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Who is the most influential person in your life? For most people, the answer is one of their parents. For some people, it's a mentor who spent countless hours pouring into them and teaching them how to be the person that they are today. Maybe it's a friend. Everybody has somebody who's impacted their life in a significant way. It's inevitable given that we are by nature relational beings. So who influences the influencers? Who mentored the people who are now mentoring the next generation? That's the heart of this new series that John is launching this week. To kick off the series, he has Ross King, an influential songwriter, singer, worship leader, producer, and songwriting mentor in Nashville join him to talk through some of his musical influences as well as the people he points to as having impacted him key ways throughout his life.
Connect with Ross:
https://www.rosskingmusic.com
Purchase the You Can Mentor book:
You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses
youcanmentor.com
Connect with Ross:
https://www.rosskingmusic.com
Purchase the You Can Mentor book:
You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses
youcanmentor.com
Creators and Guests
What is You Can Mentor: A Christian Youth Mentoring Podcast?
You Can Mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring leaders through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples in their own community. We want to see Christian mentors thrive.
We want to hear from you! Send any mentoring questions to hello@youcanmentor.com, and we'll answer them on our podcast. We want to help you become the best possible mentor you can be. Also, if you are a mentoring organization, church, or non-profit, connect with us to join our mentoring network or to be spotlighted on our show.
Please find out more at www.youcanmentor.com or find us on social media. You will find more resources on our website to help equip and encourage mentors. We have downloadable resources, cohort opportunities, and an opportunity to build relationships with other Christian mentoring leaders.
You can mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships with kids from hard places in the name of Jesus. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:Hey, mentors. Just a reminder about the You Can Mentor book. It's titled You Can Mentor, How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses. The whole point of this book is to equip and encourage mentors with new tools and ideas on how to make the most of their mentor mentee relationship. If you're a mentor, hey, go pick it up.
Speaker 2:And if you're a mentoring organization, pick some up for all of your mentors. If you would like to order mass copies, like more than 20, send an email to me, zach@youcanmentor.com, and we will get you guys a special price. But go and pick up that book. It's good. You can mentor.
Speaker 3:Ross King has been a full time songwriter, worship leader, performer, and producer since 1995. His songs have been recorded over 150 times, primarily in the contemporary Christian music genre, including cuts by Newsboys, We Are Messengers, Jason Gray, Kate Thompson, one of my favorites, JJ Heller, and many, many more. In addition, his songs have been used in film and TV and in national ads and promos for the Today Show, Fox TV's Iheartradio living room, concert, and more. He's recorded several independent albums of his own music and has made his money back on all of them. In 1998, he helped Plant Community Church in Bryan College Station, where he served as an elder and worship leader for 17 years.
Speaker 3:He currently provides for his family by doing several different things, including writing songs for, let me get this right, centricity music. Is that right, Ross? Yes. Doing concerts, producing music at his recording studio, coaching, mentoring other songwriters, and leading worship for churches all over the country. Ross currently lives in the Nashville area with his wife, Stacey, and their 4 children.
Speaker 3:I am so happy to be sitting down today with Ross King in an episode series we call Unsung Heroes, which is people of influence who get a chance to sit down and talk about those people who influence them, who we probably don't know and have never heard of nor will we ever. But, as we know with mentoring, it takes people who invest in others for people to go on and do amazing things much like Ross. Ross, it's good to see you.
Speaker 4:Thanks for having me, John. Always good to talk to you.
Speaker 3:For sure. Okay. So, Ross, something that your bio doesn't mention is your experience with and your heart for fostering and adoption. And this is this is something that we've had some interaction with over the years, as I believe my wife and I were in East Texas at a living alternative training day, and you and Stacy were there talking a little bit about that. So can you just kinda share with us a little about maybe when that started and what's that look like for you guys over the years?
Speaker 4:Yeah. I mean, it's you know, I've got 4 adopted kids, and the other one's 19, so it it would take too long to talk too much about it. But the way it started was, you know, when we were dating, Stacy and I both sort of separately had a wonderful adopt someday and then kind of felt nervous about bringing that up. And this was you know, we were naive kids and just sort of had a sense of for different reasons, a different sense of idealism about it or or some kind of sense of, like, you know, is that something that's a good ministry? What you know, whatever.
Speaker 4:I I always say, like, faith in the in the Christian life is less about walking into a closet and, like, coming out not scared of something because you prayed, and it's more about, hey. Let's try something. And if it doesn't kill us, then now we have more faith. Right? And and and and and different people have different faith for different things.
Speaker 4:We both had some faith for this. Right? And so as we got married, we kind of, you know, started saying, hey. Let's not play any more defense in terms of our birth control and all and all all that. And then a couple years into that, we hadn't had any kids.
Speaker 4:And we weren't necessarily, like, in a rush, but we were, like, just, you know, open to the idea and it and no children were coming. So we you know what? We're both okay with this adoption. Then we both talked about it. We both researched it.
Speaker 4:Let's look into it. And so we just started down that down that path. And, you know, few years after that, we kind of discovered some infertility stuff in in in our marriage. But, yeah, I mean, it's there are kind of two reasons I think why people adopt. And one of them is just the obvious, building my family the same way that you would plan to have children the the sort of biological way.
Speaker 4:And then the other mindset is maybe something a little bit more ministry or or kind of inclusive kind of, you know, kingdom diversity thing. You know, where you're like, hey. I just want our family to be more than what can biologically be created. Yeah. Maybe maybe over ethnic lines or or maybe over sort of socioeconomic lines, whatever.
Speaker 4:Yeah. We we had both of those throughout the throughout our throughout our journey with with with the 4 kids, and we always just wanted more children. It wasn't like, hey. We're gonna go we're gonna go rescue some kids. That that's actually looking back pretty a pretty offensive way to, like, look at it.
Speaker 4:Right? Sure. And so now it's more just by by the time we got, you know, 4 kids, it was just more like, hey. This is awesome. This is how we get kids.
Speaker 4:And we love these kids, and and we're just not super picky about what they look like or what their birth story is.
Speaker 3:You know?
Speaker 4:And so as a result, we have an ethnically pretty diverse family now. Awesome. But, yeah, we we and we do a lot of work still. Like, we're doing actually a a a a a couple's retreat for adoptive and foster families in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3:Oh, good deal.
Speaker 4:Like that a lot, and we speak and lead worship at a lot of adoption and foster and early child trauma type stuff. Yeah. So we're we're pretty involved in that world.
Speaker 3:Well, man, that's a worthy endeavor. Our youngest who is adopted just had an 11 year old birthday just 2 days ago. So, man, we are Great. We are blowing and going. Everyone's getting tall and huge in my home.
Speaker 3:Same. Right. Right. So are you now can we also just identify with one another? Are we not the tallest in our home any longer, you and I?
Speaker 4:Oh, no. No. I haven't no. No. Gosh.
Speaker 4:I have a son who's 6 3.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:And my one of my my middle daughter is probably gonna be taller than me. And she's 58 or 59 now, and she's 14. So Awesome. You look. And I'm not I'm not a super short person.
Speaker 4:I'm 5 10, which is kinda average. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's it's it's scary. Yeah.
Speaker 4:I felt there's something like that with everyone. I felt like everyone with birth kids and everything. Like, people are just I don't know if we're drinking too much milk or or having chemicals in our food, but we our our people are bigger.
Speaker 3:People are getting bigger. More bigger. That might be a podcast series that we kinda consider as well.
Speaker 4:Get the song. People are getting bigger.
Speaker 3:Oh, man. Okay. Make a note of that.
Speaker 4:That's a terrible song. Can you can you not not expect that from me ever? Because that's not fair.
Speaker 3:Alright, Ross. So take us back to the beginning of this whole thing. Okay? When did you truly start loving music?
Speaker 4:My parents weren't overly musical in terms my my mom played piano and stuff, but but but they listened to music like crazy in the house. It took us to a lot of concerts. We we grew up in College Station. We go to we go to G. Ronny White Coliseum in College Station where the where Bayon played basketball, and we go see the Oak Ridge Boys and Ronnie Milsap and Charley Pride and all this, like, kinda classic country stuff.
Speaker 4:And then my and my dad always had Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash and and that kind of stuff playing in the house, and they just were always singing and and whatever. And so I just grew up loving listening to music. You know, I didn't necessarily, as a kid, think I would make it, but I but I but my parents had a deep, deep love for both live music and recorded music. And so that's my and that was just in my house. And my older brother was also, like, always like a first early adopter of anything.
Speaker 4:Like, he he was listening to, like, early rap in the eighties when no white people knew about rap and stuff. You know? So did
Speaker 3:he influence a lot of what of what you're hearing then? Because I I I mean, I just know that's so many people's story about the the older sibling who you know, everything. Right? From media to words that you use.
Speaker 4:He had little 40 fives, you know, of all kinds of I I I remember ring my bell. It was like a ring my bell. He had a 45 there, and he had a 45. It was like new addition. No.
Speaker 4:What was the new addition before that? Was it new addition? The one that Bobby Brown and all
Speaker 3:those guys. Yeah.
Speaker 4:That was new addition. Mhmm. New addition. You know? He had 40 fives of that stuff and tapes of that stuff.
Speaker 4:And so, yeah, I I was we were very I was very influenced
Speaker 3:by his his his his tastes. So in talking to younger, you know, families and parents and stuff, I just it's funny how I will I will just encourage music to be played in the home. I mean, because I kinda had a similar experience, and and the experience of my parenting has been I just kinda find music to be a joyful thing to have playing, whether it's classical or country or just anything that can just be in the room. And so with the advent of Alexa okay. I think she's gonna start talking to me here.
Speaker 3:But, you know, it it's just so easily done. Is that something that that has kind of been y'all's reality too? Have you had me or or For sure.
Speaker 4:No. It is. And and I'll even say that, like, you know, as we all get into stuff like, you know, you know, our kids having counseling, our parents having counseling and stuff, I I hear counselors say a lot, hey, it would be nice if you had some soothing or joyful music playing in your home, you know, for this particular kid's issues or for the issues that you're dealing, you know, because and not to get too into that world, but the advent of like screens being so powerful, we've kind of lost the idea of just listening to to music without looking at anything.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 4:Right. It's a pretty it's a pretty powerful psychological aspect to this idea of just music is playing. Mhmm. And it's lovely and soothing and, you know, joyful. So I totally agree.
Speaker 3:No kidding. No kidding. So you you grew up with music in the house. When
Speaker 4:when
Speaker 3:did you start making that that turn from kinda being a consumer of it and enjoying it that way to to realizing, you know what? I wanna be I wanna be part of this process. I wanna understand what it makes what it takes to make music and and try my hand at this.
Speaker 4:I mean, I would love my my mom has passed, so she won't get her feelings. Sorry. I would love to say it was because she made me do piano lessons, but I hate it. No. What the weird it's a it's a quick little story is that a that is that one day I was spending the night I was gonna go over and spend the night at a friend's house.
Speaker 4:I had to sleep over Mhmm.
Speaker 3:At a
Speaker 4:friend's house, my my friend Trey. And I went over to his house, and he had sitting on his bed some pillows arrayed like a drum set.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:He already had some chopsticks, and he was playing the pillows like like like their drums with chopsticks. And to me, it's the dumbest thing ever. But he was playing some eighties music, you know, and kinda being like, this is what I've seen drummers doing. They cross their hands and do this, and this pillows the high hat, and this pillows what and I was like, cool. And I immediately could do it a little better than he could.
Speaker 4:And then in my mind, I'm like, well, they also they're also using their feet. So I'm kinda like so I'm at home and was like, and we didn't get that we didn't get that kid. It went for 2 it it it went for for too much, but I but I then I saved some money and, like, a month later bought bought a drum set. Yeah. And I joined a band pretty quickly because why wouldn't you join a band a month after you get a drum set?
Speaker 4:Because because that sounds great.
Speaker 3:Oh, man.
Speaker 4:That band wrote songs. And I was like, oh my gosh. This is great. And we did a record, like a cheap you know, cheesy kind of record, and I wrote a song for it. And their songs were all, like, super cool, like, indie alt, like The Cure Yeah.
Speaker 4:Kind of, you know. And mine was like Richard Mark's Brian Adams Duran Duran. Right? Cornfield, just super down the middle pop. Yeah.
Speaker 4:But everybody wanted my song, all the girls. Like, you know, they want the the the the pop ballad. And I just got a bug. Like, this is incredible. I I I have to do this more.
Speaker 4:This is this is so fun. So I just started getting out from behind the drum set and going to the piano. My mom had taught me a little bit, you know, whatever. And so Yeah. That it just kinda took over.
Speaker 4:And and I I never really I had a brief season early in college where I didn't, but basically my whole from 5th from 16, from that drum set on to now, I've just loved to create and write music.
Speaker 3:Well, listen. If we can if we can say Richard Marks at least 3 or 4 more times during this conversation, I'm gonna be happy. Okay?
Speaker 4:Dude, have you seen that guy? He still looks I don't know how old he's gotta be I'm 51. He's gotta be in his sixties. He looks amazing, and he still has great songs.
Speaker 3:He must just stay inside all the time.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay. Listen. You're gonna give me your your top three songs of all time. Okay?
Speaker 4:I saw this question when you you sent me the questions earlier. Just just just a little behind the scenes for everyone. I reject this question. I hate this question.
Speaker 3:Come on.
Speaker 4:I'm I'm far too rebellious RC high change, you know, whatever. And I have because I'm a we'll get to this, but because I'm a songwriting coach and mentor Yep. I have all these reasons why, you know, why songs are great. Right. So here's yeah.
Speaker 4:I'm I'm gonna give you 5, and I'll make it quick.
Speaker 3:I want I want them all.
Speaker 4:Alright. So and there's all kinds of reasons why it's all can be good. Okay? And I don't what k.
Speaker 3:I wanna listen. I'm gonna also preface this, Ross, because you're right. I get it, man. All these qualifiers and everything else. Okay?
Speaker 3:This is this is 100% subjective, and I'm I'm asking you to be as as self indulgent as you want because I think when I ask for someone's top 3, top 5, that's what I want. You know what I mean? Because these are things that I can't speak against.
Speaker 4:And I and I get it. And here and there's there's multiple categories, and the quick the quick version of that is there is songs that matter for the history and the influence. Right? Yes. There are songs that that that matter because of what they say lyrically, and there are songs that matter because they move and you don't know why.
Speaker 4:There's no, like, tangible reason. Like, I remember the first time I ever heard, here I am to to worship, you know, from the nineties, whatever. And I thought, this is just an a normal song, and it's blowing my mind. And I feel like I, you know, wanna just, like, worship my guts out of it. Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So that's my preface. Okay. Here we go. Pachelbel's canon, and they won't all be this this lofty. Okay.
Speaker 4:But Pachelbel's canon is a 4 chord progression over and over and over and over for, like, 5 or 6 minutes that just keeps changing the way the notes go over the 4 chords. Yeah. It never changed. Most most classical music is extremely complicated. It's 4 chords over and over and over with this section's got half notes.
Speaker 4:This section goes to quarter notes. This section goes to 16th notes with some with some accents, and it just keeps building and building, and emotions in it are amazing, and it never alters that progression. And so it's like the next song, Freefallin', because Freefallin' has by Tom Petty has 3 chords, and it and it does all these things. It it does, she's a good girl, loves her mama. It does, now I'm free, freefallin'.
Speaker 4:It does free falling, I'm a reef. And it does a o o thing on top of all of that, all over the same chord zone and over again. And and it says some kind of interesting social commentary things too because it's Tom Petty think in his eye. Alright? Yep.
Speaker 4:3rd, and there's no order here. Okay. 1st song that made me cry is a song called That's My Job by Conway Twitty. K? It's written by a guy named Gary Burberry who's like this top country hall of fame guy, but it has this awesome story.
Speaker 4:And this is before I was ever writing songs about this kid, and it's one of these, like, take a chorus and it means something different each time thing that the country does so well. Right? So it's got this first one is the kid is like I don't know. He's having a rough day or something. No.
Speaker 4:No. The kid wakes up in the middle of the night with a bad dream. He walks into his dad's bedroom. He's like, dad, I'm so scared. Can be I whatever.
Speaker 4:I had a bad dream. And and the course is, that's my you know, you know, I'll take care of you. That's my job. Everything I do is for you. Next, verse the kid.
Speaker 4:It's like, hey. I think I think I wanna go out to to LA or Nashville and write songs. You know, it's kinda kinda crazy. Will you support me, dad? I know it's crazy.
Speaker 4:Chorus, dad says, that's my job. It's what I do. Everything is I'm getting chills just talking about this right now. 3rd third thing, bridge bridge verse is my dad is like, you know, getting older, and he's saying, I'm gonna I'm gonna be gone soon. And, son, you got one job here to to to take the grief of this of this moment and the hole that I leave in the world and fill it with light.
Speaker 4:And the freaking last chorus says, that's my job. That's what I do. Everything I do is because of you, and I bawl my eyes out every time. Every time. Oh, man.
Speaker 4:Lustful. Right? That's like storytelling. It's whatever. And it's a beautiful song.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:45 Quickly. Times They Are A Changin' by Bob Dylan because I believe protest is maybe one of the most important uses of of music, and that song speaks this incredibly provocative, profound thing, spiritual, political, whatever.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 4:And and then finally, kind of a weird little outlier is Wade Wade in the Water. It's an African American spiritual Mhmm. From this from from, like, the slave period, and it's this really, really profound weird metaphor. It says, wait in the water, wait in the water, children, wait in the water. God's gonna trouble the water.
Speaker 4:Right? Mhmm. And I think that I mean, just saying that phrase, I'm like, something in my soul deeper than my brain says, that sounds like something awesome. Mhmm. I that's magnetic.
Speaker 4:Like, god's gonna trouble the water? What does that even mean? Right? Like, I just I love the kind of, like, secret, mysterious, a little scary Mhmm. Deliverance kind of liberation god thing that you get from a lot of those African American spirituals from that time period.
Speaker 4:And that song is sort of at the top for me because it's melodically really beautiful, and I love this. Hey. Just wait in. Wait in. Wait.
Speaker 4:Trouble's coming. But it's good news.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Man, that's like That's
Speaker 3:the good stuff.
Speaker 4:There you go.
Speaker 3:So, obviously, dude, you've got an appreciation for efficiency of song and, like, and nuance and and multiple layers. Right. I mean Yeah.
Speaker 4:Like, I could do the whole podcast on this mess.
Speaker 3:100%. 100%. I You
Speaker 4:know? So
Speaker 3:My my quick takeaway on this, and then then I'm gonna move on because I'm gonna share I I was I was kinda hoping to at least hear one from mine, but that's okay. That's alright. Hey, man. Petty.
Speaker 4:Well, I can yours is probably on. I probably just forgot about
Speaker 3:it.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. I I could I almost put I wanna hold your hand.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. But it
Speaker 4:feels there were several, like, kind of Elvis, you know, can't help falling in love.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:You know, that kind of stuff was back there for me. And
Speaker 3:In your in our notes, I had almost mentioned in parentheses, no Dylan, because I figured, you know, the the given of that. Right?
Speaker 4:But And look, I did not say amazing grace or Jesus loves me, which are kind of obvious. Right. Because Right. Jesus loves me this kinda it's kinda this pentatonic scale child thing, which I love. It's so simple.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And it's so memorable. Amazing Grace is obvious. It's the most played song, recorded song of all time. Yeah.
Speaker 4:You know?
Speaker 3:And, also, hey. I want everybody to go watch the Tom Petty running down a dream 2 part documentary. Do you agree?
Speaker 4:Give yourself some time. Give yourself some time for that song.
Speaker 3:One of the quotes there, don't Boris get to the chorus. I thought Oh, yeah. That is Tom Petty songwriting right there. Okay.
Speaker 4:No. He there there's a book. And, again, this might be something you'd edit out later, but there's a book called conversations with Tom Petty. That's kind of the exhaustive it's the all biography. There is a biography that's that that kinda happened later.
Speaker 4:This was the first time he'd ever given long interviews.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:And and and it's so the whole book is is long interviews with with this one guy, and it's it's in 2 it's in 2 sections. The first section is like his life, just kinda like my life. Same thing is kinda like his music. Yeah. And it has stories in it that are just for anybody who cares about music or isn't interested in making music are just so Yeah.
Speaker 4:So powerful. Man. Then it you're right. So
Speaker 3:What a guy for sure. Okay. So, like, I'm gonna I'm gonna add to these songs because I hope the listener says, hey. I don't even know that song that he's mentioning. Go listen to that song on Spotify.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna add to it. So no one's asking, but I'm gonna give my personal just 3 or so. Listen, man. Pancho and Lefty, Towne's Van Zant. To me, I mean, talking about efficiency and
Speaker 4:Like, big look. There's that whole story thing. That whole, like, that's what that's about.
Speaker 3:Save a view for lefty too. I kinda get choked up on that line just just about every time.
Speaker 4:You get into something like ghost riders in the sky. You know? You you've got all these things that are in that world
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Of, like, extremely interesting, you know, outlaw country stuff. Yeah. I mean, a ton you know, because then you get something like a Folsom Prison Blues. You got those kind of that that world like, there's a story here. Boy Named Sue, for goodness sakes.
Speaker 4:Yes. It's a satire, but it also has this sort of, like, 60 or 50 year old statement on masculinity, which is super interesting. And, you know yeah. There's all that kind of stuff. So
Speaker 3:Shel Silverstein, by the way.
Speaker 4:Old yeah. Old country has a whole other category.
Speaker 3:That is a whole other thing. You're right. Romeo and Juliet, Mark Knopfler.
Speaker 4:Interesting. Yeah. I'm an Knopfler guy for for sure.
Speaker 3:Me too. I feel you know what? I'm that makes me feel old too, though, to know that I'm, you know, listening to, like, the Emmylou Harris Mark Knopfler album, which I think is so good.
Speaker 4:Well and okay. So quickly. Just now we're ruining this. Quickly, there are people who who who they are the world's best songwriters Yeah. Who don't who don't have any songs on my list.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 4:Fuller, Rainy Newman is is sure. He's one of those for me. Yeah. I don't have any top songs in the world. You got a friend of me with the closest thing.
Speaker 4:Top songs in the world from Rainy Newman, but he is one of my favorite songwriters, period. He just doesn't win best song. He's just, you know I I talked a lot in my mentoring about ceilings and floors. Yeah. And he he his head doesn't bang the ceiling all that all that often, but he's over the floor every time.
Speaker 3:You know who my who who my guy is? Again, we've we're losing everyone here, and that's fine.
Speaker 4:Sure. Sure. Go ahead.
Speaker 3:Richard Thompson. He's he's on my list as well. So I'd say I I can't really give you a specific Richard Thompson song. I'd probably give you persuasion as maybe my favorite, but Mhmm. The essence of the songwriting isn't really important.
Speaker 3:It's just it's probably just the overall tone and the and the and the guitar on that song.
Speaker 4:The level of the level of consistency that that that you say, here's a brand I can always Yes. Count on. Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a I I can't find a good metaphor.
Speaker 4:It's not gonna sound insulting, but it's, you know, it's a it's a Chili's. You can always bump into a Chili's out on the road and think that's totally amazing. It's never gonna be terrible. Yep.
Speaker 3:Yep. Yep. Starbucks. So, Raju And
Speaker 4:I probably I probably just made myself white trash to all of your listeners.
Speaker 3:Well, mission accomplished because I didn't tell you, but that was one of the things I was going for. Alright. So something one of the many things that I like about you, you you currently offer songwriting, coaching, mentoring as you mentioned, and, you know, in the words of Chris Farley to, Paul McCartney. That's that's awesome. But what's what's it been like to invest in your musical mentee's creative process?
Speaker 4:Man, it it was a real surprise for me because I literally started doing it because I was out of money and knew that I had sort of mentally and inadvertently compiled a bunch of my my methods. I'm the kind of person that I I verbally process. And so I'll say something and realize, oh, what I just said is really important to me. And so if this situation comes up comes up again, that's what I'll say. Because I know I just said it and it and it and it and it matters to me.
Speaker 4:Right? And so I was doing that with with my songwriting. I was I was I was going to writes, and I was saying in certain moments with a cowriter, well, you know, this is what we do do to this. Thinking it's just how everyone thought. Right?
Speaker 4:And the person would say, oh, yeah. I guess so. I never thought about it. Mhmm. You know?
Speaker 4:And I'm thinking, oh, I always always think about it. So I started compiling that stuff just kind of as a, hey. I wanna have a sense of why I think the way I do whatever. Yeah. And at some point, I just said, I want I think I think I could teach this.
Speaker 4:So I just went on Facebook and whatever else and said, hey. I'm looking to kinda beta test of songwriting mentorship. And it was like $40 an hour. Like, I was just charging like cheap piano lessons, you know, kinda rates. And I just immediately loved it.
Speaker 4:And the people got better. Like, the people got better. And so I I have found that, you know, I was as as you said on my on my long bio, my long bloated bio, I pastored I was on the pastoral staff at a church for a while. And I don't do that anymore. And I and I wouldn't say I miss it, but something in my soul still leans toward it.
Speaker 4:Right? Sure. And this is a way to do that. I love, love, love seeing people connect their emotions and their grief and their struggles and their questions and their joys and their whatever else to their creativity. And then and then taking that and connecting that to other people, like that thing, you know, as a person for whom songwriting has multiple times kinda almost saved my life in the sense that I had nowhere to go with my feelings or or couldn't find a redemptive thing in the in the struggle, you know, without songwriting.
Speaker 4:As someone with that story, to build a do that with other with other people is very, very cool. And as you heard from my long, crazy, you know, like, feeling about songs, I have lots of ways that I feel about it. I Mhmm. Hey. I'm gonna help you find a way to say this really hard thing and deal with your emotions.
Speaker 4:I'm also gonna gonna walk you through how to write a song you don't care about just because making music is fun. Right? So I I love it. And I don't wanna be my main thing, but it but it's probably the most important thing that I do Okay. Honestly.
Speaker 4:You know? I'd rather do this other thing that's cooler, right, and and more glamorous, but it's probably the more important thing that I'm doing.
Speaker 3:Man, well, I just think it's so valuable, and I love that you do that. Do you find maybe this is a weird question. Even as I'm saying it, I'm gonna kind of I'm I'm gonna wonder because I'm shooting from the hip here. But do you find that that that component of your life, does it does it lend itself to your personal creativity, or do you feel like it it kind of drains it in a in a way?
Speaker 4:That's a great question. I I probably silo in my brain a little bit so that it doesn't drain it.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:I mean, it might drain my time. Right? And then I'm less my energy and time are used. But, no, I think it probably feeds it because and they feed each other because, you know, I'll do something. I'll be processing my own music in some way and thinking, how how can this song be better?
Speaker 4:How can I how can I improve in this area? And I'll think, oh, that's something I can talk to my students about. And at the same time, I will be talking to my students, and some will come out that I hadn't really been prepared to say. And I'll think, well, gosh. I just gave them a tip that I've even used myself.
Speaker 4:Right? Because it's again, it's a it's a conversation I'm having with these students. And so they'll ask a question or they'll or they'll show me something I hadn't even considered. You know? It's art's weird, but because we can tell artists can tell people after they did something about the art.
Speaker 4:We can say, look at this piece of art. You you can't get can you see that? And we can convince ourselves or maybe even why and and and be like, that was on purpose or that I did that because when really you didn't even know why you did it till it was already done. Mhmm. You know?
Speaker 4:And I think there's a lot of that that that goes on both in the teaching process and the creative process is that you're you are working through, oh, I see this tree and these clouds and blah blah blah. And now I'm realizing there's colors sort of connecting those and there's you know? And you didn't really do that on purpose. Yeah. It it was intuitive or accidental or whatever.
Speaker 4:And so that that's a lot of what what what connects those worlds for me is I'm I'm watching people who do a different process than me. You know? Because songwriting is I don't know what else to compare it to, but you you you can learn to do it without asking anybody how to do it. Right. You learn to do it because you ask somebody how how to do it, and it's probably a mixture of both.
Speaker 4:But I always joke that it's kinda like when you get married and you and you go to Christmas with your in laws for the first time, and you're like, that's not how Christmas is done. You know? And they're like, of course, it is. It's how we do Christmas. You know?
Speaker 4:And that songwriting is like, this isn't this person's doing that. They're talking about this important aspect of songwriting. Well, I I don't even care about that. Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And I think that's that that I love all that. And that that just informs and sort of sort of resets the gauges, you know, for, oh, I taught my student this. I've never done that. I just realized I just taught it to him. Oh, I'm doing this in my songwriting.
Speaker 4:I need to teach my students that. You know? And just it's it's very you know, the the Venn diagram gets closer and closer and closer.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Well, so as I mentioned before, you know, at You Can Mentor, we really do believe in the power of mentoring and that anybody can do it effectively. So our unsung heroes segment, it gives people like yourself the chance to point the spotlight on someone else who mentored them well. And we believe that people who invest in others behind the scenes in a relationship are indeed heroes.
Speaker 3:So, Ross, who in your life has equipped or encouraged you as a mentor? And this can be musically, you know, character, faith, relational, just however.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Well, I'm probably gonna speak more to faith and life because, unfortunately, I was I was kind of by myself living in College Station. I didn't have a lot of musical mentors. And then I spent too long being the biggest fish in a small pond. And then when I moved to Nashville, everyone was just as good or better, but I was kinda older.
Speaker 4:So I haven't I I am for better or for worse, I haven't had a ton of, like, really strong mentorship in the music thing, and and that probably accounts for any in any of my inadequacies or any of my late bloomer, you know, growth. But in life, I wanna briefly say that my good friend Scott Stoltz was a guy that, like, found me. He was a youth pastor in Brenham. You know, it's kind of our mutual whatever. And and just he and I planted community church together, and he and he pulled out of me pastoral things that that I didn't know were there and believed in me and asked for more more from me in some ways that I needed to have that.
Speaker 4:And I and I quote him all the time when I talk about true community. But I wanna answer all your longer questions and more thorough things, and I wanna discuss my father-in-law. But I just didn't want I just didn't wanna leave Scott out because he's such an important part of my journey as a thinker. But, no, my father-in-law, his name is Nicky Otts. And I lost my dad about 11 years ago and and my mom about a year ago and wasn't super close to my mom.
Speaker 4:And so I kind of looked to my father-in-law pretty early on to just for advice, for this is how you raise a family. This is how you grow old in a cool way. This is how you spend money. This is how you, you know, talk to people. And he's so different than I am, and that's a real challenge for me.
Speaker 4:Like, he's a listener, not a talker. He's a behind the scenes guy. He's great with money, and I'm not. He's you know, in every way, he's different than me. It just challenges me so much and is so good for me.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, that that that's that's the person I would probably wanna put point to and say, hey, everyone. I wish you all new Nikki Gots.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Oh, man. That's so good to hear. It's it's I think it's great. I mean, that's the beautiful thing about family and and what we would hope for in a marriage.
Speaker 3:Right? That you that you grow your family that way and that you're influenced by these people who, you know, cared for and and loved your spouse, but then you benefit from in this great way, right, of Yeah.
Speaker 4:I I I look at him and and and and my mother-in-law both, and and and I say my life is whole and great and good in many in many ways because you did your job so well before I ever knew you or her. You know? And one one of the really powerful things about my relationship with my father-in-law is that at some point, 7 or 8 years ago, my wife and I, we had we had bought phones at the same time. And then for some reason, I think one of us wanted the bigger screen and whatever, so we switched phones. And you do that, your contacts can get kinda screwy.
Speaker 4:Mhmm. And so at this time at this point in time, my my dad had had already passed. And and suddenly, Nikki's name came up as dad on my phone. And I just would cry, like, every time I would start to type in Nikki, and I would, like, oh, I gotta say dad, you know, dad. And it was like the and and when he called me, he would say dad.
Speaker 4:And I was like and I just that was so powerful to me because I was never the kind of person that that would have said, oh, you're gonna see your in laws as parents. It just wasn't like that.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:You know? And this really is a really, really cool thing to this day. You know? He he's he's my dad now.
Speaker 3:So Yeah. No kidding. Well, you bring up a really valid point, and I think that one that our mentors who listen to this podcast can really kinda grab onto. And that's the fact that, you know, as as life goes on, as the Lord, you know, continues to build community in our lives, so often we can really kinda find even our mentor that might come to us with an from an organization or or elsewhere, not just from them becoming a part of our family, but you know what? They become part of our family.
Speaker 3:And so what a what a wonderful thing as a mentee to really consider or to hear those words from someone who might say, hey. Just so you know, I consider you part of my family. You know? And that's and that's that's the good and the bad. Right?
Speaker 3:That doesn't just mean that it you know, that we're going to be so polite to each other that you're gonna it means sometimes that you know what? You might disappoint me at times, or I'm I might disappoint you at times, and it might mean that we kinda weather through some friction, but all the more important to realize that family sticks together.
Speaker 4:Right. And and, John, I'm 51 years old, and I'm talking to you about a about a mentor I've only had for the last 25 years. I mean, I could go back to my childhood or my teenage years and talk about my youth minister who was incredible and and and those kind of things. But the fact is at 51, I still feel like a kid when I run into a situation that's unfamiliar or or scary to me. I still get situations that are unfamiliar and scary to me, and I still need that.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:And he's in his early seventies, and I I I need and count on him and lean on him in all kinds of ways that a grown man maybe shouldn't, You know? I I don't know. But I but that that doesn't end. Right? Like Sure.
Speaker 3:No. I completely agree with that. And that's that's what we're trying to do and I think be able to communicate as well that you never really get to a point where you say, okay. I've got it. I've got this life thing squared away.
Speaker 3:You really don't. You might have it in that chapter, but, you know, what I hear from you is to say, you've got a man 20 years beyond you that speaks into you. And so you're looking at and I'm guessing you're also saying, this is what I this is what I want to aspire to be. This is the way the outlook I wanna have. And, you know Absolutely.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. No. There's so much about who who he is that that I just think, well, I got I got some more time. I'm gonna try to he's so different than me. I wonder if in the time I have left, I can be more like him.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 4:And and he's not the kind of person who would ever say be like me at all. You know, he's actually spoken a lot into my to my life about how different I am than him and what he loves about it.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's great. Awesome. And that's another beautiful thing too. You talk about just the difference of man, it's it seems like we're so easy to kinda be drawn to those who are like us or that we want to be. And others, we just you know, we always kinda feel like, well, we're a little different, and so maybe I don't have anything to learn from them.
Speaker 3:And
Speaker 4:and you're you're not as old as I am, John, but you but you lived enough life that you understand that at a certain point in in your life, you can start denying all the ways that you could have done life better. Mhmm. Just because you're ashamed of it, or you can start leaning in. Mhmm. And not to be ashamed, but just to learn and saying, look.
Speaker 4:Here are all the things about my life to this point. But by the grace of God, somehow haven't killed me, and but they're true about about me, and I I wanna keep changing those things. And where can I go to find that? Right? And, you know, that that is probably you know, and that's not just mentors.
Speaker 4:Right? That spouse and friends and whatever else. And sometimes the people you are mentoring, you're like, man, you're doing it so much better than me. Right. And that can be a reason why you mentor it.
Speaker 4:Right? I wanna help you guys. I I tell I tell a lot of my students, I want you kids to skip the I want you to skip the line. Mhmm. You know, I I I took a long time to get here.
Speaker 4:I want you to skip the line. Yeah. But but I just you know, I I look at all the ways I've done my life poorly in ways I've I've, you know, I wanna be better. And I see him, and I'm like, man, for the time I have with him, I I wanna get that stuff right, and I wanna lean in and just, like, soak it up if I can.
Speaker 3:Awesome. Well, Ross, thanks so much for sharing this and and for sitting down with me today, talking about some of these things. Look. We believe in mentoring. This is exciting for me to do though because as a creative and one who invests in other creatives, you know, what I say with with mentoring is something that I like to do with middleman is the fact that we spend so often time with skaters.
Speaker 3:Skaters love music. Skaters love art as well because, you know, it's so graphic in nature, and so something that I always remember and try to share with with others is a lot of the young people that we get to work with are going to be those songwriters, those screenwriters, those artists who and, you know, and what do artists do? Well, they they put into word or picture what we're all thinking and feeling. Right? They put into word.
Speaker 3:They write a song because the masses say, oh, you know what? I feel a certain way. Your words match my feeling, and so what we say is these are these are the voices of of a generation.
Speaker 4:Mhmm. Amen. Totally agree.
Speaker 3:So thank you for investing in that and in that community.
Speaker 4:Love it. Thanks, buddy.
Speaker 3:Alright, man. We'll have the best, and we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 4:Alright.
Speaker 3:Listener, we thank you for joining us today, and you can check out Ross King at rosskingmusic.com. You can bring Ross King into your very community for a concert. And if you have been thinking, you know what? I might wanna write a song or 2, well then reach out to Ross and maybe become one of his students. As always, we wanna remind you that you can mentor.