Derek Emmons

I started playing Drums at the age of seven when my mother bought me my very first snare drum from Sears. She told me the reason she bought it was so I would stop beating on every thing in the house. But I couldn't play it while my Stepfather was home, it was too loud, just a bunch of noise to him. But that snare drum grew into a whole lot more, and still to this day I have that snare drum because I know in my heart that it was a gift from God. My childhood was very devastating for me, being brought up in an alcoholic environment with physical and mental abuse. I was always told by my Stepfather that I would never amount to anything. Though my Mother tried her hardest to teach me good moral values and encourage me about the Lord and what He could do for me but the thought of my Stepfather's abusive ways always stuck in the back of my mind. And after awhile I started believing it and living it. Turning to what comforted me the most, drug and alcohol. That was my escape from reality. I've played in some great bands. Playing in some low life bars to very well know establishments. But on New Year's Eve 1997,I turned my life over to our Lord and Savior and decided to lay my sticks down, never to return to that type of life and environment again. I had several bands begging me to join up with them, but I turned them down because of the type of environment it would have put me back in to. All my life I have known that God was there for me, But I never put Him first. But now I do! He has protected me my whole life, but I wouldn't even acknowledge him, But now I do! I praise him every day now, through out the day, from the time I get up until I go to bed. Thank you God for saving a poor wretch like me by sacrificing your one and only Son, Jesus, The Christ, The Messiah.