|
Lincoln Brewster began his musical journey at an age when most children are concentrating on learning to walk. At only one year of age, Lincoln's mother, Cheryl noticed his ability to keep rhythm after his grandfather bought him a drum set. By age seven, Lincoln was playing guitar and mandolin. A musician herself, Cheryl played a key role in her son's musical development, encouraging the gift that God had given him. Cheryl and Lincoln formed a strong musical bond that helped sustain them through rough times. Raised in Homer, Alaska, the youngest of three children, Lincoln's parents divorced when he was just a toddler. Shortly after, a stepfather and stepbrothers were added to the family. They had some moments of joy mixed with years of abuse. Lincoln's passion for music began to grow, but his stepfather hated the fact that Cheryl played music and as Lincoln explains, "that was a real connection for me and my mom."
After Lincoln had begun to master the guitar, Cheryl took him to a local bar so that he could sit in and learn to play with other musicians. By age 12, Lincoln had formed a band called Lincoln and the Missing Links, which included his mom on bass and vocals. His early musical influences included Kenny Loggins, The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Ricky Lee Jones, Van Halen and Heart. When he was 15, his mom remarried again. This marriage took the family to California where Lincoln joined his high school band. He played guitar and drums in the jazz band and snare drum in the marching band. He also performed in a winter percussion ensemble, writing one of its pieces for competitions. As graduation drew near, an opportunity to play in another band with his mom led to connections in Los Angeles.
Within a few years, the possibility of a recording contract developed. At the age of 19, Lincoln had what he had always wanted - a recording contract in hand. Yet, his life felt empty. Laura, Lincoln's high school sweetheart and a Christian, frequently invited him to church. "I'd hear a sermon, go outside, cry and say, That was my life that guy just preached. How did he know?'" After attending a drama ministry performance with Laura, Lincoln recalls feeling God drawing him close. "I was afraid to lay down a lot of things in my life," Lincoln said. "One night, I laid all my cards on the table. I asked the Lord to come into my life, all by myself. It was the best night of sleep I'd ever had. I was very peaceful. I think that was what enabled me to blow off that record deal." Lincoln didn't know it, but God had something different in mind for him.
One afternoon, he received a phone call from Steve Perry, former lead singer for Journey. Perry invited Lincoln to audition as lead guitarist for his next solo project, For The Love Of Strange Medicine. Lincoln accepted and began songwriting and rehearsals for the album. Following the completion of the project, Lincoln married Laura. He also joined Perry for a nationwide tour that spanned from 1994 to early 1995. During this time, Lincoln noticed a large number of hurting people in the audiences. "I just knew that when you get that many people together in one place, you're going to find people with hurts and needs," said Lincoln. He said the shows were great and entertaining, but not life-changing. After experiencing Christ in his own life, he knew there was more to offer. When the tour ended, Lincoln and Laura made their home in Modesto, California, where they attended Calvary Temple Church. There Lincoln found a spiritual father in Senior Pastor Glenn Berteau, and at that point Lincoln's life reached a crossroads. A musician at heart, Pastor Berteau took a chance on Lincoln and offered him a position at the church as associate music director and youth worship leader. At the same time, secular music job offers came. With prayer and consideration, Lincoln laid down his secular career to serve at the church where he would work on sound systems and recording projects. Lincoln recalls God instructing him to put aside his songwriting and music at that time. He says that he didn't understand that God was using that period to teach and disciple him. "I really had questions about what God was doing with me during that time," said Lincoln. "He just kept telling me, 'My Word is sufficient.'"
Not long after, Lincoln said God released him, "and the songs just poured out." A desire to sing was starting to grow within him. "Finally, I said, God, if You could just give me the courage to sing, I'll honor You with it.'" And that he did. Shortly after, Lincoln began leading worship in the youth group. "When I first started, it was just horrible. Leading praise and worship is a whole different ballgame. But, by the time we left, I was really comfortable doing it and had a great relationship with the kids." The couple later met evangelist Danny Chambers and traveled to Oklahoma City to participate with him in a "Youth America" event. Chambers later invited them to help with the planting of The Oasis Church in Nashville, Tennessee. In June 1997, the Brewsters left California for Nashville where they served as youth pastors and then full-time music ministers at Oasis.
While at Oasis, Lincoln met executives from Integrity Incorporated who were there to work with Chambers on a new Hosanna! Music album. During the recording process, Integrity's Vice President of Creative, Chris Thomason, quickly noticed Lincoln for his guitar virtuosity. Later, Thomason listened to a demo project that Lincoln had produced. Impressed at the production work and artistry, he also learned that Lincoln had played every instrument and produced and performed all the vocal parts for the project. Feeling a shared heart for youth-focused praise and worship, Integrity signed Lincoln to its Vertical Music label. According to Thomason, "Lincoln has a passion for seeing people - especially young people - enter God's presence through worship. Worship has changed Lincoln's life, motivating him to write songs that help others know God more. He's a gifted musician, but his heart for God shows far above his musicianship."
Shortly after, Lincoln and veteran producer Paul Mills began work on the album Lincoln Brewster. Like previous Vertical Music projects, Lincoln Brewster speaks to the hearts of people who are hungry for non-traditional, passionate worship. In addition to working on his own album, Lincoln also began session work with label mate Darrell Evans, contributing vocals and guitar and co-writing one of the songs on Evans' project, Freedom. He also spent time on the road with Michael W. Smith during Smith's 1998 "Live The Life" tour. Following his 1999 self-titled debut, Lincoln returns with Live To Worship, a new offering produced by Jeff Quimby and co-produced by Lincoln. After years of performing music that failed to offer life-changing power, Lincoln now combines his talents and determination to record songs that will minister to a new generation of believers.
================================================================================
There are a lot of amazing things about worship leader, songwriter and performer Lincoln Brewster – the story behind his career, his acclaimed talent on guitar, and his heart for worship. But perhaps most incredible of all is the fact that he was willing to leave behind the potential for mainstream fame and fortune to pursue Christ's calling on his life. What leaves Lincoln himself most amazed is that God truly does fulfill the desires of our hearts when we delight in worshipping Him alone. His newest album, Amazed, is a culmination of his long and winding road to complete abandonment – to laying down all his dreams and seeing that God can do a much more beautiful thing than we could ever imagine when we trust it all to Him.
Lincoln was born on the cold tundra of Fairbanks, Alaska. When he was only one year old, his mother, Cheryl, recognized his ability to keep rhythm at one of her band practices. In lieu of a babysitter, she had given him an old pair of drumsticks to play with and soon noticed he was keeping time with the music. Following a divorce, she moved the family to a rustic cabin two miles off East End Road in Homer, Alaska (just down the street from future pop star Jewel) and settled in without the luxuries of running water or electricity. Despite their limited funds, Cheryl was already beginning to instill her own love of music in Lincoln's heart as she sang her kids to sleep on snowy nights.
Mom introduced Lincoln to the mandolin at age five, and in no time he became a "professional," playing alongside her for tourists. "I'd play and she'd sing," Lincoln remembers, "and for the grand finale, I'd play the mandolin behind my head!" In his first headline appearance, the seven-year-old sat on a stool by himself in the harbor's local general store and offered songs to the fishermen and tourists for prices ranging from $0.25 for a short song, up to "$1.00 for a long song behind my head. I remember making $29.00 in one day," he grins. "I can't imagine going into a town now and seeing that – I'd probably die laughing. But if I did, I'd have to go for the full $1.00!"
When he was nine, Cheryl brought home an electric guitar amp. Lincoln plugged it in, played his first chord, and it was over. "I was ruined forever," he admits. After that he grabbed up any album he could get his hands on and picked out the songs himself, particularly those of his uncontested early favorites, Roger Fischer of Heart and Eddie Van Halen. Touring bar bands noticed his talent as well – and often offered a free lesson and a chance to join them on stage for a song or two.
Eventually, mom, siblings and stepfather moved down the coast to sunny California. "I hated it," Lincoln admits of his initial arrival in Modesto, California. At fifteen, right in the middle of school, the transition was a tough one for Lincoln, but God had an important purpose in the move. During his junior year, he met a sweet and very attractive young lady, who would not only later become his wife, but who, together with her family, introduced him at age nineteen to his Savior. Lincoln also began making the contacts that would solidify the direction of his musical career for the next several years.
By this time, Lincoln knew in his heart that he wanted to pursue music full time. Once again in concert with Mom, he played for a local Top 40 band for a while, but dreamed of writing and recording his own music and began working on some instrumental demos of his own. Through a long and convoluted series of friends who knew friends, Lincoln found himself with an address on a slip of paper that led him to the office door of the vice president of A&R for Columbia Records, and a return phone call two months later from none other than former Journey lead singer, Steve Perry, who heard Lincoln's demo and hired him shortly after.
For the next three and a half years, Lincoln recorded with Perry, and then toured the For the Love of Strange Medicine project. His time with Perry introduced Lincoln to the industry and solidified him as one of its top new guitar talents. Yet while he was enjoying his newfound acclaim, he was also growing into a man of deep and devoted faith in Christ, and he began to wonder if God had more for him. "I remember being on stage in Cincinnati one night," he recalls. "I was wrapping up my guitar solo at the front of the stage, and people were grabbing my legs and everything – it was like they were worshipping all of us on stage. I looked up and said, 'Lord, I'm sorry – you're not getting any glory for the gifts you've given me, and a lot of these people are hurting, and we're not giving them anything that's going to make a lasting change in their lives.' It just didn't have a whole lot of purpose."
That realization led Lincoln to come off the road and settle down with his new wife Laura in Modesto and spend several months at his church, Calvary Temple. During this time, he sorted through the past three years, plugged into his local fellowship and allowed Christ to give him a new sense of direction for the future. Lincoln's reputation followed him, though, and he soon found himself faced with several impressive tour offers from other big names in the music industry, including some of the bands that had influenced him early on. Also among his opportunities was the offer of a position at Calvary as staff sound tech and youth worship leader. In what seemed like a career-ending decision to his connections in the industry, Lincoln chose to do what he felt Christ was calling him to, and stayed at the church.
At times, his resolution wavered as he realized the magnitude of what he had given up. "I cried every day for the first month, or at least it felt like it," Lincoln admits. "It was such a reality check for me that a year before, I had been on tour making tons of money and being waited on hand and foot, and here I was doing sound for weddings and stuff." After a time of hard questioning, Lincoln reached a place where he simply gave up his dreams to the Lord. "God told me to quit writing songs, and just fix the P.A. systems at church. When you delight yourself in the Lord, He'll give you the desires of your heart, and that's translated that He'll actually put them in there." God totally changed Lincoln's heart, and gave him a passion for local ministry that he still carries with him today as an artist in residence at the church he and Laura now attend, Bayside Church in Granite Bay, California.
"It got to the point where I wanted to sell all my gear – I just had a passion for the sound at that church!" Lincoln says. "So I fixed the P.A.s, and after a short while, God released me to begin writing again. From that point forward, my writing seemed to flow more easily than ever before."
In the years that followed, God led the Brewsters to help start a church in Nashville, where Lincoln saw another old dream come true, though one he was no longer actively pursuing. Vertical Music signed Lincoln to a recording contract on the Vertical label, and with the release of his first two records, he once again found himself touring with an icon, this time with Christian music legend Michael W. Smith. He also had the chance to work with friend and label mate Darrell Evans on Evans' Freedom album, and to tour with Mark Schultz, and later with Third Day for their landmark Offerings tour.
Following his 1999 self-titled debut, Lincoln returned with his sophomore project Live To Worship, an album produced by Jeff Quimby and co-produced by Lincoln. The album, a rock infused worship album, enjoyed AC radio success with the singles "Take Me Higher" and "Power of Your Love." Lincoln is set to release his third project, Amazed, in the summer of 2002.
Lincoln, Laura and their new baby boy, Levi, make their home in Sacramento, California where Lincoln serves as the acting worship leader and artist-in-residence at Bayside Community Church.
Lincoln's aptly-titled latest project, Amazed, brings together the many steps God has brought him through to fulfill the desires of his heart, with songs from across his musical history. There are songs from his time as youth leader at Calvary, a favorite from Hillsong Music Australia, and a cover of the Delirious song, "What a Friend." All ten songs are tied together by one consuming purpose – worship.
"I wanted this album to reflect the true heart of the worshipper and be a worship tool for churches. I really focused on writing simple but powerful songs. All of the songs were written on acoustic guitar, very basic, so that people at a church who don't have musicians or a lot of production can still use them in a worship setting. It's important to remember that a poignant lyric and simple melody is still what hits people no matter what."
Amazed also gave Lincoln a chance to turn the reins over to award-winning producers Monroe Jones and Scott Williamson, a change for Lincoln, who has shared co-production credits on all of his earlier efforts. Another new influence for Lincoln on the album is fatherhood – he and Laura welcomed their first child, Levi, into the world last year. Levi inspired one of Lincoln's own favorites on the record, "All I Really Want," a song that also epitomizes the process he had to go through by entrusting the production of his music entirely to someone else.
"Stepping back and letting go, trusting the process to someone else, was really a good thing for me," Lincoln shares. "I felt like God was calling me to do that – He was saying 'You need to let go, be a Dad, a good husband, and trust this process to these guys who know what they're doing. The good part is that I'm very happy with the outcome!"
Perhaps in that sense too, Amazed sums up Lincoln's entire musical journey to this point – a journey of learning to trust his dreams to God's leadership, and of seeing the truly amazing result when God plants His own desires in our hearts: He leads us to worship.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
