"Bride wishes to ask for prayer this week as we enter the studio as a band
for the last time to complete our service and finalize our work as a band.
For over 20 years Bride had dedicated this music to the work of God for the
promotion of the Kingdom of God. Our message has never changed nor wavered
and remains the same today "Jesus and Him crucified." What this simple
statement means and encompasses is everything that Christ Jesus did in His
life and afterward by returning to His Father to assure us salvation and
life age abiding.
When Troy and I formed a little band called Matrix back in 1983 and we no
idea that our journey would be so long together as writers, performers and
ministers together. The bands name was changed in 1985 to Bride and the rest
as they say "is history."
God has blessed us and sent us out into the world from our humble abode in
Kentucky and entrusted us with the message of life. Our travels have taken
us throughout the world to some incredible places. Many times we have been
welcomed by the people of Brazil Europe and Scandinavia. We have had the
good please of playing Canada, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico and even Mexico. Even
though our recording days as Bride is ending Bride will remain a band for
the next few years as we continue to promote our past projects and take on
the occasional concert.
Some have asked why we have decided to stop writing and recording? The
answer is simple, we have finished what God has commissioned us to do and to
go on would delay the new work that He has for us.
This last CD is fittingly titled "Tsar Bomba." This work will put the
exclamation point on two decades of work.
From the origin of Bride we have gained your trust and a dedicated following
that call themselves "Bride Fans." But we see you as friends and try to
never refer to you as fans, but rather "our audience." You might remember
coming up to me after a concert and asking me for my autograph and my reply
would be "I do not give autograph I give signatures?' We never thought of
ourselves as anything special because we were honored to serve and
understood fully how temporary we were. We were granted the wisdom to not
abuse the privilege that had been laid upon us.
After our last CD "Skin for Skin" we almost thought God had finished with
us. I personally had one medical nightmare after another in my life. My wife
survived breast cancer, my dad had a emergency triple bypass to save his
life, my grandfather was placed in a nursing home with Alzheimer's, my 17
year old son ended his High School soccer year with knee injury, and I
endured shoulder replacement surgery. It all seemed too much to swallow with
the emotional aspect and then the financial responsibilities that we would
have to endure. After Troy and I were in a car wreck on our way to begin
writing for the new CD which totaled his 68 convertible Mustang I thought
things can't get worse. Then my wife and I had our troubles compounded by
being laid off our jobs. All I can do is laugh and thank the Lord that we
have faith.
With all of that said, when the Lord began to impress upon my heart to write
again for I wasn't feeling overly inspired, I made the failed attempt. The
truth of the matter I was pretty well depressed, I sat down to compose. I
had put some lyrics together Troy and I called Michael Loy who came in to
play drums and we actually worked on several songs for a short period of
time. Troy and I neither were content with the direction so we took another
break. After weeks of crumpling lyric after lyric and tossing meaningless
words into the trash inspiration came like a bright light. Everything that I
was writing seemed to have great meaning. And it wasn't long before I called
Troy told him to dust off his guitars and let's start writing again.
Troy and I spent the next several weeks writing and finding direction. His
music was flowing from him effortlessly and now we had to put the band
together again. I knew this would be our final CD so I called Jerry McBroom
and asked him how he felt about returning and contributing his drumming
skills. Jerry gladly accepted. Even though Lawrence Bishop had been a
faithful and incredible bassist for the past several years the Lord did not
impress upon me to ask Lawrence back. For one Lawrence lived 2 ½ hours away.
Secondly his personal schedule was always such that I felt like we might not
be able to put in the necessary hours and thirdly Lawrence was now married
and that takes another priority. So Jerry suggested that we call on Glenn
Watts. And since Steve Osborne was so generous on our last CD I gave Steve a
call and he said "whatever you need." So Bride was back.
I can only say that these past few weeks of writing and rehearsing with the
guys has been a great time and tomorrow Monday 18th we will put all of our
hard work to the test as we begin "Tsar Bomba," the final CD.
So thank you so much for your prayers and support. If you have donated to
the project we encourage you to check the secret site daily for updates and
hopefully video footage from the studio. We will keep you updated so you can
follow us through the recording process.
If you have not donated to the project then wait for the next email and we
can give you our progress report then.
In Christ Jesus,
Dale and the guys"
