"Ever since that day, I knew that Jesus loved me,
that He forgives me, and that He gives me the
strength to live like Him instead of like the world."
Interview by Caroline Gutierrez
March 22, 2026
Let's travel back in time to early 2020. You released a song called “King of Kings”, but took it down. It's back up now, but can you talk to us about that whole process? What was going on with you spiritually? What has the Lord taught you?
I set up my own studio in my bedroom in 2020, and that was the first song that I made. I had just gotten baptized that year, which was actually the year of Covid. Up until that point, I'd been a Christian my whole life, but I fell away when I got to college. It was a whole new world. Then I got involved in a church nearby, it was so amazing for me, and I eventually got baptized in that church. I sat down and wrote that song, and then once Covid hit hit, I was trapped in my room, and I was like, "Let me put a studio up in my room.” That was the first one I ever recorded and released. I took it down because I don't think I was in a position to release worship music solely for the glory of God. I released it and I almost thought “maybe I can become a famous musician off of this.” That was why I took it down, and I don't think my heart was right behind it. When I re-released it last year, I had finally grown. I feel like I had to grow in my faith before I could be used by God in that kind of way. I really felt like my heart was right, and I felt like it was a good callback, like I'm going back to making music solely for the glory of God now.
You say your song “I'll Give You The Praise” came to you in a dream. What was that like?
I released that in September of last year with the EP It came to me in a dream maybe earlier that year. Around 7 am, right before I was going to wake up, I remember hearing this in my dream, and then I woke up and realized it was a whole melody in words that I've never heard before. I don't think this is a song that already exists. I went over to my guitar, wrote it down, opened a voice memo and recorded it. I wrote all the lyrics and the guitar melodies. So I kept that and wrote all the lyrics right there, and I heard the chorus melody, and pretty much wrote everything, and it was like it all came to me right there in that moment. When I recorded it, that was a long process. It took several months just to get that going, to get that produced.
Speaking of your EP (“Songs for a Spirit”), you released that one song at a time over four months. Why?
I had never done an EP release like that before. I had previously released an EP under a different artist name “The Soldier”. That was kind of going along with those lines of re-releasing that song “King of Kings” with the right heart. I tried to make music my job more so than giving glory to God. I always tried to work God into the songs. I released it all at one time, and I don't know if people really listened to all of these songs. Maybe they just listened to the first one because it's just an EP release. Maybe they didn't spend time with it. I thought maybe releasing them one at a time, when I finally came back and had that experience in my faith, I can tell you more about that, too. There's a lot of lore here. My wife and I got married in 2022. We moved to Hawaii, and we came back a little later because it's just really expensive out there and hard to make it work. When we came back, we got really involved in a church, and I started helping to lead the youth group and I was on the worship team there. That was a catalyst for me getting even deeper in my faith and maturing in my faith. That was when I was able to realize that the Lord was speaking to me and drawing my heart towards making worship music or songs that are clearly about Him. That's what came along with releasing those songs one at a time, that past experience. I don't know if people really listen to all of this at once. Maybe if I do it one at a time, they'll get the whole picture.
Have you always been musically inclined? Did this affect you coming to Christ?
When I was in third grade, my parents asked me and all my brothers if we wanted to take guitar lessons. I was the only one who was like "Yeah, sure, let me do that." My brothers did it for a little while, and then they kind of stopped just because it wasn't really their passion. For me, I liked it. Ever since I started learning guitar, I think I was maybe eight or nine, I would write my own songs, record myself playing covers of songs, and upload them to YouTube. Just fun stuff. I've always written songs about God growing up in the church. It had always been a part of my life. The first song I ever wrote and showed to other people was a song called “Mountains”, and the chorus of it was “climbing the mountains can be so hard, but you don't know I'm here”. God was speaking to me, saying “you're gonna go through hard times, but you're not looking for Me, so look for Me.” I'd always been musically inclined, and then when I was growing up, I would just sit down at different instruments and be like "I can play something that kind of sounds good." Eventually I got my hands on a keyboard and put some loops together, and realized that I could do that, too. Then when I set up that studio in my room, it was a bass, a guitar, keyboard, microphone, electric guitar, and acoustic guitar. I had set this up because Covid hit. I was playing football at that time, in the Division 1 levels, so that was like a full job. Then Covid hit, and we weren't doing anything. They sent us all home because everyone was in quarantine, and I had been working a job back home at Dunkin' Donuts. I saved up some money and it honestly was just so inspiring. It really was the Holy Spirit being like “This what I wanted you to do, get these things. This is where you need to get. Make it and set it up.” So I did, and if Covid didn't hit, and if I didn't feel inspired to do it, I would have never set up that studio.
Give us your elevator testimony. You meet somebody in an elevator, you have one minute to share salvation with them using your story. How do you do it?
I grew up in the church, going to church with my family. I had always been passionate about Jesus, and passionate about my faith, because it always seemed like the right thing to me. When I was a very young kid, I was at my kitchen counter, and told Jesus “I want to accept You into my heart and be saved." So from that point on, I always had my faith, but I never experienced the love of God or the presence of God, until my freshman year of college. I had fallen away from my faith and got dragged down into some things of the world. I went into a church auditorium one Sunday morning, and when I walked into the auditorium, I started bawling my eyes out. The second I walked in there, worship music was playing. It was the first time in my life I had ever experienced an overwhelming sense of love and warmth and peace. It was a feeling that I couldn't describe, and it changed everything for me. I knew immediately that it was Jesus wrapping me in His arms. Ever since that day, Christianity was no longer just something that you attend or that you do, it was something that was real, something that changes your life, in a way that I don't think I have the words to fully explain yet. Ever since that day, I knew that Jesus loved me, that He forgives me, and that He gives me the strength to live like Him instead of like the world. The feeling you get when you live like Him is that overwhelming sense of love, joy, and peace, and even if you don't feel that in the moment, once you go through a struggle or through a battle, or you resist something, at the end of it, you realize that His way is better, and it doesn't leave you feeling empty like the world, and it leaves you feeling fulfilled and completely satisfied. I think that would be my elevator pitch.
What is your life verse?
There's a lot to choose from. One verse that I come back to all the time is from Lamentations (3:25-26) “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” It's something that I repeat to myself all the time. If I'm struggling to get through a day, or if things are a little bit hard in the moment, I just repeat that, and I feel a calmness go to me because of saying those words.