SEVENDUST's CLINT LOWERY Will 'Absolutely' Write About His 'Journey With Christ' On Band's Next Album

During an appearance on the Man Up God's Way podcast with host Jody Burkeen, SEVENDUST guitarist Clint Lowery once again spoke about his recent revelation that he has just completed his first tour as a "saved Christian." Regarding how he came to be in a relationship with Jesus Christ, Clint said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I had the understanding of God, but I did just enough to feel like I wasn't hellbound. I considered myself a pretty decent person earlier in my twenties. And then I started getting into alcohol and drugs, and that took me down the darkest path that I'd ever imagined — you know, the typical rock and roll lifestyle. You go into drugs, you go into drinking, all the other things, womanizing and just different things that just were not aligned. And then deep in my soul and my heart, I knew it was wrong. I just wanted to fit in. I just wanted to exist… And it was almost a badge of honor to live in a sinful way. And there was a lot of like 'attaboys' that were given to you. And so as a younger man, you're romanced by that. But there was always a consistent prayer life. A relationship, I wouldn't call it. I'd call it more of a foxhole. I would go through the motions of prayer because it was the imprint of my being, 'cause my mother and my father did it. We always prayed at dinners. And so there was a foundation there, but there just wasn't a relationship."

Clint continued: "I got sober in 2007, and that, that opened up a relationship with what I'd called… Because I wouldn't say I was church hurt, but I just was very reluctant to join or be a part of a religion aspect of it. Not realizing that the real mission and the real objective is to have a relationship with Jesus Christ as my savior that died for my sins and was resurrected. When I got sober, I just said there's a God concept there. I had Jesus Christ, but I wasn't fully supporting that in a way where I would even tell my kids early on, allow them to kind of, 'Well, some people believe you die and nothing happens. Some people believe that there isn't a God at all. Some people believe in Buddhas. A lot of people believe in different things.' And I would just tell 'em that, and at the time, that's what I thought.

"I had conflict with man," Lowery explained. "I never had a conflict with God. It was the way that I'd seen man — and woman — manipulate and use religion with hypocrisy. And I was so interested in finding the holes in all of it. I'd see a preacher and just get a sense of, it wasn't authentic and there was a motive and there was money. And I was just trying to find holes instead of going straight to the Bible, going straight to Jesus. And then I just had a very cynical lens on the whole world before coming to God. So that went on. I got sober and I had a prayer life that was more intense and focused, but it wasn't specifically to Jesus. And I was sober. A lot of things in my life improved. I went through a divorce, got remarried, had two beautiful children, but there was a discontent. I would be driving around, and with sobriety and accomplishing that, people would always tell me, 'So proud of you. Your life's turned around.' And I felt that in some regard, but there was a thing about just my existence that just felt empty. I held on to resentments, grudges. I judged people. I was very self-obsessed with fitness. Vanity was a huge thing. And yeah, I wasn't drinking, yeah, I wasn't cheating, yeah, I wasn't doing the things I was doing when I was drinking. But I wasn't complete. And there were times I would be riding around town — and I have all these blessings in my life; my children are healthy and my wife is healthy, and everything is good — I just would be… I don't know — 'unsettled' is the word. And then a couple things happened on the health side. I'd had a torn meniscus last year, and that turned into a herniated disc in my neck and sent shock waves down my left arm. And that humbled me in terms of physically. I was self-diagnosing myself. Then it turned out that my dad had Parkinson's disease, so I thought I had some hand trembling things going, different things outside of just the neck, herniated, some different odd symptoms. And it sent me down the darkest health spiral I've ever gone through. And it put me on my knees in a way where there was a lot of fear of serious neurological disease that I thought was basically strip me down from the core physically to where I would have nothing but my brain. And so that few months is when I really dove into the Bible, to the word, because I'd seen so many doctors and I'd seen so many… I've talked to all my friends. I was scared. I didn't know what to do. I was absolutely convinced I was checking so many boxes for this disease. So I was going through the test, and they were coming back clean. I was going through all these different things, and then I just had nowhere else to go. I knew that something was wrong, and I just went to the Bible and I went to find my relationship with Christ… But the suffering that I went through that and still kind of deal with a few things, it has been the biggest gift that was ever given to me. Even if those things panned out the way that I was in fear, it had brought me to a relationship with Christ that I never would have had it not been for that suffering for me. So once I got into scripture with that much zest, it was, like, 'I have nothing to lose. I want Christ in my heart.' And I started seeing things."

Regarding how his relationship with Jesus Chris might affect his songwriting going forward, Clint said:  "I haven't written any lyrics yet. I've written a lot of music for the new SEVENDUST. And historically I write a lot of lyrics and vocals and some of the other guys do too. I'm really gonna have a hard time not touching on that part of my life. I've written a lot about the turbulent parts of my life. 'Cause it matches the energy of the music. So if you write this heavy, aggressive, minor music, [you] feel like the subject matter should be kind of aligned with that. So typically you go dark, and I've always done that. And it's funny because I've gotten to the part where me and Morgan [Rose, SEVENDUST drummer] talk about it a lot, where it's, like, 'Man, what the heck are we gonna talk about?' We've already gotten mad at everybody, and I'm not mad anymore.

"With every genre of music, there's really the pioneers and people that are doing super-creative stuff, and there's people that are just kind of plagiarizing and stealing and some safe and some of it doesn't move me," Lowery explained. "And so that same thing goes with worship music. I believe there's some really serious people that are tapping into their talent, and then some of it just doesn't move me as much. And that's okay. I love when someone is talking and praising God — I don't have to like the song right to love the message — but I feel there are a lot of artists that are believers, but they don't talk about it in their music. Which is crazy to me, 'cause it's, like, man, that's such a big part. Before, I was very hesitant. I wrote a song called 'Till Death' [from SEVENDUST's 2013 album 'Black Out The Sun']. It's probably the heaviest SEVENDUST song we ever did, but it's basically about wanting to get right, wanting to stop sinning and to find God. And it doesn't say that. I was always worried about, 'Well, if I do this, then there's no turning back, and everyone's gonna think I'm just this…' And I don't care about that anymore. So I feel like I'm absolutely gonna write about my journey with Christ, how obvious it is. And I don't think every song is gonna be about that, but I do believe that it would be a missed opportunity to not… If I'm gonna write some words and not give some of that to God, then it just wouldn't feel right. And it'll be heavy too, man. It ain't gonna be like we're gonna lose a step. It might even be better. I don't know."

Two months ago, Clint told ChurchLeaders about how the touring life had changed for him after he got "saved": "I'm really close with the [other] guys [in SEVENDUST], obviously. We've been together so many years. They knew of all the health stuff that was going on. And when I'd gotten saved, I would have a few conversations with 'em, but they had kind of pulled back a little bit from me, which was another thing. It was like God was taking people and kind of, in my mind, moving them away. People I thought were gonna stay and talk to me and help me and all that, everyone kind of pulled away 'cause there was nothing that anyone could say. So, through that I really built my relationship. Going into it and then talking to my pastor and talking about, how am I gonna enter re-enter this world? If you look from the outside, some of the messages in the old songs, they're not really aligned with some of the beliefs I have today. But I do believe that there is a reason that all of this happened.

"I know my guys [in SEVENDUST] are good guys," Clint continued. "They're sinners and they made mistakes. I was one of the worst of 'em. So I just used the opportunity to take my relationship, taking that to the tour, taking my attitudes toward others, my patience level, my kindness level. They didn't feel a critical spirit for me, which I'm sure at first they were, like, 'Man, he's gonna come in Bible thumping on us' and all this. And it was the opposite, actually.

"We all have these little barriers sometimes," Lowery added. "We're around each other a lot. There could be tensions and there could be all these different things. And I just try to melt through 'em as much as possible, and that required getting rid of some of my ego, some of my fears, being courteous and considerate when I could, being quiet when I needed to be quiet. I don't need to gossip and join in. You can get negative really quick on tour. And I just tried to be a light, I tried to be a little bit more positive, but I never tried to stand on a soap box or preach to anybody. But Lajon [Witherspoon, SEVENDUST singer] asked me to lead a couple of the prayers before the shows, and that was an honor because I really felt for him to ask me to do that was him acknowledging that he saw that I was on my journey and on my own time and my own way. It was just a really cool thing. And so nothing really changed out there except my perception of it and the way I responded to it. And it made it a better and more peaceful tour, despite still going through some weird physical stuff.

"Someone told me one time, you can't have worry and fear and faith at the same time. You can't be anxious and then be based in faith at the same time. You have to have some surrender to it. And, of course, there's gonna be fears and different things like that, but when they're overriding. Instead of worrying, I could pray. Instead of soaking in my own stuff, I could help someone else and get out of it. I have these tools that the Bible gives us all."

Elaborating on how his relationship with his SEVENDUST bandmates evolved as a result of his faith, Clint said: "I know that it takes time for those things, 'cause everyone can go through a little bit of a pink cloud high moment and then crash down. I did it in sobriety, and I'm cautious of it in my faith journey. I'm sure the first few days they were just kind of, like, 'Let's just see what pans out.' I mean, they were very supportive of anything that was gonna give me relief based on what I was going through. And they saw it work and they saw that I had this fear that was all-consuming, just overwhelming, and they saw me not have that. And they saw that I give myself to God and Christ. And they [thought], 'Well, that's great for you.' And then we went out there on tour. They were fully supportive. No one ever really acknowledged it verbally. They just kind of gave love and it was cool. And I think they understood. Like I said, Lajon allowed me to do a couple of the prayers. And so that was cool. That was their way of saying, 'Okay, you're on your journey and we respect it.' And hopefully there's conversations that can open up. Every now and then we'd get into a conversation where I would refer to the Bible, I would refer to things like that. We'd have little — not debates, but they would talk about it in certain ways. And I'm, like, 'Well, based on what I saw…' And I had this knowledge. I had done a few courses, I knew a little bit about the Bible's history, the manuscripts, how many were preserved, and I had some knowledge finally. And that felt great, that I had something to stand on, in terms of I have faith and this is why."

Addressing the criticism he has received from some SEVENDUST fans for publicly speaking about his faith, Clint said: "I'm very careful about being boastful about anything, about saying things in a way where it's just for clout. I was always skeptical about that. I was a very cynical person before and still have those tendencies that I work on every day. But I have seen people say that. And people can be really harsh toward Christianity. I knew that going into this that there were gonna be people that fall off, there were gonna be people that go at me pretty hard, attack. I mean, Jesus Christ was attacked harder than anyone. Not that I'm in any category like that, but just in Christianity, some of the downfall has been the human element. There are people that proclaim to be Christian that do not live that Christian life. And people may see me continuing with the band and say, 'Oh, there's hypocrisy in that.' And the way that I see it is that I could stay home and stay in my community church and be around some stability and all those things and just write worship songs, which is something I absolutely wanna do and I will do. But I think there's work to be done.

"I think when Head [guitarist Brian Welch] went back to KORN [after publicly embracing Christianity eight years earlier], his template was one of those that I used. I remember thinking, 'Man, if I ever did that…' And I actually talked to him a little bit about it and it was kind of the same way that I feel. It's, lik,e there's work to be done there. There's opportunities there. The people that I've ran into — I've had prayers in front of my bus with people. I've had people that are so happy that I've boldly kind of come out with it instead of just keeping it kind of ambiguous. And now I can have these amazing conversations with people. I use the music and that situation as a way, 'cause we are sending love to people. It's not like we're giving some message that is anti-religion or anti-God or anti-Christian. It is just some of the old anger, all those songs are there. But there's a spirit of love in the room. I feel it with the people. It is how I make my livelihood, but I do also see it as an opportunity. Now if I continue to pray on it and God does want me in a different place, then I will follow that. And believe me, I pray about it every day, 'cause I was struggling with it. I was, like, do I wanna be around that environment all the time? And am I just chasing the money or the brand that is SEVENDUST? Am I just staying with that? How committed am I to this? And that's the questions that I ask and I pray about all the time. And I feel like God still sees me in this role with these guys. And we've had some major spiritual moments together as a band, as people. And I like being around that. And I do — I see it as an opportunity. And people are gonna say what they wanna say, and again, my relationship with Christ is what holds me. And if I paid attention to everybody and what they feel about it, then that would [end up] being too much of a burden to bear and not worth it."

Lowery became sober nearly 18 years ago after being arrested at the Hodokvas festival in Piestany, Slovakia following what was described as a "wild drunken night" that resulted in the musician trashing his room. At the time, Lowery was on tour with KORN as the latter band's backing/session guitarist. A day following Lowery's arrest, he was released from police custody after apologizing and paying for the damages. He later released a statement explaining that he was "being a lil' rowdy and loud" in his hotel and acknowledging that he "pulled some Rock 101 stuff." He added that he was "not proud of it at all" and claimed that the entire episode was "scary enough" to where he knew he would never be doing anything like that "ever again."

When Clint celebrated the 17th year of his getting sober last October, he took to his social media to write: "Quick story….When I got sober, the first week was a blur to say the least. I entered a treatment center a few days after getting fired from my hired gun role in KORN. One of the many bottoms I hit that were sufficient enough to be willing to get sober and stay sober a day at a time. I was in a holding pattern for a few days waiting to get accepted into the treatment center and those days were foggy.

"I've always had a sobriety date of October 24th. But doing a true gut check and trying hard to remember the true date (which has always bugged me),this being an honest deal, I have to say my true sobriety date is October 27th, 2007 and God willing…I'll make it to tomorrow without a drink or drug.

"For years I've wrestled with that. Sounds like no big deal, right? Well, for me, those lil untruths are not good…at all. For me and especially for God. So only a few days different I'm even more grateful entering another year with that adjustment in the name of truth to self and a God I need to repent to.

"This year has undoubtedly been the hardest in my sobriety dealing with life on life's terms…but the true miracle is I haven't thought of taking a drink. That's a God thing…not a me thing. So before you have any atta boys I give credit to him. I post this also for the alcoholic out there trying to get sober. It can happen for you if it happened for me trust me

"I recently gave my life to Jesus Christ and that has brought me true comfort through the tough times. For me. I'm not here to tell anyone how to live their life and I was certainly one of the people who didn't like that pushed on me, I just encourage people to open their minds and hearts to him. It helped an old country dude find peace in true chaos and uncertainty."

SEVENDUST and THREE DAYS GRACE recently completed a North American tour as the support acts for DISTURBED on the latter act's "The Sickness 25th Anniversary Tour".

SEVENDUST is continuing to tour in support of its latest album, "Truth Killer", which was released in July 2023 via SEVENDUST's new label home, Napalm Records.

The follow-up to 2020's "Blood & Stone", "Truth Killer" was once again tracked at Studio Barbarosa in Gotha, Florida with producer Michael "Elvis" Baskette, who has previously worked with ALTER BRIDGE and SLASH, among others.

"Truth Killer" showcased the original and current SEVENDUST lineup, comprised of Witherspoon, guitarists Lowery and John Connolly, bassist Vince Hornsby and drummer Morgan Rose.

Last fall, SEVENDUST celebrated the 21st anniversary of its iconic album "Seasons" on a U.S. tour. "Seasons" is the fourth album from the band's catalog and exploded on to the metal world when it was released in October 2003. The album spawned a Top 10 Rock single with "Enemy" and the album closer "Face To Face" is a show staple and fan favorite of SEVENDUST to this day.

"Seasons" was, for a time, the band's last album with Lowery as he left in 2004. Lowery returned to SEVENDUST in March 2008 and has remained with the group ever since.

Photo credit: Chuck Brueckmann