Jordan ’ s first radio single , “ The River ” - the title track from his critically-acclaimed Centricity Music debut - became a smash hit . Spending an unprecedented 12 weeks at No . 1 , the charttopping single was named ASCAP ’ s “ Christian Music Song of the Year ” and garnered Jordan his first Gold certification . Each of his six subsequent radio singles has landed in the Top 10 with “ Witness ” notching a second No . 1 for the singer . In addition , he has been nominated for five Dove Awards , taking home the trophy for 2016 ’ s “ New Artist of the Year .” He ’ s toured with some of the biggest names in Christian music , including TobyMac , For King & Country , Matthew West , Michael W . Smith and Crowder , among others ; and in a short time , he ’ s risen to headliner status . We discuss his newest release , Say It , along with perspectives and recollections of his life .
[ WM ] Jordan , thanks so much for spending this time with me today . Please tell us about your growing up years in Clovis , CA . Did you grow up in church and did your family encourage you musically ?
[ Jordan Feliz ] Clovis was a really cool pace to grow up , I think anyplace you grow up you always have a little bit of loathing for , but it really was a great place . Because we ’ re in Central California , we have a lot of accessibility to everything . There is snow . There are lakes . The weather is really decent a majority of the year . The summers are really hot but other than that it ’ s good all year . So , I grew up doing a lot of extreme sports because I could be outside almost the entire year . I grew up really pushing myself and skateboarding . Skiing was my other big thing . I have three other friends who have since gone pro in some sort of sport , so we grew up just kind of pushing each other . So , I did that , and I started doing music .
I had started a band with a couple of guys that I skated and skied with , and it was kind of like a Christian Rock band . We had started playing and doing some stuff in the garage , nothing serious , and my youth pastor got word that we had started this band . I grew up playing piano my entire life , and I didn ’ t really know what I wanted to do in the band other than just not sing . I didn ’ t want to sing . At the time I was either going to play piano or drums . So , I started dabbling in drums before youth group . I ’ d show up and just kind of play the youth group drums . My youth pastor got word that we were starting this band , and he grabbed me and my friend Matt , and he was like , “ Listen , a lot of these kids look up to you . I think it would be really cool if you guys led worship for our youth group .” At the time we really didn ’ t want to do that , and I didn ’ t even know what I was supposed to do , but he was like , “ Just go play drums !”
So , I started playing drums and we started doing this whole thing and leading worship . About a month in I showed up on a Sunday and our youth pastor , his name was Pup , said , “ Hey , I don ’ t know where our worship leader is for our youth group , he ’ s maybe overslept or something , but can you go up there and lead worship today ?” I was like , “ Dude , I ’ ve never sang in front of anybody in my life , there is no way I ’ m getting up and sing in front of our youth group ”. I think as a kid it ’ s the most embarrassing thing . He just looked at me , and he had a lot of influence over my friends and me because he was just a really good dude , and he was also a pro athlete at one point and he just had spoken a lot of wisdom over us . He kind of just looked at me with that look of disappointment and he goes , “ Alright then , I guess we just won ’ t have worship this morning .” I was like , “ Dude , fine , I ’ ll do it ”. I got up there and I was shaking like a leaf I was just so nervous . I got through our youth service and afterwards a bunch of people walked up to me and said , “ Dude you were so good . You did amazing !” And then my youth pastor walks up to me and said , “ I think you have an anointing on your life for this . I ’ m just going to tell you right now and I think you should try and pursue it more .” So that was really when I started singing , at that point in my life when I kind of got forced to lead worship for our youth group .
That started the whole process of singing , and
I had already started writing music , and I had always heard melodies and all of that , but I just had never really pushed myself to actually do it because I was too afraid to sing in front of people . So that was my initial shove , which was in seventh grade , I just decided that I was going to continue pursuing skating and skiing and all of these other sports , but that I was going to also write music too .
So that was kind of my life all the way up until my senior year in high school , when I actually got approached by a larger band who had already started touring in California . They were about 45 minutes down the road in a small town in central California , and they asked me to be their singer . My initial thought was no ( laughs ), so I just wrote them back saying so , and that I was just doing my own thing . I already had a band and I was just really not into it . A couple weeks later I had put some thought and prayer into it . I told my parents , “ I know these guys play music that I ’ m not really used to and that I ’ m not really into , but I really feel like God is telling me that I need to go talk to them .” So , I went and talked to the guys . They were in a really heavy metal band . It was so not my vibe , but I met the guys and I just fell in love with their hearts . Everybody in the band just had a heart for ministry .
They were like , “ Look , we know we play heavier music than you ’ re used to but we really want to write this music to get to these kids , because they show up to the shows and we have these conversations with kids that are your age . They ’ re all talking about committing suicide and how they don ’ t understand who Jesus is . We want to go and play heavy music , and we want to be able to tell them about Jesus .” I really loved that , and I prayed about it for two days . I felt like the Lord said , “ Go ”, and so I did , and I did that for five years out of my hometown . And then like almost every band ever , we broke up . But it was a good thing that led us all down different paths . So now I ’ m here , and that was kind of growing up in Clovis for me , and my musical journey .
[ WM ] What and who were your earliest