low latency. It’s actually kicked off into just a full creative platform now for anyone that wants to be present sharing their screen across the globe, so now it’s taken on a life of its own. I still use it for getting in the studio and tracking live with fellow musicians scattered across the globe, though.
What’s going on currently?
Currently I’m sitting on a few projects spanning underground electronic music under my moniker woodrowgerber, doing stuff in Meloscene, and now talking about the release of John James’ new album that I was apart of, God Of The Second Chance. It just came out so he’s doing press on that and the accompanying book Newsboy, while I’m still trying to process the fact that one of the artists who first got me into music is now somehow (for better or worse) one of my friends.
For more info and to stay in touch, check out Chad’s website.
