Join David Spoon as he engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Eddie Digarmo, a gospel music hall of famer, about the transformative power of music in Christian ministry. They explore the unexpected journey of Christian rock music that began in the early 1970s and how it shaped their faith and the faith of countless others. Eddie shares insights from his extensive experience in the industry, including the challenges he faced while introducing rock music into the church scene. The discussion highlights the importance of character and integrity over mere talent in the music world, as well as the significant impact of mentorship in fostering new artists. Listeners will be inspired by Eddie's reflections on faith, perseverance, and the role of divine guidance in his career, making this a compelling listen for anyone interested in the intersection of music and ministry.

Eddie Digarmo's appearance on the David Spoon Experience is a compelling exploration of faith, music, and the evolution of Christian ministry. Eddie, a Grammy-nominated artist, shares his unique journey from a secular dance band to the forefront of the Christian rock movement in the 1970s. The conversation begins with Eddie recounting the initial struggles he faced in introducing rock music to the church, an endeavor that was met with skepticism and resistance. His anecdotes provide a vivid picture of the cultural landscape of the time, illustrating the challenges and triumphs of being a pioneer in a genre that sought to reach a new generation with the message of Jesus.

As the episode unfolds, Eddie emphasizes the significance of character and integrity in the music industry, arguing that these qualities often outweigh raw talent. He shares insights into his experiences in mentoring young artists and recognizing potential in those who may not fit the conventional mold. David and Eddie engage in a thought-provoking dialogue about the legacy of artists like Larry Norman, whose influence helped pave the way for future generations of Christian musicians. Their discussion highlights the interconnectedness of the Christian music community and the importance of lifting each other up in faith and creativity.

Towards the end of the episode, Eddie introduces his book 'Rebel for God,' which chronicles his experiences and the lessons he's learned throughout his ministry. He reflects on the joy of seeing lives transformed through music, emphasizing that the ultimate goal of his work has always been to bring people closer to Christ. With plenty of humor and heartfelt moments, the episode serves as a reminder of the power of music as a ministry tool and the importance of following one’s calling in the face of adversity. David's personal gratitude for Eddie's impact on his own faith journey adds a touching conclusion to an inspiring conversation that resonates with anyone passionate about music and ministry.

Takeaways:

• Eddie Digarmo shared how he unexpectedly ventured into Christian music in 1972, bridging his past experiences with faith.
• The importance of character and integrity in artists is emphasized over mere talent, shaping successful careers.
• The conversation highlights the challenges of introducing rock music into the Christian community during the early years.
• Eddie's journey illustrates the power of mentorship and the impact of Christian rock on his faith.
• The discussion reflects on how various artists influence each other, creating a legacy in Christian music.
• Digarmo's insights on maintaining a humble spirit in ministry resonate with listeners seeking authentic faith.

My name is doctor David Spoon, and I'll be your host for the next 5,400,000 milliseconds. Get ready for one of the more bizarre experiences on live radio. Here is the key to the show. We don't know what we're doing.

We have no idea what's gonna happen, and we don't care. But for the next few minutes, I want to talk christian legend with you.

Ladies and gentlemen, on our line today, we have gospel Music hall of famer, first christian band nominated for a Grammy. Truly a rebel christian artist, mentor, entrepreneur, and servant of the most high God.

Ladies and gentlemen on the phone with us, our very own Eddie Digarmo. Mo. Eddie, are you there with us?

I am here. I am here. You got the energy, bro.

I appreciate that very much. First and foremost, let me say thank you. Okay, before we do anything else, I know we're brothers in the Lord, but your music, your ministry.

So I've been a Christian for about 46 years. So a little. Little shorter than a lot of people, but longer than others. And I have been so blessed by the material.

When I grew up as a Christian, I didn't have christian mentors. I came out of a jewish family. So the christian rock and roll element that you were involved with helped formulate my faith and move me into ministry.

That's how powerful and important it is to me.

I mean, that's what we were all about. And I'm glad to hear that it blessed you, man, and helped you get closer to Christ.

It did. And. And it gave me, it was just so, so much fun and so, I don't know, it was so connecting.

And I have to ask you, I mean, I'm going to give you the floor. You can share with every, whatever you want. I do want people to know, and you have to. If I say something wrong, Eddie, just correct it.

It's not a big deal. On this show, I make a thousand mistakes. A show doesn't bother me. I've been doing it all my life. That's what grace is all about.

So bottom line is the best place for them to make contact with you, as far as I can tell, is at Eddie dgarmo.com. is that correct?

You got it. That's the best place.

Okay, so the best place, people. Eddie Degarmo. Ed. D I e. Degarmo. D E G A R M O. Eddie DeGarmo. And if you type it into Google, it just comes up. I mean, you can't miss this.

And so we want people to be aware of that. Eddie's got a book. They've got albums, got a lot of material. His book is called Rebel for Goddesse. You guys can already tell why I love him.

Bottom line is simple. He also does speaking events, just different things. He does.

It's just, he's just one of those entrepreneur, all over the place, taking care of business kind of people. So, Eddie, let me start off by saying, as I've already said, thank you. I just want to know.

You've been in ministry for over 50 years, and that's a long time. What, out of all the things that you've done in ministry, what has surprised you like the most?

Like, wow, didn't anticipate that maybe you caught into it maybe five or ten years in. But what, what surprised you the most about christian ministry?

Well, I mean, of course, it's wonderful to, to deal with people and hear their stories and hear their hurts and hear their blessings and hear their victories. I mean, that's just extremely meaningful. I never, ever in a thousand years ever perceived myself as being one that would be in the thick of all that.

First of all, I never thought that it would be feasible for me to devote my entire livelihood to christian music. I never thought that was feasible.

It was just what we grew up with and we knew how to do that, you know?

So you took that and used that as your, as kind of like the launching pad, right? The rock and roll for that's what you and I tell people, rock and roll. My feet are on the rock and my name is on the roll, so it's not a problem.

So it's like. But, but in that age, did you encounter ministries that were a little more resistant to that kind of style?

Yeah, I've had lots of stuff thrown at me, bro, through those early years because we came out of the club scene in Memphis playing in our dance band, and, you know, I was signed to a major label with the dance band. So we had some notoriety around the mid south, if you will.

And so I came out of the club scene and started playing christian music, and I just went back to the club scene and started playing christian music in the clubs. And I got a few things thrown at me and I said, well, okay, well, we'll go try and we'll play at some churches. And I got some more things thrown out.

It was an interesting time. I formed a pretty thick skin through it all.

And, I mean, it used to really bother me, but I don't know that it's necessarily a wrong thing for the church to test things and see where they come from and see if they're valid or not. And I felt like I was a part of that in the early days.

That's a great, great attitude to have during that, though. See, that attitude right there puts you, it's not as defensive as, hey, I'm doing this before the Lord. Let the church figure it out.

Let the Lord hammer all this stuff out totally for it because I'm just trying to follow the Lord. I mean, that's a great spirit. I never could have done that. I'm just telling you, I would have went nutty.

I mean, we didn't have a choice, but we knew that we were called to play this kind of music because it was a. It was a way that we could gather a crowd together, and then we could tell them how Jesus had, you know, impacted our lives.

That's what we were about.

And over the 20 years that we toured the world playing that kind of music, I mean, I saw tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people come to Christ. So it was pretty cool.

Yeah, that's absolutely awesome.

So let me ask you, when you first got into it, and I'm just asking you because of my own background, being born and raised jewish, then becoming a Christian, did you have any family issues? Was your family, like, generally supportive, or were they kind of questioning, or are they, like, just try it and see what happens? Kind of.

Manta, how did that. How did that encounter with your own personal family?

Oh, no. My family thought I had lost my mind. You know, my older brother that came back from.

During the Vietnam war, came back to live in our home when he left the army was the one that led me to Christ. He had become a Christian overseas in Germany, actually, and came back home and started telling me about what had happened to. To him.

And it took a few months, you know, for that to sink in. And, I mean, we got a lot of debates about it. I was raised in the south, you know, kind of the buckle of the Bible belt, if you will.

So I never really considered that I wasn't a Christian. I mean, I would have fight you over Jesus, but I didn't know him on a personal level, and I'd never asked him to forgive me of my sins, you know?

Wow.

So that's what happened to me when I was 18 years old. And, I mean, I was on fire for God. And my family certainly thought that I had really lost my mind. I walked away from a major record deal.

We were signed to London records as a teenage dance band in Memphis and had started working on our first album. And I just felt like it was oil and water, and I couldn't do that there. So we walked away from that. And I say we.

It was Dana Key and myself walked away from that band and started playing, you know, our christian music. And, I mean, we didn't know anybody else on the planet was playing music like ours. It was.

We thought we were an island to them, to ourselves, you know?

I had never heard of Larry Norman. Didn't have a clue who he was. Uh, but he played the record for me, and it was.

It was the one only visiting this planet where he's got his hand on top of his head. And, uh, I saw that that record had been released on a major label. It was on Capital Records.

And I was like, my gosh, you need people play this kind of music and put it out on major labels. Maybe there's some hope for us to do that. So that's how all that began.

Yeah, it's an amazing, amazing, like, story.

And then Larry Norman's influence on you, you know, fell upon you and on the key, and then you guys made influences on hundreds, if not thousands of bands that then took it from there and moved it into other levels as well. So it's like, it's all being part of that early. At that early phase, which the Lord. I mean, you just have to. You have to appreciate how wise God is.

I got a plan. I'm not telling. I'm not telling anybody. I'm just doing it.

He had it all laid out, and we were just kind of, you know, able to be a part of it. And it was exciting times. And I never dreamed I would be able to create a livelihood out of christian music. That wasn't.

It wasn't the reason I got into it, you know, it wasn't the driving force that all came later, but it definitely worked out that way.

Now, let me ask you a question, and I know the answer is going to be tough, but that's okay, because I've been asked the same question in kind of a different format, and you don't have to have a perfect answer. But I'm just wondering, as brother to brother, you've done so many albums.

I do a lot of research when I interview people, and I've interviewed directors, movie stars, professional athletes, top of the game musicians, just everybody across the board. You have a lot of material. You have an enormous amount of material to review. I do want to know, from your point of view, do you have an album?

Or if not an album, a period in the ministry that was like, this is. This is. Was like my favorite. This is like, I tried to choose.

Between your kids, you know? Well, I'll tell you what the fans have said.

There there's a lot of folks that like our pledge album and our d and k album and our Streetlight album, which came out one after another and probably at the pinnacle of my, you know, musical career on that level. So streetlight, d and k, and the pledge. But then there's. There's other records that I like just as well.

Our second album, straight on, is the critics favorite, for sure. And the mission of Mercy album was the album that broke us through, especially to radio.

Right.

And I had to learn how to do that. That's a learning process. So it is. You guys are whack, man.

Yeah.

So that people have figured out one out.

Yeah. People have no idea how strange this place is. I'm telling you right now, it's like, if.

You know. I do.

Yeah, right. You can appreciate it. I didn't get into this till I was 50, so I'm like, I think the Lord was like, you need a lot of work prior.

You need a lot of prep before you get there. So in that process, you've done that. And then when music started to wind down, but then you didn't depart from the music industry, did you?

I mean, that was. You started getting involved in almost like, a format of mentoring, didn't you?

And that was a two year decision because we had, you know, concerts on the books for 18 months or so in the future, and we had a record commitment to our record label that we intended and wanted to fulfill, and they wanted to resign us to another contract. And I was like, Dana, he's my partner. And I said, dana, I just. I feel like it's my time to step away. And things were still really good for us in the.

In the marketplace, if you will.

Yeah.

You know, we were still very popular, and our records were still selling extremely well. But I just never wanted to be kind of the old boxer that was, you know, requiem for a heavyweight trying to stay in the ring, you know?

Right.

So I stepped away from it, and a few years prior to me stepping away, I had formed an independent record company called Forefront Records. And I didn't let word out that I was an owner of that label, along with another partner of mine, fellow named Dan Brock.

And we had signed some pretty successful or soon to be successful artists, I would say fledgling in those days, like DC talk and audio adrenaline, Skillet and Rebecca St. James and several others. So you can see where all that went.

Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Did you know in other words, did you know that they had that talent, that they could get there?

Like I knew you're signing them, and I don't know this industry at all, so you have to forgive me, but did you look and see? I think there's something there that's. That's more powerful than people recognize. Were you able to see that?

Or was it more like throw the dice, see what happens?

You know, I was able to see some of it, and I had my little way of doing things. I would divide artists talents up in three categories.

One of them was songwriting, one of them was virtuosity, and one of them was image or charisma or in mainstream music, we would call that sex appeal. And we have artists that fill each one of those buckets. And then sometimes we have artists that fill maybe two of the three.

And then sometimes you get a superstar that does all three. And, I mean, you think of an artist like Bob Dylan. I mean, he writes songs so good, nobody really cares how he sings or how he looks.

Now, I'm not trying to criticize him.

Oh, no, no. I gotcha. I gotcha. You get it.

He's really known, really known for his songwriting, you know, and then sometimes we have artists that are just such beautiful people that the rest of it doesn't really matter. And, I mean, that's subjective taste, of course, you know, Ariana Grande or that sort of thing.

Yeah, yeah.

Occasionally we have virtuoso artists that can sing so good or play guitar so good or piano so good that the rest of it doesn't really matter and that maybe that's, you know, Celine Dion or Michael Buble or Freddie Mercury from Queen or, you know, that sort of thing.

Yeah.

So. And then occasionally you get an artist that writes great songs and they're a virtuoso and their talent. And they also have a very powerful image.

An image can change depending on the genre of music that you're in. I mean, you know, there's a very, very popular country artist right now named Jelly Roll. Right, right.

And I like his music a lot, but I don't think he would ever have been popular in the, you know, teen pop music, if you will.

Yeah, he had to have rights. Right space, right time for him. Right. I mean, I had. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, teen pop is all about the picture and the poster. Right, right.

So, yeah, he wasn't really, you know, carved to be that way, but he's an excellent songwriter and a really good performer, so it worked out for him. And. But, yeah, and I would always sign character over talent.

And that's a strange phrase, but there are so many talented people in this world that can't tie their own shoelaces, if you will.

And if you find someone with talent that also has a lot of character integrity and a really, really powerful work ethic, you can really go far with them.

Wow. All right, now let me ask you this. You just listed those. The image, the virtuosity, the element of that, the songwriting.

Which of those is the hardest? Is it hardest to write a song, or is there, or is it. Does.

It doesn't really work that way, because it just depends on what a person has a greater strength, because to me.

Well, songwriting, I would identify songwriting as a craft, and a craft is something that you get better at. Right. And the more you do it, it's kind of like being a carpenter.

You start out and things are a little funny, and the joints don't fit just right and all that sort of thing, but you get better at it the more you do it. So I'm writing very much that way.

Yeah.

And virtuosity, I mean, it takes a lot of practice, but obviously, you have to be able to hear pitch. You know, I've got a grandson, bless his heart. He couldn't hear pitch to save his life, you know, and.

But he's a particle physicist and does really well in that. But. So some of it's innate, for sure.

Right.

And some people strike a stronger pose than others, if you will, to borrow from Queen, Madonna. But I.

Image is a big part of music, especially if you're reaching a teenage audience and image and how you carry yourself and how you, you know, what. What kind of photographs you present yourself or videos or whatever. Extremely important to package all that together.

Got it. Makes sense.

So you find somebody that's got all three of those things and also got a lot of character, meaning that, you know, you can't. You can't find anybody that'll work harder. I think it was. Give me a second. See, is Derek Jeter, the great baseball player for the New York Yankees.

He had a statement that I like to borrow sometimes, like, to say, he said, you know, there's always somebody more talented than you, but he said, there should never be anybody that works harder than you.

Yeah, that's good. That's really, really good. Really good.

Really good.

Yeah. Excellent. Excellent statement. Are you still reviewing talent? Have you stopped? Are you still doing it? I'm just curious what, like, what you doing now?

I don't do it much anymore. I mean, people still send me, songs and stuff. But I'm, I'm not in the day to day networking of it all anymore.

Right.

Yes. Yesterday I had my 70th birthday.

Congratulations and happy belated birthday.

Yeah, thank you.

And, but, you know, I mean, Mick Jagger is 83, so I still got a little bit of time, but, uh, yeah, so I don't, I don't, you know, wake up in the morning and think about it all day long and, and go out every night and hear a new group, you know, gotcha. Do that like I used to.

Yeah.

But I still, occasionally somebody would call me up and ask me if I can help them with something. And I did a lot of work over the last couple years with a group called for King and country.

Right. Oh, phenomena. Yeah, phenomenal.

I did a lot of work with those guys and, but, but I'm not, I wouldn't call myself active, and I don't seek after that sort of thing anymore like I used to.

Yeah, I gotcha. All right, let me ask you this, because we only got a few minutes left, but first of all, phenomenal interview. I mean, you're just great.

I mean, it's just awesome to talk to you, sir. Let me ask you this. I know this is a goofy question you have to put up with me. Favorite scripture, favorite portions of scripture. I know.

It's, people are like, well, they're all great. I know, I know.

But I'm like a Philippians three, eight, and nine, because I think, you know, everything else is garbage compared to knowing Christ kind of thing. Do you have anything that you gravitate to scripturally?

I like first John one nine a whole lot. If we confess our sins, he is faithful to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

That's so good. It's just so good.

I like standing on that promise.

Yeah.

Because, you know, if you stand alone, away from that promise, you got a lot of problems. And I still love John 316. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

Whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. I mean, that to me, that to me is. Says it all. Yeah, it's the gospel.

The gospel in a verse. That's exactly right.

It's the gospel.

And, you know, a lot of people try to add stuff to that, whether it's like church membership or tithing or, you know, I'll step on a, I don't know if you, what's toes when I say this, but some people try to add baptism, communion, and I'm not knocking any of that stuff. I think it's all good, but, I mean, you can't have gospel plus.

Yeah, exactly. We teach that on the show.

The gospel is power and salvation.

You're right. They're 100% right. We are very, very firm on that. It's like. Right. It's. It's not Jesus, and it's Jesus. Stop right there.

It's Jesus.

Right. Just leave it there.

That's it.

All right, now let me just. Because we only got a minute, a minute or so left, and I want to make sure people can reach out to you. You have a book.

Plus I want people to be able to access anything. You just wrote a book called Rebel for God, and I know writing books are fascinating. People can get that information at Eddie digarmo.com.

if you want to read a book that's going to teach you, what would you say, history of christian ministry and the music ministry? Would that be a good.

Well, at least from my point of view, a fun read, I think, you know, it teaches the dumb stuff and the good stuff, so. Because I had plenty of dumb stuff, too, but, yeah. And you can, I mean, the books on Amazon, I mean, you get an audiobook. It's available all over.

Yeah.

So, yeah, pick it up. I think most people that read it seem to really enjoy it, so.

Excellent. All right, I want to just thank you for taking the time. We appreciate you taking the time, and I hope it was somewhat of a blessing for you.

I really do appreciate the ministry you did, and it influenced me.

And so the people that I've influenced throughout the last 45 years of ministry, I credit that to everybody who kind of helped me get along, and that was one of the things that you did in ministry. So thank you.

And that's kind of you to say, but, you know, we all stand on somebody else's shoulders, don't we?

Yep. Yep.

And, I mean, there were people before me, for sure. Tons of them.

Eddie, thank you, brother, and God bless you. And I just really appreciate you and just want you to know that.

All right, thanks for speaking with me. Bye bye.

God bless you. Bye bye.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, you have been listening to the David Spoon experience right here on KAam, 770, the truth station here in Texas. Gonna take a short break, then we'll come back at the top of the hour. Don't go anywhere.