Gabe with engineer Aaron Knott
I have known Gabe for over 20 years now. Being a Christian concert promoter I heard about a band named Rock N’ Roll Worship Circus. That was a pretty wild name for a band back then but once I saw how they led worship and the energy and passion of the band I was hooked. The front man playing his Gretsch Black Falcon electric guitar was Gabriel himself.
The band played at the Creation West Festival, at our Christian Musician Summit conference and my best memory of all is when I booked them to open for Delirious? In Vancouver, WA. My two favorite“ live” worship bands. Both bands really knew how to play onstage as a live band as well as lead worship well. The audience members that night had a blast.
When I heard about John Mark McMillan’ s new record, I had remembered that he had worked with Gabriel in the past. I looked into it and sure enough Gabriel is all over this record.
Let’ s catch up with the man himself – Gabriel Wilson.
[ WM ] Tell us how you got started long ago as the band Rock n’ Roll Worship Circus?
[ Gabriel Wilson ] Man, you just took it to the“ WAAAAY BACK” machine.( laughing)
It was the late 90’ s, and I was living in Longview, WA at the time. All of the band members were part of our church’ s worship team— Evangel Christian Fellowship. It was a pretty small church in a sleepy little mill town, but somehow it was chalk full of musicians. Before we knew it, I was taking a few consistent members of our worship team out to lead worship at places we were getting invited to. Being from the Pacific Northwest, our worship team was pretty influenced by indie and alternative bands in the area, plus old school influences like the Beatles, Stones, etc. As we’ d go out to lead worship, we were always asked what our worship team was called. I was pretty influenced by British music and culture, and so I pitched the idea of“ Rock n Roll Worship Circus.” It sounded kinda cheeky, but also described us perfectly. In London, UK, if you go to Oxford Circus or Picadilly Circus, it’ s simply a roundabout— or“ Intersection.” Our band was literally creating an intersection of rock n’ roll and worship … so the name seemed to fit!
We had a blast in the RRWC— toured consistently for several years until it evolved into a lot of other things for each of us. Chris Greely is a well-known mix guy now, working with everyone from Bethel Music to Josh Baldwin to the Helsers. Eric Lemiere toured with Phil Wickham and Amanda Cooke. Josiah Sherman became“ Buddy Ross,” a producer who has worked with Frank Ocean, Haim, and more. A lot of our past members have done really well in music.
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