I was born and raised in the notorious sex cult known as the Children of God<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beatings, hard labor and sexual abuse were all I knew as a child. At the age of fifteen I ran away from my parents, the cult and left my siblings and loved ones behind in search of a better life. This is how my musical journey began<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a warm summer\u2019s day in June 1996. I was leaving the youth hostel in old town of Solothurn. As I crossed the cobblestone road I heard some gentle singing accompanied by a guitar. A man by the name of B.R.Pearce sat on some steps by the edge of water rehearsing. He was singing a song that rang out to me. \u201cLittle black sheep don\u2019t cry, keep your faith, and hold your head high\u2026\u201d I was just fifteen years old. I became a singer, songwriter. The rest is history<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Up to that point my life had been a living hell. I approached the man sitting at the river\u2019s edge and asked him if I could have a go on his guitar. Robert liked my voice and we began talking. That afternoon the two of us busked in the old town of Solothurn. I did not own an instrument of any kind at the time, so we took turns playing Robert\u2019s guitar. We made what to my eyes seemed like a small fortune. It wasn\u2019t quite enough to buy a second guitar but sufficient to buy a pair of bongos. And so I became Robert\u2019s percussionist. By evening it was clear to me that I had found my destiny. After all what did I have to lose? I surely wouldn\u2019t miss the sadistic cult and my violent, alcoholic step-father. To spontaneously go travelling with a man I didn\u2019t know, who was twenty four years my senior made perfect sense at the time. Besides, I liked Robert. He showed me respect and gave me dignity. We are close friends to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After months of travelling with Robert, I finally saved up enough money to buy my own guitar, and started to earn a living with music. Robert left back to Antwerp and I decided to have a go at making my own life experiences. Most other street musicians didn\u2019t take me seriously. When I would hang out after busking, people would ask me why I wasn\u2019t in school. I didn\u2019t really know what to tell them either. My past was complicated, unpleasant and so I kept my answers short and vague.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the years I realised I wanted so much more than meaningless beating out the same old songs over and over. One man with his guitar travelling Europe just didn\u2019t cut it for me anymore. As a kid my biggest wish was to become a classical composer. Nonetheless, growing up in the children of God, education was hard to come by and I never learned to read or write music. I started branching out into many forms of art. Song writing and composing music, Poetry, sketching, writing, as well as film and photography. For me art is life. It is the air I breathe, the water I drink, the nourishment of mind, body and soul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":248,"template":"","meta":[],"class_list":["post-238","event_listing","type-event_listing","status-expired","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disastershow.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event_listing\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disastershow.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event_listing"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disastershow.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/event_listing"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disastershow.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disastershow.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}