Jamie Soles


Jamie Soles is a musician out of Alberta Canada. He is probably best known for forging his own style of original Christian family music. I will resist the temptation of turning this introduction into a glowing review of each one of his albums. Some of his albums are geared more toward kids, and some toward adults, and they all demonstrate artistic integrity and uncompromising Biblical lyrics. He has samples of his music available at his website, and of course you can also purchase it there, which I recommend you do.

http://www.solmusic.ca/

Jamie was kind enough to take some time and answer a few questions for the Working Class blog. So enjoy the interview, and then go to his site and get some great music for the young and the old.


WC: Where did you grow up?

JS: I grew up in northern British Columbia. I was born in a city called Prince George, and spent most of my growing up years in a village called Chetwynd, which is 60 miles west of Dawson Creek, the mile 0 point of the Alaska Highway.

WC: How far is where you live now from the US border? Do you come to the US often?

JS: My home is now in Grande Prairie, Alberta, a city of about 50,000 on the 56th parallel. It takes an 11 hour drive straight south to reach the Canadian/American border. These days I seem to be making it into the States 2 or 3 times a year, sometimes for concerts, sometimes for church related events.

WC: Tell us more about your first recording efforts. What were your first studio experiences like?

JS: I had aspired from the time I was 13 to be a recording artist, but the opportunity never arose until I was 22 to actually go into the studio and record something. Our band, Damascus Road, was pretty popular among the young in our town, and we felt we needed to get some of our songs recorded. If I recall rightly, one of our guys informed us in June that he had booked the studio for 2 days in September. Not knowing what it was like in the studio, and thinking too highly of ourselves, we agreed, even though we knew that we would not be able to get together to practice until the week beforethe studio was booked. We recorded 10 songs in a total of 9 hours and made our first cassette. I remember being absolutely sick of that album by the time it came out, but the kids in town weren't. They bought 76 of them at our first concert after they arrived...

WC: Back in the day you had a band named Damascus Road. Reflecting back on those days, what were some of the victories and pitfalls from that era?

JS: The Lord used this time in my life to solidify my pursuit of music as a career. I was writing songs and they seemed to be well received by those around me, which only encouraged me. Working in close proximity with others in the band showed up a number of problems, though, where wisdom was needed and all we had were short tempers.

WC: Having been raised in a Christian home, tell us about the pull that the"rock and roll lifestyle" had in your life, if any. Did you have tendencies toward rebellion, or was that not really an issue for you?

JS: The Rock-and-Roll lifestyle really had no pull on me, even as a youngster. It seemed quite obvious to me that if I pursued immorality I could not pursue Christ at the same time, and immorality seemed to me to be the constant companion of all these rock stars. No thanks. I remember a time when I was 9 or 10 when my older siblings came home from a youth conference (Bob Larson was the speaker) and burned all their rock records. I didn't miss them till I was a mature adult, then I wished they hadn't...:-) I never went through a period of teen-age rebellion, and neither did any of my siblings. It seems to me that there was a firm expectation on my father's part that his children would grow up to love and serve the Lord, and the Lord honored his faith.

WC: Tell us more about the means that were used in bringing you to"reformed" theology. For example: Books, people, personal study?

JS: I suppose that there is some level of "Oh, yeah?" in me. When I reflect on how a number of the major changes in my beliefs have come about, I see that they happened when I was being told by someone "Don't look there!" or "You can't read THAT book!" or "Don't listen to HIM!". These tactics backfire with me quite often. I was working at the Christian bookstore one day, when a shipment came in of a new book from Hal Lindsey. I was quite familiar with him already (and by this time, thankfully, the Lord had given me the sense to take the Hal Lindseys’ of the world with a grain of salt), but I thought I had best familiarize myself with his book if I was going to sell it. It was called "Road to the Holocaust", subtitled "The Dominion Theology movement among us could lead us, and Israel, to disaster!" "What is Dominion Theology?" said I, so I looked in his book to find out. Lo and behold, some of the promoters of this nefarious theology were sitting on our shelves, and I picked up one called "The Reduction of Christianity" by Gary DeMar and Peter Leithart, and began to read for myself what was so bad about these guys. I never even made it through the foreword before I knew that these fellows were onto something that Lindsey was missing. They expounded several things in that book; covenant theology, Calvinism, presupposition apologetics, theonomy, and most importantly to my need at the time, postmillennialism. My conundrum was fixed. 1 Cor. 15:58 really was true, I could work for the upbuilding of God's kingdom in full assurance of faith without having to worry that all my labor was going against God's plans. God was sovereign not only over men but over history as well, and He would certainly accomplish all that He set out to do. What a relief! It was like being born again, again!

Suddenly, Calvinism made perfectly good sense to me, now that I had a framework for it. If God can choose the ends for all of history and accomplish them, then surely He can do so for men on an individual basis as well. If He can do it on a grand scale, surely He can do it on a small scale!This was my entrance into things "reformed". It came thru a change in eschatology for me, from pre-mil to post-mil.

WC: St Anne’s Pub interviewed you awhile back. What kind of response did you receive from that? Were you able to reach more people as a result?

JS: That St. Anne’s Pub interview opened up hundreds of doors for me. I found myself shipping CDs to states I had never shipped to before. It really seemed to resonate with people who want to fill their children's bones with Bible.

WC: Do you have any plans for more mid-week traveling/performing when your children get older?

JC: Ideally, if I could fly to Roanoke (or Dallas, or Sacramento, etc) on a Monday, and do 3 or 4 well-planned concerts in the area, and be home by Friday, and do this once a month all year round, I could probably make a living for my family doing this. I don't have any well formulated plans for doing this yet, but I am working toward it. I am actively looking for opportunities to sing in churches and classical Christian schools. If you know of any that want to host me, let me know!

WC: If someone said to you "Modern popular music has it all wrong", and then asked you how to set it all right, what would your advice be?

JS: "Modern popular music has it all wrong." I'm not sure I would agree that it's got it ALL wrong. But I am also not at all sure that I am the man to say how to fix what IS wrong with it. I do think there is something seriously wrong with most modern North Americans taste buds. Musicians can make their noise as ugly as they are, but people buy it by the millions. So where is the real problem? I listened to and watched a youtube presentation of a skit recently, done to a song called "Everything", by Lifehouse. Great skit! But the song that formed the backbone of the skit was almost unintelligible. I had to read the words in order to understand it, the singer mumbled so badly. But lo and behold, there were 3.8 million hits on that skit. I must be missing something. Maybe it is the frequency in my hearing where all the lyrics were... Oh, singer! Stop mumbling! Enunciate your words! Get out of bed at least 1 hour before you appear for a public performance! Shave! Wash your face! Practice!

WC: You seem to play almost exclusively acoustic, is that correct? What type of guitar equipment did you use for the rockier sounds on Weight ofGlory for example?

JS: I am an acoustic guitar guy. On Weight Of Glory I borrowed my friends electric for a few songs. But most of my instrumentation is done by my most excellent studio guy, Craig Learmont. He is one of those fellows who can play everything, and do it much better than you. He makes me sound better than I do, believe me.

WC: If you could sit down and talk music with any musician, past or present, who would it be and why?

JS: If I could sit down with any musician, past or present, I think I would choose David. I'd get him to sing the Psalms for me as they were originally done, then I could take what I heard and record it, and be hailed as an innovative genius (Or run out of town as a troublemaker, as the case may be)... We have been trying to figure out how to sing the psalms in the church for the last 500 years, and I don't think we have come as close as we think we have.

WC: Have you ever attended one of those big Christian music festivals, like Creation Fest or Cornerstone? If so, what was your impression?

JS: In 1985 I went to a festival in Seattle and watched White Heart, and DeGarmo & Key, and some others. It was all very cool as far as I was concerned. I went home and practiced screaming till I could sing as high as that guy from White Heart could... In 1988 I played on a side stage at a festival (I think it was a pre-Creation-Fest festival) in Pennsylvania. I was staying with a Mennonite pastor who, as it turned out, was the fellow who shut off the power at a Larry Norman concert at a previous Creation Fest because he was offended by his lyrics. Left Larry dark and quiet... He didn't do the same to me, so I felt good about my lyrics...

WC: The traditional evangelical church usually had a choir. Many reformed churches currently do not for various reasons. Where do you stand in the role of a traditional church choir?

JS: I have not given a lot of thought to the propriety of a church choir. I think it would be a helpful thing for teaching the congregation new songs, and that it should be in the back of the sanctuary, to support the congregation.

WC: For the young people out there that are trying to learn guitar, and do not have access to an experienced teacher, what would your advice be to them? Are there certain musicians they should imitate to help them along,or should they steer clear of that method?

JS: There are plenty of online courses on how to play guitar that are now available. If someone is a self-starter they could follow this course; if not, you really need a regular teacher... I never took lessons myself. I learned by fooling with the guitar, and when I saw someone play something on it, I watched their hands and then did what I saw them do. I would experiment with sounds. I would play 1 string, then play with my finger on the next string until I found a note that harmonized with the first one. When I found a harmony note, I would try to find another one on the next string that would work with both the others. I found lots of chords that way, but I didn't learn what they were until I had some music theory under my belt.

WC: Technology is changing the way we live at an incredible rate. In 2003, one of my interview questions to Kevin Kribs was "Downloading music from the internet: for or against?". Of course at the time I was referring to the ill-defined music swapping practices that were in full swing. Today that question seems ambiguous. The music industry seems to be slowly catching up with the technology, and many artists are making their music available to download for a fee. Where do you think this all ends up? For example, will the traditional 12-15 song album become obsolete, being replaced by a steady release of online singles? Do you see this "music distribution revolution" if you will, helping the little guy, or will artists still need a big record company to really make themselves heard?

JS: I don't think that full length CDs are going to go out of style anytime soon, but there is definitely a trend toward downloading the music from the net. I do think this will help the little guy and make life difficult for the big music corporation. And the guys that will really do well are the ones who will figure out how to connect the little guy with the most customers. CDBABY is a great example, as far as I can tell. The future of music distribution is in the hands of guys like these.

WC: I have this theory that many young men embrace loud and heavy music because they are generally wired for a call to go, work, fight, protect,etc. The theory goes there is some sort of relationship forged between the fire within young men and the aggressive nature of heavy music. How do you approach the question of “how heavy is too heavy"? Lyrical content aside, how do we formulate a Biblical filter through which to judge the spirit of the sound itself?

JS: I don't have much to say about this. Music needs to be done skillfully and well, whatever the genre. If there are vocals, they need to be heard clearly, and if they aren't, the singer may as well shut up, especially if the band purports to be Christian. Music needs to match with lyrics. Music can, I think, be ugly on purpose, but it needs to be called what it is, and it should not be singing a song of praise or a wedding song or a lullaby if it is ugly. Ugly themes and ugly music go well together, but screaming in angry voices with dissonant instruments should stay away from the corporate worship of God. Heavy music should not be regarded as all-occasion music, as so often happens among those who love it. I know several young men who love this sort of music, and have no inclination whatsoever to go, work, fight, protect, etc. Perhaps it serves that function in their fantasies, but they need to grow up and put off their fantasies. The aggressive nature of the music, if not guided by godly principle in other areas of life, will produce rapists and other power mongers, but it won't produce godliness.

WC: In your bio on your website you mentioned an effort to turn away from subjective "this is how I feel" songs and toward "this is what God has done" kinds of songs. Please elaborate on this for us, and tell us why there is such a need for this right now.

JS: I think there is a great need for "this-is-what-God-has-done" songs, because there is a great dearth of knowledge in the church about what God has actually done. I have been in churches where they boasted about being "people of the Book", but they had very little knowledge of the contents of that Book. You could tell them story after story of things that happened in the Bible, but they had never heard of them before. I have been in churches which were good at catechism, but were still lousy at Bible stories. I mean, how can a boy grow up to be a man and not know the tale of Ehud? There are a lot of stories in the Bible, and a lot of ways to approach each story that will make it come to life. I have been making songs about these stories for years, but there needs to be an army of songwriters doing what I am doing if we are ever going to cover the whole Bible. And this goes not only for story songs but for psalms. There needs to be a bunch of artists who will catch the vision to see the church singing the psalms again with all her might. There are not enough of them yet. Perhaps the Lord will be gracious to us, and send us a whole bunch more.

WC: Lastly, please share with us a few blessings in your life that you would like to give God praise and thanks for.

JS: I thank God for my home church, Christ Covenant Church in Grande Prairie, AB. Canada (CREC) www.christcovenant.ca There is much good that the Lord is doing among us and for us, in our worship and in our body life. I thank God for my wife Val, and my children Timbrel, Zion, Judah, Jewel, Jonathan, Eden, Chloe, and Joseph. They fill my house with music and laughter. God has done great things for me, and I am glad.

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