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John Elefante
Biography
John Elefante
With his second Pamplin Music release, John Elefante's rich musical heritage merges with a renewed sense of his mission in this life to produce the most vibrant and textured album of his career. Reaching back and drawing on the influences that inspired him to pursue music to begin with, John pulls them into the end of the millenium by blending them with his trademark vocal style and a modern sense of arrangement.
The result is Defying Gravity and a changed man. In the course of writing and recording the third solo project of his career, John had an encounter with God that profoundly affected the course of this album and his life.
When he first began work on Defying Gravity in the fall of 1998, John had a fairly clear vision for what he wanted to do, at least musically, on the album. "I knew I wanted to try some different things," he tells. "A lot of the music that I grew up with was playing through my mind at the time. There were so many cool musical things in the 70's -- Fleetwood Mac, Genesis, Supertramp, and a whole lot of others. They captured performances on tape, where now it seems like a lot of albums are pieced together. I wanted to go back to having a bunch of guys in a room, banging out some great songs. But it had to start with some great tunes."
In the past, John has worked almost exclusively with brother Dino in writing and producing his solo projects. This time, the pair brought in co-writers to help shape the music on some of the songs. "Dino and I still ended up writing five of the cuts. But I wanted to do some co-writing with people, because I wanted some other influences; I was getting a little bored with myself," John explains. "I worked with George Marinelli (Bonnie Raitt), Tony Palacios (Guardian), Scott Faircloff, Tommy Collier -- I wrote with a lot of different guys, but these were the ones that made the record."
Unlike most artists, John writes and records all of the music before ever getting into lyrics. "I've always written that way -- I've never been able to write a lyric first," he says. But when it came time to write them, none were forthcoming. "Dino and I were blank, lyrically -- we had nothing. I didn't know what I wanted to write about. I felt like it had all been said, and it felt like some of the lyrics I was coming up with were contrived. It was really frustrating. Now I know it's because I don't think I was completely living it."
During this time, his manager told him that an old acquaintance of John's -- that he hadn't heard from in almost a decade -- was trying to get in touch with him. According to his manager, the old friend had a dream that he felt compelled by God to tell to John.
John's initial reaction was less than enthusiastic. "I was thinking 'Right, "a word from God."' I am usually pretty skeptical of those situations, since I've had a few in my life that were clearly NOT from God." John avoided the guy for a little while, but finally broke down and gave him a call.
After the initial small talk, the friend told John that the dream meant nothing to him, but he felt strongly that it would mean something to John. He related that, in the dream, John and his family had just moved into a new house, and John was giving him a tour. He proceeded to describe the layout of the house and the way the rooms were decorated.
John listened with a growing sense of unreality. "Here is this guy, who I haven't spoken to in almost a decade, who lives in California, and he's describing my house, almost to the T. He's telling me about this room and that room, like he's been there. And we had moved into the house just three weeks prior to this phone call."
As the dream continued, John and his friend were standing in the kitchen of the new house, which has a hardwood floor. John's friend noticed that the floorboards in one corner were coming up and asked for a flashlight. As he looked under the boards, he informed John that there was a slight crack running through the foundation of the house, all the way around.
"And then he said, 'That's it -- that's the dream. Your foundation has a crack in it. I don't know -- maybe you need to call your builder and have him take a look,'" says John.
After a little more small talk, John hung up the phone. Almost promptly, he broke down. He remembers, "When I got off the phone, God turned on this faucet inside my heart, and I started crying like a baby. I hadn't cried like that in 20 years. God said to me 'The crack in the foundation is in your heart, not your house. There is a problem and you can't go on with this crack; it's got to be fixed."
"God spoke to me that the cares of this world were bogging me down way too much," continues John. " He said 'You're way too worried about this and that, and you're so caught up with the cares of this world that it's pulling you away from me. I have many things I want to do with you, but I can't use you anymore with this crack.'"
With his varied roles of husband, father, artist, producer, and studio owner, it's easy to see how John could get distracted. But, in his eyes now, none of those are an excuse. "You don't have to go out and get drunk, or have an affair on your wife to not be walking straight with the Lord. People think that something drastic has to happen to pull you away from God. Sometimes it doesn't happen overnight, with one big sin that you commit. Over a long period of time it can just develop. You can be in the Word, and going to church, but the cares of the world can start to pull you away from God. It happens slowly, but it happens. And that's where I was."
Returning to the studio a few days later, John related the story to Dino, and told him that he now had a focus for the album. "From that point, I knew I wanted to write about the transformation that took place in me. I said, 'Dino, I want these lyrics to be real. I want to live what I write about, I want to be what I write about. If I can't, then I don't want to make this record.' I didn't want to just contrive a bunch of songs. So, lots of the songs are about the cares of this world and how they bog us down. Some of them are done metaphorically, but that's pretty much how all of the lyrics came, and they came with ease after that."
Another realization that John came to during this time was the fact that he had never used the name of Jesus in a song. As he looks back on it now, he realizes that he was harboring a fear of appearing too "religious," especially to his peers in the mainstream musical world. A decision that it was time make a bolder statement about his faith resulted with Defying Gravity containing the most spiritually straightforward lyrics of his career.
"I've reached a point where I've decided that musically -- and in my life -- I'm not willing to only show 80% of the cross anymore, or 90%, but I'm trying to give 100%, because that's what it takes. I didn't try to use the name of Jesus for the sake of using it, but if it was appropriate in the song, and I needed to point directly to the cross or to Jesus, I said it-no holds barred. I didn't worry about what anybody might think."
John deals with those cares of the world in several cuts, including "Home With A View," and the title track. The concept of "Defying Gravity," both the song and the album, is a metaphor of resisting the pull of the world that separates a believer from a close relationship with the Father. Several other songs, such as "Exit 39" and "Pass The Flame," are story/songs that point back to the foundation of faith as the one constant in life.
But John's recent experiences are probably wrapped up in the song "Give It All Away." "As Christians, we say that we have faith in God, but so many times we don't give Him everything. We always hold some of our life back that we want to control. But when you give God just a little, you really don't give Him anything. Can we really give it ALL away? I think on is record, I can honestly say that I have." |
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