John Schlitt Newsletter 06-02-2008

Hi Everybody!

This is John, and I just got back from India. Praise God – what a great adventure! It’s amazing when you can go to a different culture and experience the things that we did. The band was totally impressed with everything they saw; I’ve been to India three different times, and I’m still amazed at the difference in culture. But what’s not different is when you walk on stage and you use rock ‘n roll to praise Jesus Christ and it works… it works. And when I say rock ‘n roll – yes, there are so many different types. We played a variety of rock ‘n roll styles, and the people who saw us seemed to love them all.

We had a ball in India; we did six different shows while we were there. The people were amazing, we had some big shows, and I think we really gave them something that honored the Lord. We walked away feeling really good. Yes, we had some difficulties – India is a very different type of atmosphere; much different than what I’m used to here in the U.S. We had roads that were very scary, and drivers that were even scarier! But they made it through – and even that was pretty exiting! It was a definite adventure, one that I’m sorry everyone is not able to experience. But we did and I totally accept it as a blessing from God.

I was just very impressed with how the band carried themselves – in good circumstances and also the “less than favorable.” I’ve got five great guys – I’ll name them all: Roger, JaKael, Rusty, Pete and George. They are amazing dudes – I’d love to see them perform in the U.S. as well as other parts of the world. I’m hoping that as our relationship carries on that it could be the band that I use all the time. If not, that would be a shame because I think I’ve got a very good band!

I haven’t said that much about my new album, so let me tell you a little about what’s going on with that.

The Grafting is doing very well – thank you so much, guys, for supporting it! I really believe you faithful fans are getting the word out, and the word’s coming back and people are realizing we have an amazing record. I’m totally surprised - well, I won’t say surprised, but I’m honored that the response has been so good. I’m honored for my son-in-law who worked so hard to produce it and wrote so many of the songs under my direction (as far as the subject matter) that I wanted to sing about. I think Dan and I, plus all the other musicians that played and wrote on the album worked very well together. I’m very happy with the final product and I’m very pleased with the initial reaction to it. I don’t know what to say except praise God!

We tested the songs with a great number of radio programmers, and the song “Face of God” is out to radio right now as the first single. Initial reports say there’s a 98 percentile of very positive “we’ll play it,” “we’re listening to it,” “very interested” and that’s after just three weeks of it being out there - so this is VERY good. It’s one of those things where we don’t want to jump out ahead of ourselves, but we are very excited about what the future holds!

If you want to contact your local radio station and ask that "Face of God" be put into rotation and played, that would be great. Every call will help - stations need to know that I've got a new album out. Petra may be retired, but I'm not!

Again, thank you so much for all of your help, your interest and your support. I greatly appreciate it!

…John

(to re-live John's tour of India, complete with photos, videos and interviews, click HERE)

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