Interview:

I’m lucky enough, actually blessed is more the word, to have played all kinds of music all around the world to a lot of different people, and yet no matter how many times I find myself in a new culture or playing a whole new genre of music to a fresh audience, it still amazes me that people can’t help but respond to the sound. The power and ability of music to make something rise in your heart is just astonishing, and regardless of what culture, location, or point in history that you check out, all of them hold music in high esteem as an everyday joy. Pick a point in time, in any culture, anywhere on planet Earth, and you will find times of celebration, sorrow, triumph, and even just killing time set to a soundtrack of rhythm, melody, and even lyrics. Loving and needing music seems to be woven into the fabric of who we are and how God created us. It makes our hearts swell with anticipation, or soothes and heals us when we are completely broken. Music is a remarkable invention straight from Heaven. Forget music for a moment, and let’s talk about prayer. Have you ever thought that God hears millions of prayers every day in hundreds of languages? That God speaks my language is something that I take 121 for granted, but it’s easy to forget that He “speaks” Mandarin, or Swahili, or Malay, or Norwegian, or Hindi, and the list goes on. Now imagine that this thing that we call music, this thing that makes your heart feel everything from joy to pain, and all points in-between, isn’t just a mysterious set of sound-waves, but it’s in fact a whole other language; a language of emotion and expression that we all speak, a language flowing straight out of Heaven, and into every culture and place in the world. A language that crosses boundaries and borders, bridging cultural gaps and language problems. A language that politics can’t divide and the rich and poor speak equally as well. A language that joins me to everyone and everything that flows out of the heart of God. I’ll often stand onstage being overwhelmed by the music we are making, and watching audiences letting the sound wash over them and wondered how and why the “noise” I am making fits in to all this; and then I forget about the thinking, and let my heart speak out. That’s when I really start making music. Speaking a language that seems to flow straight from one heart and right into another. I like to think of music as the language of Heaven.

“Loving and needing music seems to be woven into the fabric of who we are and how God created us.”
– Simon Moore, former guitarist in Parachute Band