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CRI Newsletter interview with Heather Layne. (Editor’s note: Heather Layne has a lot to say to us all, through her life and through her music, so to be faithful to the depth of our interview with Heather and her husband Dennis; this will be in two parts. DJ Heather Layne is a unique and special person. She has been through the fire of trials and has overcome. She has experienced victories in her personal life, in her career, and in her recovery; yet she remains humble. She has used her gifting to reach out to the hurting, to be an encourager to those that need it, and has a heart for the incarcerated. She has taken her music and her message to various men’s and women’s facilities throughout the Western States, and appears on a yearly basis at many CR’s…a testament to the reception many have shown her. We caught up with her while on a tour that took her through California (where she is currently based), Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma, which is where we sat down with Heather and Dennis, who is also her drummer, at Henderson Hills Baptist Church, in Edmond, OK, shortly before CR. Heather also shared stories in between songs that we’ll include as part of this interview. CRIN: Your music story is entwined with your recovery story, but your story of hurts and healing begins much earlier, so let’s start there. HL: Yeah, it really does. Like a lot of people, my young life had traumas of their own, and other aspects that were basically good, so that’s the person I always tried to portray. At an early age, I learned to put on the mask of “Everything’s alright”. In high school, I was valedictorian of my graduating class, yearbook editor and head cheerleader. If you’d have asked me how everything was going, I’d have said “Fine” but it wasn’t fine. I was living a nightmare behind the scenes. When I was growing up, we didn’t have Bibles in the house, we didn’t go to church, or have prayer in the house, or anything like that. I got into an abusive relationship that I couldn’t get out of. I was a mess. I carried that mess with me for years to come. God delivered me from that relationship, and I got married a year later that ended up in divorce after ten years. He was an addict who wasn’t dealing with his addictions, I was a mess he was a mess, and we were a mess. I was ignoring my mess and dragging it into other people’s lives. CRIN: You know, most of us in recovery hit “bottom”, and for some there are several bottoms, through relapse or cross-addictions. Of course when we’re there it’s often difficult to look around and say “Hey…this is the bottom”, but as we climb out of it, and have the benefit of hindsight, we can look back and see it was a bottom for us. It’s often that bottom that can cause a change in our lives. Did you find that to be the case? HL: Yes, at that point my life crashed. I was a divorced single mom, with very little to live on. I didn’t really know God then, but I went to my knees and said “I’m tired of living this way”; and God became my everything, my all-in-all. He became my husband, my provider, my father that I never had. I started going to a church, and seeking His plan for my life. CRIN: And this was about the time your music came into play? HL: Right. I felt like I was supposed to pick up the guitar, but I didn’t have a guitar, I was broke…I had five dollars to my name. Well, there was this torn-up guitar in my kids’ toy box, and I said, “God, I can’t afford to do anything to this guitar”, then I called the local music store to see what they would charge to put strings on it, and they said “Five bucks”…so God was really speaking to me in those early days. I was writing songs out of my brokenness, though I couldn’t read music, I didn’t know any chords, but these songs were just coming; and others, like my cousin, would pick out the chords as I’d sing the words and the melody. CRIN: So it was music that brought you to recovery? Isn’t that just like God? HL: It is! I was writing these songs, and thinking, “So what’s THIS all about? Well, thank you, God, for giving me these songs”. Well, this pastor at this big church in California heard one of my songs and invited me to come to one of their recovery meetings to sing for them. So I got up in front of a whole bunch of people at a twelve-step group, thinking, “I don’t need recovery, I’m not an addict or alcoholic” and I sang “The Journey”. So the pastor says to me, “This is a recovery song” and I said, “Oh, it is?” I didn’t know…I was a perfect heathen at that point, but he asked me to lead music at their twelve-step meetings. I prayed about it, and felt like I was supposed to, and I was scared, but I went ahead and did it. CRIN: So that was what got you “in the door” to twelve-step recovery meetings, Christ-centered. HL: Yes, initially, it wasn’t Celebrate Recovery. It was modeled on CR and they had been to the Summit. At first, we were doing praise & worship and one of my songs in with them, and finally the pastor said “I want you to do all your songs, because it’s Christ-centered; you’re writing about the Bible, you’re writing about recovery…you’re writing about healing”. That’s how it started, and I started playing guitar and learning guitar as I went along, and always had a recovery band. CRIN: You’ve been playing guitar now for about 10 years. I know for myself, as a guitar player, I should be WAY better than I am for as long as I’ve been playing. But you know, especially in this type of music, the message is so important, and if the musicality detracts from the message, then how worthwhile is that? (At this point in our conversation Dennis joins in) Dennis: God doesn’t want us all to be the same, I mean there was only one Stevie Ray Vaughn, but as individuals we gotta learn how to pull that out. So if it’s real simple strumming, it is the backbone of her music and songs have come from that. So now, it’s just the two of us traveling around…a pretty lightweight setup, but God said to us “I can be big in your smallness”. I play with brushes, or my fingers; God even spoke to me, as a husband, as a drummer, “Don’t run it over”. It ain’t about a bunch of noise, it’s about the heart of that song and what God is doing; and y’know ever since I’ve backed off and we’ve reduced everything, the ministry really started to take off…people were really starting to get it…the words were sinking in. HL: Yeah, a lot of tears; and that’s what I noticed the first time I went to a prison. There were groups…rescue missions and halfway houses coming to our recovery meetings, and they asked me if I’d do concerts. In the beginning, I was so nervous…I did it afraid, but I knew God was asking me to do it. So the first time I walked into a women’s prison, I didn’t know what the reaction was going to be, but by about the second or third song, most of them were just literally sobbing…and I thought “This is the most broken audience I’ve ever played in front of” and the God-spirit was just SO there…all I wanted to do was go back. We’ve played a few men’s prisons as well; in California, Texas, and Tennessee. I know at Corcoran (Men’s Prison in CA) they keep asking “When are they going to come back?” Dennis: As far as men go, I know when I was playing in her band, working my recovery, and before the marriage…it was just her songs. I had never heard recovery music, I was brand-new to recovery, and I’m back there playing drums, and I was just a “mush” by the end of the set; and I had never played in groups like that, I didn’t know what it was. But God spoke to me and said “It’s the music…it penetrates the shell-casing of the heart”. You see, I had a really hard case around my heart ‘cause of things that went wrong or bitterness that I had in my life, and unforgiveness. But through that music, God penetrated that and it went right to my heart and that’s when I started dealing with stuff. We’ve seen that happen with other people too. Music can touch our emotions in a lot of ways, but to hit us in the heart? To get us to like, look at stuff, and say, “Okay God….you want me to look at that, and you’re going to help me, then I’m going to trust you”; and that’s what recovery’s all about. That’s the cool thing about her music…I already saw the impact of it. After we got married, and things were going, I felt like there’s got to be other people who would benefit (from this), but she was a little shy about hanging on to her music, but (as) we prayed, and asked God, He brought the opportunities. CRIN: So how has doing prison ministry affected you? I know that doing prison ministry myself, I’m not sure who gets more blessed. (Denny and Heather both chime in “Yeah”) HL: You know it’s really changed my perspective of humanity, and how God sees people; some of the Godliest people I’ve met are behind bars. I just have a huge respect for people that are following the Lord behind bars…I know it’s not easy. I know it’s not easy on the outside either, but I really know it’s not easy on the inside, and I just really feel a connection with them because of my brokenness, and even though I wasn’t incarcerated I understand being “imprisoned” within myself, and that’s where I connect with them. I just have a passion to see people be free, but mostly to know the Truth. I want them to know the truth about God, about how much He loves them, that He’s not mad at ‘em. Y’know, He really wants to restore their lives, and I really believe that God can do great things with people that are just nobody without the Lord, ‘cause that’s what I was and He’s done great things with my life because I said “Yes God, take my life” and so I believe that if He can do it for me, He can do it for everybody. (Editor’s note) This is part one of my interview with Heather Layne. In the next segment, we’ll discuss in more detail the songs and the stories behind them, as well as how God had orchestrated her and Denny’s lives and her career. Heather will be out on tour early in January and into the spring, with dates in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. For more info, and how to buy music, read more about her, and read letters to her from prisoner to whom she has ministered, and more, go to http://heatherlayne.com. DJ |
