by David Dodd

       The roots for most of the guys in Jackson Waters can be traced back to John Brown University in Arkansas, but they’ve recently transplanted themselves to Nashville, the nucleus of the Christian Music Industry.   And as they focus on their present and future, you can’t help but look into their past at how God orchestrated the band’s lineup.

        Drummer Ryan Hawk’s first influence of Christian music occurred when he just turned thirteen.

       “There was this band that came out in Denver called Five Hundred Frenzy, and then it quickly became this huge thing in the Denver scene to be in bands if you were in a church youth group,” he tells Apostles That Rock as we talked with the entire band in a suite of a Nashville hotel.  “We formed a SKA band with some friends from church and we were just deftly terrible.  The second show we played was at a church with another band and they asked me if I’d like to play drums with them.  I stayed with them for 4 years.  We played shows in Denver and had a manager who was a youth pastor so he would always bring in bands and we’d open for them.     

       Back then it was the JCHC movement – Jesus Christ Hardcore – so these bands were staple punk rock Christian bands.  Once I got to college, I started a hardcore band which was even worse than the punk band and the SKA band before.”

       Ryan’s teenage years of playing hardcore for Christ were instantly shattered when he walked into a local coffee shop.  What he saw and heard changed his direction forever.  It was pretty simple, actually – a guy and a guitar - playing amongst the coffee-clique conversation of the cafe.  But through the noise of the patrons in the cafe rang out the radiance of the singer’s heart.  That guy, David Leonard, played the acoustic guitar and sang from his soul.  Ryan went into the coffee shop for a latté, and left the place with a stark revelation from above.

       “It changed everything for me, “he recalls.  “I saw David and thought, wow, that’s beautiful, and I knew if I was going to play music and take it seriously, I knew I had to do something diverse enough to reach more than a couple of hardcore fans.”

The two soon started playing and recruiting others to form a new band.  Jackson Waters was born.

       The band recently released their first national CD, Come Undone, a collection of 11 refreshing and wondrous tracks complimenting the Kingdom with contagious melodies wrapped around Biblical lyrics.  

       As we spent time together in Nashville, vocalist David Leonard discusses the true meaning and desire of the title track, Come Undone.

       “I guess it was just what was on our heart at the time, you know.  A lot of us had pasts that we really didn’t want brought up again; we had a lot of things that we wanted to leave behind. Come Undone talks a lot about moving forward and moving past the skeletons that are in your closet or the scars that you have and moving on to a life that’s past that. 

       It’s not like we’re going to be able to leave that or be able to forget the things that we’ve done in the past, but the beauty of God’s love is that He does, and just moving past that and trying to come into grips and come to the understanding that there is a person who loves me even for my failures and even when I’m wrong, even for when I fail Him all the time.  I think that’s the beauty of Come Undone.”

       It’s such a difficult yet significant subject for Christians to embrace - the idea of surrendering and letting go.  As Galatians 2:20 makes it perfectly clear, we need to die to ourselves. 

       Guitarist Toby Friesen continues the thoughts on the writing process of the title track.

“It’s just like the song says - coming undone - you can say it and go, ok, yeah, I need that, but it’s extremely difficult because you literally have to die to yourself, you literally have to deny yourself, deny the side of you that wants to do whatever feels good.  It’s an encouragement and it’s also a declaration, it’s all of that because it’s things we all can relate to and we need in our lives.

       We’re going through this together, but it’s really hard to do because for God to take control, you really have to just let go of yourself, you have to let yourself die.” 

        The guys embrace a lot of Scripture for strength, especially the book of Psalms.  For David Leonard, it’s a collection that has such great meaning and focus on his life today.  ‘We pull a lot from there because to just see that David was struggling the same way that we are now is comforting in a lot of ways.  There’s a lot of, ‘God , Where are You?’ in that book.”

        Other members chime in on the book of Proverbs as well, citing their trust in the Lord and holding strong in His direction.

        Bassist Brian Meek turns to Psalm 121 for guidance and comfort.

        “It’s the whole idea of God watching over us.  He won’t sleep, He won’t slumber.  And also going into Proverbs and other Psalms and knowing that if we are faithful, He will be faithful in return, despite our sin.  I mean, just look at King David, he was a man after God’s own heart, even though he failed in his own accord in his own will, he was still a righteous man of God.” 

As we focus on their first national single which is giving Jackson Waters their initial exposure as a Christian band worldwide, vocalist David Leonard’s manner slows down as his voice quiets when he reflects on the writing of Give Me Amazing Grace.

       “That one really just kind of happened; I got out of the way of that one,” he recalls.  “Really, the words just wrote themselves on that piece of paper.  It’s really something how God moved on that one; I can’t take a lot of credit for that one.”

       The national success is still so new to the band when we sat down together I could sense and see the amazement in their eyes at what God is doing with their musical ministry.  David’s humility shined through as he continued to discuss the song.

       “I know that sounds weird to say, but really, it’s a song that was written in about five minutes, it was something that just flowed out.  I guess it was something that we were totally feeling at the time, just needing His Grace.  I mean, I was so far deep - so deep that I can’t sleep - and it’s like, I’m so deep in this mud of my own sin and my own junk that I needed somebody to reach down and grab me.  We were totally feeling that at the time of the song and it just happened.”