Home > Music > Interviews
Coming from a Different Angle
Making music down under has helped Phil Joel bring his relationship with Christ up above all other concerns.
by Michael Herman
Spending a little time with Phil Joel, a solo artist and member of The Newsboys makes you want to hop on a jet to Australia. The way of life, the laid-back attitudes of many of the people there, and the wide open spaces that make up the scene and scenery of that country are all the more inviting when explained by this Aussie export.
There are a few things we wanted to know about Phil and his life with and without the boys from The Newsboys.
How has your relationship with God been coming through in your music
recently?
 Everything God takes me through usually ends up in a song. This record I've just recorded is about the last 27 years of my life. Each of the ten songs represents a landmark revelation that God has taken me through.
For example, I'm an adopted kid. I grew up in a great Christian family with loving parents. I had made a commitment to Christ when I was eight, but it was evident to most people that I was very different from these people. So as a teenager I asked myself, "Am I becoming whom I'm meant to be?" I struggled with reaching an identity.
Six months ago I finally got to meet my birth mother and learn about her and my father. My father was a musician from England, and my mother was a wig maker. Which is ironic because I became a hairdresser when I left school. Both of those things had a part to play in who I became. But I realized that after meeting my birth parents I was not like them either. I realized for the first time in twenty-seven years that my identity is not in nature or in nurture. Yes, my family and my friends and my surroundings have had a part to play on my life. Of course, hereditary traits have played a part. But I had become and am becoming the person I am due to the fact I have a relationship with Christ. This commitment I made when I was eight and have tried to live up to all those years is the reason I'm becoming the man I am.
Some of the songs on your album have a Newsboys sound to them. But it's something that's new at the same time.
I've really learned how to write pop music through Peter [Furler]. We've been writing songs together over the past five years. I've been figuring out how to write pop: three-and-a-half minute songs where people get in, hit the chorus, it's a hook and it's out. It's good and it's polished. That is a gift, because not a lot of people get to learn how to write like that. I've been given a gift to be able to study under Pete.
Also, I come from a country of three million people. So when we're going to write a song down there, any songwriter, whether Christian or non-Christian, writes from an honest place. There's not a single thought about it being a pop hit or making money out of it or becoming huge from it because there's no chance. It's a great heritage.
I think my music is still very radio friendly, but at the same time it's honest and it's vulnerable. I don't think it's preachy. I wanted it to be experiential. I think people want to see that other people wrestle with their faith too, and go through difficult times as well. So on this record there's the good, the bad, and the ugly. I'm pleased with it. I think we caught some good moments.
What part of who you are really drives this album to become what you want it to be?
What I would like is for people to listen to this record and sense a little of my pilgrimage and my faith. We can read a book about a great man of God or we can even listen to a record from a great man of God and think we need to become like these people. I don't want people to try to become like me necessarily, but for people to see that I'm a human being that loves God and enjoys him and at times wrestles with him and am on a pilgrimage myself. I want them to feel like they just looked into a window to this guy's soul for forty minutes and that it was good.
It's a personal record and there's a lot of me in there. That sounds self-indulgent, but it's not. The idea is that others will see that I wrestle with his faith and have trouble understanding why there is suffering.
"There is a song called "Fragile," and it talks about a dear friend who came to me to tell me of a terminal illness. I still can't understand that. I can't understand why this person has to suffer. The only thing I do understand and I can hold onto is that God is in control. That's all I know. I want people to see that. I want people to see that I wrestle with that.
Do you have a burden for a certain group of people?
I do, for church kids. I love them with a deep passion. A lot of these songs are written about my teenage years and about things I wrestled with back then. I think Christian kids will relate to them because I'm a church kid. I know the things that they struggle with. I do.
During the past two years, I've been coming into a deep appreciation for what God's given me here with this platform. It's great. I love it. I'm so blessed. I love having a group of people that I'm passionate about and I want to see become stronger disciples.
The greatest part of the job for me right now is the "meet and greets" after the Newsboys shows. I get to meet all these kids. A lot of times I can't spend a whole lot of time with them because I have to get down the line and sign, but just being able to smile and say, "Hey, how did you enjoy the show?" and just touch them on the arm or give them eye contact. That means so much to them.
I met Stryper when I was kid. That kind of sounds goofy, but I met them and it was a really cool thing. I met these guys that I thought were really cool and I liked their music, and one of them just gave me a little smile and said, "Hey." That was it. That brief encounter just made me think this faith, this Jesus thing, this Christianity, this is good. It's all right. I'm in the right place. And I can do that every night to a hundred kids.
If this first solo album ends up being your only one, what would you choose to do after that?
I've always fantasized about going to L'Abri Fellowship International in Switzerland (http://www.labri.org/) for a while and hanging out there. I would get some good solid teaching.
Then I would move into youth ministry. I see such a need. My wife, Heather, has the same deep passionate desire to see kids come to Christ and to feel the love that we know. I think we all wrestle with truly understanding the fact that God does love us. I think kids wrestle with guilt and don't understand or grasp the whole grace thing as strongly as they should. These are the same sort of things that we wrestled with when we were kids.
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Try an Issue of Today's Christian Woman Free!
|
 |
|
No credit card required. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only. Click here for International orders.
If you decide you want to keep Today's Christian Woman coming, honor your invoice for just $17.95 and receive five more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The trial issue is yours to keep, regardless.
Give Today's Christian Woman as a gift
Buy 1 gift subscription, get 1 FREE!
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
| |
|
