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00:09so thank you for agreeing for our interview it's i'm really excited about the interview
00:18and yeah for people who hear about you for the first time who is broadly banning
00:26yeah so i'm i'm i'm a catholic convert and i make catholic country music i i've made country music
00:35for a long time i grew up around it my dad was a songwriter um had songs on radio here
00:41in the u.s
00:42and in texas and uh so i've always written songs and i've always that's all i've wanted to do and
00:49and be a country artist and i converted and was lucky enough to come into the church um
00:55in 2000 easter 2015 and when that happened that just started changing the way i started writing
01:03music and the way i started looking at music and i always loved country music and i um but they
01:10but there were things that i was writing about that you know i just started seeing kind of like the
01:16flaws um that existed within secular music and i was like well i still love making country music
01:23and god seems to keep encouraging me to make country music but how do i make country music
01:29more catholic and so that's been a gradual progression since then i and um i've had some
01:35success on radio with some song a song called don't mess with texas and it got me started making music
01:41full-time and it's been more recently that people started saying oh you make catholic country music
01:48and i actually had a friend reach out to me and say hey i think you need to get over
01:51it you're not a
01:52country artist you're a catholic country artist and i was like okay well you know i guess that is that
01:59is what i do and it started catching on and um that's what i've been focusing on is just really
02:04how do i that's always been the mission since i came into the church is how do i make music
02:09that is more in line with my faith and so it's uh i'm learning every day and so i'm i'm
02:15i'm bradley
02:16banning i'm catholic convert from texas and i came into the church in nashville though when i lived
02:22there and i make catholic country music so you started to record and play country music much more
02:35much earlier than you started to be catholic and so how did you define the success when you are
02:42were just a country music not catholic country music did it did it change with your conversion
02:48oh absolutely absolutely absolutely and it i mean it keeps changing because i feel like i mean just as
02:58um the you know the catholic faith if you're living out the catholic faith christian life
03:06you're called to continuously let go and i find that i it's it's a continuous process i'm continually
03:12letting go of my expectations um and that was the hard part in the beginning because i moved to nashville
03:20when i was 18 and lived there for 10 years and before i was catholic i wanted to have awards
03:28i wanted
03:28to be you know i wanted i wanted cmas or acm awards for country music as a songwriter as an
03:35artist a
03:36grammy would have been nice um playing these big venues like red rocks in colorado like those are
03:43some of the big dreams of everybody you know who makes music a lot of people have and honestly those
03:48things don't matter to me anymore um i i love making music i don't want to make music that changes
03:55lives
03:55that speaks truth to people that is healthy for the culture it's healthy for families to listen to
04:02and a couple years ago my wife actually told me she was hey because i i had a song on
04:07radio and i had
04:08a few songs on radio and one that did particularly well and she she basically said hey i don't know
04:15if
04:15you should keep worrying because i was like i need to get another song on radio she's like i don't
04:19know
04:19that you need to worry about getting your music on radio as much as you need to get into into
04:25homes
04:25to families and i was like and that kind of struck me and i knew there was truth to it
04:30and i was like
04:31okay well if i'm making country music because there's so many families especially here in texas
04:36who love country music and it's part of the culture it's you go out dancing and there's so much good
04:42in
04:42it um that i was like well what if we could just get rid of you know the parts that
04:46aren't healthy that
04:47we don't want our our kids hearing um that we don't want um that we just don't want to feed
04:54ourselves as well and so that's what i started focusing on and so i've continuously had to let
05:00go of what that looks like and and saying hey i'm a catholic country artist there was letting go to
05:05because that kind of put me outside of nashville put me outside of the texas industry which i had some
05:10success in um it's there there weren't any just there's not there's not a catholic music industry
05:19and there's not a catholic country music industry especially and so i was like well you know i don't
05:26i don't know what this is gonna look like so i've really got to just let go my expectations so
05:31i really
05:32you know my my dream now is to be able to make music that's good for the culture good for
05:40families
05:41country music and um that speaks truth and points to god and tell stories of faith and so um that's
05:51that's what i'm doing and that's i mean that's the goal and you know anything else that god allows
05:57to happen on top of that is is it's just you know is is extra and is wonderful and is
06:03a grace so um
06:04so yeah i i guess you know it's it's hard to accept this sometimes but really if that if that
06:10is the
06:10goal like i'm i'm kind of living the dream and it's i'm just super blessed to be able to get
06:16to do
06:16this personally i wonder if it's a really great uh change between uh you know from being
06:27um country musician to be catholic country musician because when i look at different
06:31um songs different styles of music for me the country music always was the most healthy i mean
06:42many many values that are mentioned in country music are just healthy things like uh praising family
06:49and things like that uh praising community and things like that so i i just wonder what's the
06:57biggest difference between what you did seeing earlier and now yeah no that's a great question
07:06and i've had people you know make comments online as i've been talking about this and it's great
07:11because that's the conversation that i want to start is um especially here um because i know there's
07:17actually a lot of texas musicians that travel over to europe and make the rounds and uh play shows
07:24over there and there's i know so i know there is a country scene over there but especially the music
07:29um coming out of nashville and a lot of it coming out of texas the things that i see in
07:34it there's
07:35you're totally you're correct there um it is the most christian friendly uh genre i think
07:43um and the probably one of the healthiest secular genres um the problem that i see with it is there
07:51are um i don't want to talk about any specific artists but in the same album or the same song
07:58you'll be talking about god and believing that he's real and you're saying they're they're speaking
08:04things about the hookup culture um and over drinking and glamorizing alcohol and or drugs
08:13and so in there's and there's those that's part of the unhealthy culture i think within you know
08:21the music industry as a whole but it's just it's like a lot of these songs and there are some
08:27great
08:27songs and they're great songwriters and it's i hear some of these songs i'm like wow that's really
08:31good writing but man that's an awful thing to teach um our kids our culture and it's it's this idea
08:39of
08:39like oh i have these it's a it's a sad song about having something bad happen and knowing that there's
08:46a greater purpose and you're just you're drinking it away and it's like i that's not a good message
08:52and so it's a it's in my opinion i think it's very subtle um but i think it's definitely a
09:00conversation to have and the other part i've had someone else kind of go further and go like well
09:06hey don't you think you should stop talking about your denomination and just talk about christ
09:10like that's what matters and i'm like absolutely but i i get your point coming from a protestant
09:16background the problem is that the catholic faith holds the fullness of the truth the fullness of the
09:25christian life and so i am pointing to christ and to protestants it looks like another denomination
09:32but to me it's not another domination it's the church that christ set up and it is it is the
09:37way
09:38that we are supposed to live and so that's what that conversation needs to be talked about because
09:44you talk you know you listen to country music too and you hear oh i and this was a joke
09:48that i kind
09:49of made online and when i was just like kind of like going asking god and like testing the waters
09:55and spirit like all right god is this what you want me to talk about so i started putting things
09:59out there like you always hear about um so i'm falling in love with the preacher's daughter but
10:03you never hear about the guy falling in love with the priest's niece from saint edwards and and that's
10:08the thing in country music is always like i fell in love with the preacher's daughter but you say
10:12priest you say mass you say these certain catholic terms in country music and it's kind of
10:17off-putting to people and some people are kind of like uh it it's not talked about enough and so
10:23i want to show people too that the catholic faith is is not especially in it in america i feel
10:30like
10:31they're um especially in the south in the bible belt like they're it's very protestant and hearing those
10:38things is that those words the catholic faith that type of imagery is it's kind of off-putting but
10:45it's it has a bad rep to it like a lot of people think it's um pagan or idolatrous and
10:52like it's
10:53it's actually not and i think that crowd especially because it's the country crowd's very protestant
10:59those things need to be talked about that the catholic fight the catholic life is beautiful
11:03and that it's an adventure and that it's not boring um you it's you don't need excessive drugs and
11:12alcohol and all these other things that you're talking about and glamorizing in this music
11:17like living an authentic catholic life is beautiful and it's a great adventure and that's something
11:22that i really think needs to be talked about more more than even outside of the country music industry
11:28but that's where i feel called to bring it is into country music
11:31um i have the impression that for example eucharist is uh really uh important for you
11:39that uh the real presence of god during the mass is something that is really important to you
11:45is it true or yeah or is it just uh just my impression that it's important uh most important part
11:55of
11:55of what you preach uh the eucharist specifically is that what you're asking sorry cut out yeah i mean
12:03a hundred percent the and the funny thing is i've been asked about this about uh uh because they always
12:11people always want to ask converts like well so was the eucharist hard for you to understand and for
12:15me that's what sold me immediately um i didn't i didn't have a hard time believing and i was like
12:20oh man
12:21if this is if this is true well i've i've gone and read the text i've i've heard what the
12:26church
12:27teaches i've read what the church teaches if this is true i want to receive that and so there was
12:33this
12:33hunger because i i honestly i think it was about a year year and a half to two years before
12:39i actually
12:40came into the church that i was going to mass i think it was two years and then when i
12:46finally
12:46decided to go into uh rcia to be to come into the church um i had to wait until easter
12:55so i had
12:56to wait four or seven like seven or eight months and i and before i had previously been told by
13:03someone
13:03oh it won't take that long you'll you'll come in in a few months and it just kept i had
13:09this hunger
13:09for the eucharist and god used that time to create that hunger and stir it up and so
13:15yeah absolutely it's it's um yeah i mean it's it's the reason that i converted um there's a million
13:23reasons why i converted but yes the eucharist is is the i mean it's the summit of the of the
13:29catholic faith
13:30yep so also include such very very very catholic uh themes in your songs is it true yes so so
13:42and there's
13:42more there's more to come so i've always i've put out since i started putting out music
13:49professionally um starting with a song called don't mess with texas i've made sure that my music
13:55lines up with my faith and then as i released a song called be a kid and that was inspired
14:06by uh
14:07saint theresa lesu and so she was she was one of my confirmation saints one of my two confirmation
14:12saints and i've i've got a devotion to her i love her i did not want to have anything to
14:18do with her
14:19in the beginning because she was called the little flower and a priest friend of mine gave me a relic
14:24of
14:25hers to hold on to i was like i don't want anything to do with this and then i released
14:28be a kid
14:29and i wrote it with a friend of mine uh david adam burns and my dad david banning and we
14:36wrote it like
14:37not under you know i didn't tell them about saint theresa or anything but i just had this idea that
14:43came from the faith that i learned through a devotion to her and know in having her as a confirmation
14:51saint and just what my prayer life god was telling my prayer life just you know i need to have
14:58childlike
14:59faith to just trust in him to be more childlike and to really have childlike faith and trust in him
15:06it was something i really struggled with and so um when i we finished that song i decided to record
15:13it
15:13and i released it last year um may have been actually 2024 that i released it i i decided okay
15:21i'm gonna dedicate it to saint theresa because you another thing that you hear about is that in the
15:29music industry and who knows how much of this is true but i wouldn't doubt that some of this goes
15:33on and so regardless of it it's what gave me the ideas there are all these things that preach things
15:39that are awful for the culture and you hear about people you know like cursing or witchcraft or whatever
15:46in the industry and putting things behind the music or praying over the music in a in a in a
15:51negative
15:51way i was like well you know why not just dedicate something to someone who has lived the authentic
15:59catholic life and taught people how to truly live the christian life and so i was like why would i
16:05not
16:05dedicate it and so to her and so i did i dedicated that song to her and i didn't um
16:11i i thought about
16:12like you know putting that out there and putting it out as a post and it's like i don't know
16:16if i really
16:17want to tell people or whatever and i was so i prayed on it for a couple months and um
16:23my dad
16:24ended up having a heart attack in july and he's fine now but he was in the hospital and i
16:29was like
16:29you know what i just sit there i was like i'm just gonna put this out there and um and
16:36it it caught on
16:37people people love that idea and i was like man it encouraged me that people people love that so much
16:42my spiritual director actually saw it and reached out to you he's like hey i saw this i love this
16:48this is amazing and i was like it made me think i was like why am i not doing more
16:52of this why am i
16:53not offering up my music why am i not um why am i not doing that every time and so
17:00that's that's
17:02something that i plan to continue to do and um and we can all do that every day in our
17:08work as well
17:09and so it just made i came to that realization and so my i would say my music is getting
17:15progressively more and more outwardly catholic and i'm i'm uh putting i'm actually recording an album
17:22right now and it'll be it'll be much more catholic and so um not that it hasn't all been in
17:30line with
17:30my faith but uh but yeah it's getting more overtly catholic i'm excited about it and we uh definitely
17:39should include the song about some theories uh in the interview because she is very popular in poland
17:48so um it's uh something that will win polish hearts
17:55i'm sure i have um do you plan to sing about other um the catholic sense in your album or
18:05is it a
18:05secret yet um i haven't i haven't planned anything but i there there is um there have been thoughts so
18:15i released a song uh enjoy the ride i didn't dedicate this to saint paul but i um i talked
18:22about it being feeling like a letter from saint paul so as if saint paul had been a cowboy and
18:29so i want
18:29to bring other conversations to that it made me think i what if i did just like take you know
18:34certain scriptures and write country songs out of them and to me really what the music i mean there
18:40will be other things there's a song called david's son that i wrote about uh my dad david um and
18:46i'm his
18:47son and just what god's encouraged me to do um music wise um and but i was like you know
18:53i really
18:54want my songs to be parables that's how that's how christ communicated the faith uh and converted
19:01people it's like well what if i use the same thing and i talked about the songs and what they
19:06meant to
19:06me and why you know and what they mean to me faith wise and what they're really talking about
19:11um so that's what i'm planning to do but i i plan to dedicate more songs to saints i haven't
19:18specifically written a saint song for this next album but i do have i do have some things planned
19:26and the the fun thing for me is that i really would like to work on something for it i
19:32don't
19:32know what it would be is uh one of the coolest things that i uh going back to the song
19:38for my dad
19:39david's son i've been praying when i became catholic i'm gonna put this on the album but when i became
19:45catholic i didn't know about saints and feast days and um and so i discovered when i was asking god
19:53okay i'm i want to become catholic what you know what do you want me to be because obviously you're
19:58changing my life this is what i've wanted i know that you could actually you actually want something
20:03for our lives now which wasn't an idea that i i was really aware of it was just like you
20:09do whatever
20:09you want and love god which in there to a degree you know isn't that a saint augustine quote something
20:17like do what you love and love god or something like that but but god really has a purpose and
20:22he'll speak that purpose to us and that didn't really i didn't really realize that and i didn't
20:28realize he wanted to participate in creating our lives with us and so um i found out when i realized
20:36that were saints and feast days i found out that i was born on saint sicilia's feast day who's the
20:41patron saint of music and so that was really exciting for me i'm like so i need to do something
20:46i don't
20:46know if it's like i'll just dedicate the album to her song or i'll write a song about her first
20:51of
20:51october yes uh 22nd of 22nd of uh november and then but um october saint therese mm-hmm ah yeah
21:02okay
21:02mm-hmm and uh and so uh so i plan on doing something with that and then just going back
21:09to
21:10my uh the song for my dad is uh i was when i was asking god about all this and
21:15what he wanted me to
21:16do i saw um a license plate in front of me when i was driving back to nashville one time
21:22and it said
21:22davidson on the back of it because nashville's in davidson county and it occurred to me that my dad
21:28is david i'm david's son um i'm going back to davidson county where i make music and it he the
21:38question was just kind of posed to me while i was driving um you know who who would you say
21:45the
21:45greatest songwriters of all time are and i'm thinking i don't know you know we're talking bob
21:51dylan paul mccartney john lennon like bob uh there's there's a bunch of national songwriters
21:57i could i was gonna list too but just so on and so on i'm listing all these uh songwriters
22:03in my
22:03head no no think more and it occurred to me king david and king solomon david and david's son and
22:11i
22:11was like oh wow so i wrote a song called david's son for my dad and so there's something with
22:17that i
22:17would like to do and involve saint sicily in some way probably but um no no no specific saint songs
22:26other uh other than that right now but it's a great idea yes i think it's a great idea i
22:34find it
22:35exciting because it's uh so unusual you know country music uh catholic country music catholic music about
22:43saints uh about uh everything that is important for us um i love it i love the idea thank you
22:53and uh um another song another question yeah uh when when you started to uh proclaim being catholic
23:04what did you lose and what did you gain what was the most surprising uh reaction from people that you've
23:13got um you know honestly at the moment i it hasn't i i'm blessed it hadn't been oh i'm sorry
23:24i think
23:25can you see me i dropped i dropped the screen um at the moment there hasn't been anything just um
23:34awful reaction from anybody that i know or i usually deal with there have been some pretty awful comments
23:40online you know on social media but i feel like that's expected to be honest so i just don't really
23:47pay much attention to it um in the in the beginning it was kind of like jarring but but now
23:53it's just kind
23:53of like okay that's that's expected and i think so i think the most shocking thing was that um
24:02some people just really believe that the catholic faith is a pagan faith and is idolatrous and
24:12they that it's just said over and over online and i've just seen so many comments about it and i'm
24:17like oh wow that's crazy to me that that the yeah that the that there's so much misinformation about
24:27that and and i think too you know the the heart and the harder part too is that i i
24:33do notice with
24:34some some people that i've written with and uh other artists you know like no there's no there there's
24:42been no like bad blood or bad things said but it's it's kind of like they're not sure what i'm
24:47doing
24:48no they don't really know how to talk about it anymore um which which is okay and i i take
24:55no
24:55offense to that because i i understand that you know it's it is it's a little bit different than
25:00than what i was doing because i'm being more explicit about my catholic faith and um and i love
25:06that and i love them and so that's okay but the most jarring thing though is the uh the people
25:12who were
25:12just like pagan idolater you know or insert whatever name they want to call me or or what
25:21i'm doing so it's just really interesting that's that's the most interesting and yeah definitely
25:26it's interesting oh okay yeah um thank you very very much for everything yeah thank you one final
25:37question is um what would you advise to somebody who who is in the music industry and
25:50starts to feel that their faith is really important for them what should they do if they
26:00um yeah oh i didn't formulate it uh clearly but it's just something that came to my mind your message
26:09to young artists who are catholic and are artists and are afraid of the reaction what will happen next
26:17if they um define themselves uh as catholic artists yeah um my and i this is kind of in my
26:28answer
26:28recently just do it um just just share your faith to be honest so i i lived in nashville for
26:3610 years
26:37and i um pursued success in the music business and there i was always you know hitting the ceiling
26:46it felt like god had his hand on me just didn't want me you know was allowing me to get
26:52a taste of it
26:52but not get too far into it that that's all i wanted was the fame and the money and whatever
27:00like i never reached those those those kinds of peaks and i think he did that on purpose to just
27:09kind
27:09of show me like hey that's all that's all passing away it's not important and you know since my
27:16conversion i've become a husband i've become a dad and there are so many things in life that your your
27:23career doesn't define you and that nothing in this world defines you god defines who you are you're a
27:30child of god and if you're catholic you have the eucharist you have the sacraments and not everybody has
27:38those so if you love your catholic faith why would you hesitate to share that with anybody
27:45why why would you not talk about it because i don't that was the thing that i kept coming up
27:50against was like okay well i'm talking about my faith while i'm doing country music and i'm not
27:55putting music out there that's bad for the culture um and i'm not promoting anything bad and it's all in
28:02line with my faith but also i'll just talk about god and my faith and not really say catholic or
28:07the
28:07eucharist say any of these keywords that'll like you know pin me down as catholic i'm like what is that
28:14really doing there's so many wishy-washy christian faiths out there that denominations that i'm not
28:21pointing to the truth the whole truth and maybe you know i don't think i think god did good with
28:27anything and everything that i you know talked about or did talking about my faith before that but
28:33like well really i want to be honest with people and so just my my advice would be just just
28:40share your
28:40faith just just do it don't don't hold back because our goal is to get to heaven and to lead
28:47others to
28:47heaven to love god like if we want to get them to heaven why not give them all the gifts
28:53the sacraments
28:54the church that god has given us to get there so so just do it don't be afraid and in
28:59this too
29:00i i hesitated for so long because i'm like well do i need to take all my music down
29:05and just only write praise and worship music or only write a song that's explicitly you know about
29:13saint paul or saint therese and and god was like oh no no like this is your life is always
29:20changing
29:22talk about the songs talk about use the songs talk about your faith through the song share your
29:27testimony through the songs write songs that are love songs that are parables write songs that are good
29:33that lead people to the to the faith that that lead them to christ and there's going to be songs
29:39there will be songs about saints there will be songs about you know christ the mass whatever god
29:46inspires me to write i want to be open to that and intentional with it but um but also just
29:52don't
29:53convince yourself that everything has to be so perfect and in line with like branding or something
29:57like that that you can't just start now you know there have been there there are a couple of country
30:03artists that i know who have had big conversions not specifically catholic conversions but they've had
30:07their come to jesus moment in the country music industry and they had really songs before that that
30:14that just you know were party songs that probably weren't good for the culture but they can still use
30:20that to talk about how their life is different right and so just just you use what god gives you
30:28and just
30:28start and god and and most importantly be prayerful about it um and you know pray and fast and discern
30:38well um and don't just you know do things willy-nilly but be be uh be intentional with it
30:47yeah thank you very much i i love the message i love the message thank you thank you thank you
30:54so much for
30:54having me
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