Camp’s passion plays out on stage

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Jere­my Camp finds solace in his music, eas­i­ly express­ing his feel­ings. Camp will be at the Den­ver Col­i­se­um on April 9. For tick­et infor­ma­tion call 720–865-4220. Pho­to by Eliza Marie Somers

Any­one who attends a Jere­my Camp con­cert soon finds out that Camp’s life is an open book. He is quick to share his sto­ry about his first wife, Melis­sa, her strug­gles with ovar­i­an can­cer and her death at age 21, just four months after their mar­riage.

But in the months after her death, Camp could not fath­om telling and ulti­mate­ly reliv­ing those moments sur­round­ing Melissa’s death, espe­cial­ly in front of an audi­ence.

I didn’t want to go on stage and praise the Lord,” Camp said. “I was like, ‘Lord I don’t feel like telling about how good you are because right now I hurt. Lord you don’t under­stand it hurts.’ But I had no where else to turn. I know He is faith­ful. Then I would get on stage and start shar­ing and get­ting it out. And after the shows peo­ple would come up to me and thank me for shar­ing. But it wasn’t me it was the Lord.”

Then Camp quotes the Bible, 2 Corinthi­ans — He com­forts us in all our suf­fer­ing so that we may be able to com­fort oth­ers in all their suf­fer­ing. “It led me to share my sto­ry,” said Camp, who will be at the Den­ver Col­i­se­um on April 9 with the Rock & Wor­ship Road­show ($10 gen­er­al admis­sion).

In his per­son­al life, Camp has turned the page, but it has not been with­out some guilt.

Camp met his future wife, Adri­enne Liesching, while they were on a sum­mer tour that includ­ed nine bands. Adri­enne front­ed the band, The Ben­jamin Gate, a hard rockin’ Chris­t­ian group from South Africa. And as Camp puts it, “We nat­u­ral­ly became friends. Her merch table was next to mine and we would chat and hang out. I just thought she was a cool girl.”

As their friend­ship blos­somed, Camp began open­ing up about Melis­sa and pour­ing out his heart. “Then I start­ed hav­ing these emo­tions, and I was feel­ing guilty,” said Camp, whose father is a min­is­ter in Indi­ana. “It was only one-and-a-half years before that I lost my wife to can­cer. I was not look­ing for a rela­tion­ship. Then God spoke to my heart and I got His bless­ing. And it’s been amaz­ing since — an amaz­ing heal­ing process for me. And now we have two beau­ti­ful girls. They are my life.”

So what does Camp tell non­be­liev­ers espe­cial­ly after going through his pain and suf­fer­ing?

If you didn’t believe then what is your life for?” Camp explained. “If a man gave his life to the Lord then he would have some­one to walk through this life with. You see God’s hands in so many sit­u­a­tions. Then some­one will point to all the bad things that are going on. Well, it’s because we don’t want God in our soci­ety. We are push­ing God far­ther and far­ther away. And we can now see those con­se­quences in our soci­ety.”

Camp’s musi­cal influ­ences vary great­ly. He grew up in a house­hold that lis­tened to Chris­t­ian music, while he also delved into rock ‘n’ roll, lis­ten­ing to Led Zep­pelin and Pearl Jam.

My music is very diver­si­fied. I’ll have a rock song, then I’ll do a bal­lad,” Camp said. “I guess it’s just an out­growth on what I have to say. I guess you could call my music Pro­gres­sive, pop, rock.”

And the main­stream band he would like to share a stage with is no sur­prise — Cold­play.

I lis­ten to their lyrics and they have a sense of some­thing real,” Camp said. “Their music comes from the heart.”

Some­thing Camp knows quite a bit about.

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