Ariel Body of Music Faith: Can you tell me a little about your testimony and how it affects your music?
Jeremy Camp: That's a long one! Which testimony? Just how I got saved or with my wife? Because that's a long deep one! *laughs*
Ariel Body: Oh, either one!
Jeremy Camp: Oh man. It's hard to brief it, and just jump into it. Umm, wow. Well, basically I mean if you've read stories, if you've read interviews and stuff, a lot of people know I lost my wife to cancer. And I think the greatest thing that God taught me about unconditional love... when I first found out that she had cancer, we weren't dating, we weren't anything, and she was a friend of mine. We had dated in the past, but it wasn't anything where we were kind of pursuing that. So when I found out, I was like... I knew that if I was going to take this step and start getting closer, that we would probably eventually get married. And I knew it was one of those things where I would be marrying her, not knowing what was going to happen, but I learned about unconditional love. That no matter what may happen, I'm still going to love, I'm still going to be there. And so during the engagement, she went through chemotherapy and she went through all that. The battle of losing her hair and everything. And I remember her always just, during those moments, just saying "Jeremy, I want to worship the Lord." And it was just one of those times of amazing powerful ministry of just pulling out the guitar and singing worship songs and have her, after going through treatments and stuff, and having her still worship the Lord was kind of powerful, you know? And, so just... Like I said, I don't know how to shorten this whole thing... It's so deep, but um. You know, it's one of those things where just watching that and watching her love for the Lord no matter what she was going through really kind of through my life now, when I go through stupid little trials now and I get upset or I get bummed out and they are things that are so pointless. And I'm just be selfish or whatever. I look at that and I go "Lord, just forgive me," you know, because no matter what, just consider pure joy my brother, when you face trials of many kinds. And I understand it doesn't mean you have to do jumping jacks and you know run around in circles, but I realize the trial that I went through, the joy that's came out of that, through seeing people's lives being changed, I see the refinement of what's happened. And I see that God has used that in a powerful way. For me it's one of those things where I understand now and I just consider it joy because of what the result is going to be in the end. I don't get that, I don't understand that, but now I can see what God has done. I have two beautiful children now, you know, a beautiful wife that God has blessed me with. But the big part of the ministry God has given me, because I kind of have a ministry of comfort and encouragement to those who are hurting. And in 2 Corinthians, it talks about how we are called to comfort others who need comforting, you know what I'm saying? And I do believe that's part of the ministry God has given me. But it's hard, because I hear stories and I have people send me stories of like "Pray for us, I'm losing somebody" or "I've lost somebody" and it's just like I know it's part of it, but it's hard, and it's draining. And I experience some of the stresses. Man, like I went and visited this little boy named Judah, and I saw his parents because Judah died, you know, 12 days after I visited him. He was 3 years old and had a heart condition. But I saw his parents about a week ago and was able to hang out with them. You know, I was just feeling the emotion a little bit. Just like wow, you know, you doing okay? It's just always there. But I know it's part of what God's calling me to do. And I'm willing; and I know he's allowd me to go through that to give me the opportunity to minister to other people that are hurting. So it's affected me in a huge way; how I minister on stage and off stage. I can relate to people.
Ariel Body: How would you describe your music?
Jeremy Camp: Um... Very personal. Like a long time ago, I remember - this is really funny - this girl, this was after my wife Melissa went to be with the Lord, and she goes "I'd love to get coffee and get to know you a little bit", you know what I'm saying. I was just like "hey, just listen to my music and you'll get to know me, because it's very personal!" *laughs* You'll know my heart, you'll know what I deal with and what God teaches me. And I was like cool, it was kind of a way to push it away. But because I feel like I've just always wanted to wear my emotions on my sleeve and my heart on my sleeve so that people who go through... everybody goes through trials. Everybody goes through hardships. All my songs aren't just about hardships and trials, but it's about just, you know, taking action and taking stands for things. Like the song "Tonight" - "Tonight I will take my cross, Tonight I will count the cost." And now Lord, I'm going to deny myself, you know, just my selfishness and all the things that I put in front of me and stuff. But, I just, that's how I describe my music; it's very personal. We have upbeat songs and we have ballads. Our shows are very up and down with worship songs and those worship moments and fun moments... And, you know what I mean?
Ariel Body: If you could have someone listen to any one song of any one of your albums, which would it be and why?
Jeremy Camp: It all depends on what they're going through. So that's actually a really hard question...
Ariel Body: You recently released the exclusive iTunes sessions; how did that come about and in what setting was it recorded?
Jeremy Camp: It came about, actually, by iTunes wanting to do - they do a live sessions thing with a lot of the mainstream artists - and they were like "we want to start doing it with Christian artists." So they asked us to be kind of the first to do a session. We went to their little studio in San Francisco with a guy who does a lot of their stuff, and it was in this really cool old building that had a converted studio. It was cool because we did some of the songs just live - like, straight up raw live, you know? Kind of just like, "hey this is what it's like when we play live!" A little more laid back because it wasn't like, full on rockin', but it was such a cool experience to get the emotion of live, because you don't always get the emotion of live.
Ariel Body: You have your "Evening with Jeremy Camp and band unplugged tour coming up; that has more of an interaction with the audience feel?
Jeremy Camp: For sure.
Ariel Body: How did that come about?
Jeremy Camp: There's a couple shows where we've had to actually do that because of certain circumstances where we were forced to do acoustic shows. And I was like, "this is awesome", because it's just so... I can't explain it because you totally have this moment of... there's no crazy production - it's not super loud so everyone's going crazy, it's just, it's mellow. And I find myself with more opportunities to truly just minister. Not that I don't on stage here, but just to truly be really personal and really intimate and just let my sleeves down, you know that whole saying. To just be yourself and I just feel more that I can be myself and so it's more if you kind of want to get to know me and my personality or whatever, come to these concerts and you'll see a lot. You'll hear a lot of stories, I love kind of telling stories and love to talk a lot - as you can see. *laughs*
Ariel Body: Album-wise, what's next?
Jeremy Camp: It's going to be a while!
Ariel Body: You've just released like 5 things in the past what like 3 years?
Jeremy Camp: Nice! That's good! She knows her stuff! *laughs* That's so funny you said that, because I just said that today. I was like "I've released 5 things in like 4 years!" Yeah, I just said that! Yeah, and that's why. Because I'm like, I just want... there's so much depth in each album that I just want to let it sit for a while. Even with the new album, it's like people are still going for the older stuff as well. Because they know a lot of those songs still, and people are like "check this song out", so I just wanted to breathe a little bit. And I think that there are so many songs on this new album that still haven't got out what I want people to get and really hold on to. So it'll be a while, a couple years.
Ariel Body: I've heard rumours that you and Adie are talking about doing like a duet album... Is there any truth to that?
Jeremy Camp: Um, we talked about doing a Christmas album together, which would be cool! Christmas is coming...
Ariel Body: How do balance family and music?
Jeremy Camp: I make sure if my family is suffering then I put this on hold. We have a rule where I don't go - I mean, once a year we might - but I don't go more than a week of being away. I won't go more than a week more than once a month. We make sure I'm home, you know, quite frequently.
Ariel Body: I hear the band likes to play pranks on each other?
Jeremy Camp: Nooo... Not really. Just kidding, yeah we do. *laughs*
Ariel Body: Do you have a most memorable one?
Jeremy Camp: Oh man... It's so funny because there are so many things that like, you just think about it. Um, what's a good prank that someone's pulled... Oh! My bass player. One of the funny pranks was when he first started playing. He was brand new, first who. And I was like you have to do an interview. All the guys have done them at some of the radio stations, so that you can get kind of used to what that's all about just in case, you know. He says, "oh really? I have to do an interview at a radio station?" And I'm like yeah I got a call from the station and they want to do an interview with the new guy, it has to be the new guy. It was one of my friends, though. So he calls one of my friends, thinking it was a radio station, and my friend's like, "This is 92.5, blah blah blah, who's this?" "Uh, this is Michael Martin..." So he picks up his Bible, my bass player, and he's like "yeah, and I'm just blessed to be here with Jeremy Camp..." and he starts reading the scriptures. And anyway, my friend started asking him just bizarre questions and started saying weird things. *laughs* And he was like "Wh-who are you?", my bass player, and we'd all start laughing. So, that's kind of a funny one...
Ariel Body: How can your fans pray for you?
Jeremy Camp: We just moved to Nashville. I've been a little bit stressed out, like just from all this stuff. My kids have gone from just one environment to another, and I want to make sure that they're just feeling settled. And that they're feeling loved and know that their mom and dad just love 'em and care for them. And just that God gives us strength, because we're just a little wore out right now. Yeah, so pray for some strength right now.
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