OFF THE CHARTS: Authentic Stories of Indie Musicians - Interview with "Z"

I’m looking at a guy who can’t tell me his full name. He can’t tell me where he is located. Still, I feel a connection and kinship that goes beyond the fundamental markers of identity. We connect on a different plane, a different dimension. We connect on music.

I call him “Z.” He is in an undisclosed location with an unassuming appearance. He’s a normal guy on the outside, but on the inside, a creative and adventurous spirit who paints outside the lines. I hope his life is as inspiring to you as it is to me. Even as he is hidden within a culture he's not allowed to talk about, I get the sense that he knows he is exactly where he is supposed to be.

First of all, “Z” is not your real name. Tell us why you use a pseudonym.

I'm living in a country that doesn't allow people to openly talk about the gospel, Jesus, or God. Yet to get permission to live here, I have to obtain a visa every year or so. So likely if the government knew all I was involved with they wouldn’t want me to remain here.

So this is really cool. Even though I can’t ask you about your true name or location, I can still connect with you about parts of your personal life and the role music plays in your life. You signed up for my Music Mentorship Program (MMP) class a couple of years ago. How did you find this program? 

I was on your newsletter list because of your album Somniscape. It was beautiful, and it’s the kind of music I'd like to write. Then I started listening to more of your other albums, and I loved the ethnic flavors you added. I just felt upon seeing your mentorship class that I should do it because I had no mentor to push me further in my music and show me my weaknesses. Somehow, I knew if I signed up, you would pick me, so I did it.

You were right about that! Your unique situation was striking even at the application stage. I found it interesting that you're making great music in an isolated, remote place. Tell us some more about why you make music?

When I was 19, I felt like God was asking me to take His message to places that had never had the opportunity to hear it before. There was this rock band out of Hong Kong with some top charting songs, and they asked me to join them. While that was great fun, I felt I still felt this deeper calling so I ended up moving to Central Asia. At that time, there was only one known believer out of several million people. One! Everyone else has a Muslim background. Eventually there became a handful of guys who wanted to follow Jesus. We met together regularly, but they had zero worship songs. A lot of religions don't have worship songs where you sing to a deity in adoration. They might have music, but singing in adoration to God the creator? No. 

…we're going to miss the beauty of their art and their culture if we just start off with these Western songs. So what I did was listen to their local music and tried to write new songs in their style.

Yeah, that's something I don't think about in America.

In order to help facilitate worship, I didn’t feel like translating Western songs or hymns into this language was the best approach, which is what people normally do. But I just felt like, "God, if we do that then we're going to miss how You created people uniquely, and we're going to miss the beauty of their art and their culture if we just start off with these Western songs." So what I did was listen to their local music and tried to write new songs in their style. Later, I learned how to teach others to write music in their own culture or in their own style. 

I admire that so much and think it's beautiful that you’re on a journey to embrace and learn from the culture you have joined. I can relate because that's how I approached the album Awakened to the Sound. I could have just made an album and contracted a sarangi player from India to have him play additional tracks to my music. But instead I called this sarangi player (Suhail Yusuf Khan) and flew him out for a few days so I could first just sit and listen to him play. And as I got a feel for his art, I wrote an album around the expression already there in him and his instrument.

The music that we listen to or grow up with really resonates deep in our hearts. So, to miss that in the worship of God would be missing a lot.

So what do you do to make a living and how does music play a part in that? 

In the last few years I’ve worked on Bible translation. Wycliffe (Bible Translation organization) only works in countries with permission from the government. But in this particular country, the government would not have given permission to translate the Bible to this people group’s language. So then the people on the ground like us started working on it. I worked on the book of Psalms and a couple of other poetic books. The unique thing about this people group that is really fantastic is that they deeply love poetry in ways that Americans can't relate to. 

[Laughing] Right, we don't sit around at coffee shops and read poetry to each other very often, do we?

Not so much, only in weird places [laughter]. But this people group might have poems in their newspaper every day. Or on a special occasion, instead of a song, they'll have a poem written for the occasion. So I said we need to (if possible) put the translation of the Psalms in their poetic forms, not just translate prose. There are hardly any English translations that do this. So we attempted to do it, and because of a local poet, it worked! It's quite beautiful, and when you read the Psalms in this language, it sounds wonderful. It's not like a rhyme at the end of every sentence, but their poetry form has a lot of rhythm. 

So we finished that and have this website where we put that Bible translation for people to find. But then we thought, what if we added some background music or something that added to the emotion of what was being said? So now I do that a lot and I love it. I work not only with the music but also with the spacing where the words are said, working with each cue. This people group loves it! It's kind of a bridge, too, because Muslims believe in the book of Psalms. They believe it is God's word, so it is an intermediate step to introduce the whole Bible. Using this music in the Psalms we can put it online or just give it to people, passing it from phone to phone. It's great. People are touched by it.

That's amazing. In your application (to MMP) you sent me some of that music, and it was beautiful. I loved it. I can see why Somniscape resonated with you because that style of music is all about creating space instead of creating a hook that will take up the space. I really enjoy what you do, and I appreciate the sensitivity and the emotion that you put into the music.

I find that when I am making background music, I sometimes have to take out the hook or else it takes attention away from what's being said.

Agreed! So you have a family and normal life to take care of. How do you integrate music, creativity, and inspiration with the rest of your life? I ask this question with our readers in mind. Most of them are not professional musicians. They are working their jobs at Starbucks or doing what they need to do for a living while trying to figure out how to make time for this hunger and love for music.

Well, it's a process, and I'm still trying to figure it out. It's time, isn't it? When can you have time? I learned from you about waking up at 4 a.m. in the morning. Do you still do that?

I do. I was up at four today. 

And ice baths that get you going?

Yeah, I still do those as well. 

You're a lot more hard-core than I am. I do have a wife and three young kids who all need my attention more than music needs my attention. Fortunately, I am able to do a lot of music during my “work hours,” but it goes in spurts. Sometimes I'm working on the distribution of things and other times I'm working on creative things.

I can empathize with people who are trying to fit music into their lives but don't have the physical space for it. 

People love their own music and their indigenous instruments.

So when you say "work hours" I see you were putting those in quotes with your hands. That's a loaded quote because you know most people don't have music hours, so what does that look like for you?

I generally try to keep work hours from 9 to 5, but there are a lot of things that go in there. For one, there’s a lot you have to do living overseas that you wouldn’t have anywhere else. There's a lot of administration. It takes longer to shop because you don't know how to do things here, and you have to navigate a different culture so everything just takes longer. I also live in a three-bedroom apartment. We homeschool, but don't have a dedicated place for homeschooling. The only dedicated place for music is at the end of a little hallway. So, I can really empathize with people who are trying to fit music into their lives but don't have the physical space for it. My only solution is to use a decent set of headphones (Steven Slate Audio VSX). As far as time goes, I have the ability to block things out and focus on whatever I'm doing. The detriment is if somebody's calling my name, I might not hear them because there's always a hum going on around me in the house. But I just have to block it out or I won't get anything done.

But whenever we record, I have to turn the AC off and turn off the fan to blowing in the air in from the hall. So it's just funny trying to make things work.

Wow, join the club of people with hums and noise! It's funny because you hear music on Spotify, in a film, or wherever and you're thinking, "Wow that sounds amazing. They must be in some massive studio working with famous musicians." But instead, it’s more often guys (like us) in these tiny little rooms with fans blowing because it's too hot, and hums and buzzes going on that will never go away!

Definitely! I often record a talented professional musician here at home. In order to record, I have to use my son and daughter's room. They all sleep in that room, so I have to push the beds up on their sides, close everything up, and get the AC blowing in there from the hall. But whenever we record, I have to turn the AC off and turn off the fan blowing in the air from the hall. So it's just funny trying to make things work.

Z, you would never know. The music you are making has a beauty and sophistication that I think shows the irony of what we do. Sometimes, we think that all this beauty and expression comes from a great life or something like that [Z laughs], but really it comes from the struggle. It comes from getting our hands dirty with where we're at. This makes me think about the cultures that you explore in music. Tell us a bit about blending ethnic instruments and incorporating them into what you do?

People love their own music and their indigenous instruments. This people group has a rich heritage of their own ethnic instruments which are very beautiful. Believe it or not, no one has sampled this people group’s instrument before. You can buy so many other ethnic samples, but I can’t find anything exactly like them. So I am trying to make some of my own. I invited a guy to play some of the instruments while I recorded him playing all the notes and different articulations of the instrument. Then I might try to manipulate them a little bit with different effects, whether it's delay or granular things—anything to keep it in the same vein but yet stretching it too. There's a little niche if somebody wants to make some money doing so.

Well, you're tempting me now. I already want this instrument and don't even know what it is! You and I are really on the same wavelength, Z. We both like to get into a different culture and find out what is unique and beautiful, but then figure out how to capture it in our music. I like to incorporate it into music for a modern audience. For example, you might be a musicologist and love the original sound of a native historical/cultural instrument, but the rest of us who don't study musicology might not understand or relate to that on an emotional level. So when we can incorporate that into a cinematic, modern presentation, we can help others relate to and be touched by the beauty of that instrument.

Yes, I think the key word that you used is “beauty.” I find beauty in a different culture's music. I really enjoy it. Not like I'm just trying to use it to do something, but actually enjoying it too. 

Yes, I've taught that in the MMP class too. You can't make great music that you're not loving. That's key.

And at this point I'm not trying to introduce a foreign instrument to a Western audience. I am more making this music for Central Asians here.

Z, I'm really encouraged by this conversation. Is there anything else you want to share?

I just wanted to say that MMP was very helpful for me. A lot of times, people like me are making music by themselves. They don't have anybody ahead of them to really feed them. That's what I was looking for and I really appreciate it. I still have the videos from the live class and look at them sometimes. As I grow, I start to understand more. Maybe I didn't understand something you said at first because it was new to me, but then a year or so later I looked at it again and said, "OK, I get that!"

Wow, that’s amazing and scary that you're going back to videos of things I said! But I'm glad that it's been meaningful to you. The classes are always so meaningful to me too. I enjoy the connection that I get with students like you and I get so much out of teaching and learning. That is probably one of the biggest selfish motivations for me. It’s a beautiful process of growing together.

It was not just just my music either, but watching you work with other people’s music. It's very cool to watch you go with whatever pops in your head as you're working with their music. “Let’s try this. Let’s try that.” It's very educational to watch somebody do that.

I appreciate that so much. Thanks for taking the time to talk with me, Z!