basic music ministries - about : our story

A long time ago... in a galaxy far away...

(It just seemed like we should start this page that way...) :-)

basic began because Greg's sister Tara was Miss Teen NY.

(You might also find that a bit odd... just keep reading.) :-)

Tara was going to places and doing things where people wanted to make her "famous". I'm not sure if that's what she wanted... but they were letting her know how she could do it. Tara has a wonderful voice, and is very musically talented... and some people found out about this. SO, they told her to go and make a demo and send it off to Nashville.

Well, my parents, knowing their children's talents, jumped on this... and went a bit further. They also knew that I (Greg) had sung with Tara and had even recently (1993) begun writing songs. So, they asked if I'd like to sing with Tara on this demo and maybe even record a couple of my songs! Up to that point, the songs I had written were quite private, only between me and God. I had not shared them with anyone (my parents knew of them because they lived in the same house.) :-) So... it was not an easy decision (even though they were going to fund it!!!!). I thought about it... and decided to do it. Then we found a bass player (Todd Earnst) and a drummer (Darren Helowicz) and recorded three originals along with 5 other songs.

My parents said we had to have a name... so my Mom suggested "Brother And Sister In Christ". She thought it was cool how we were brother and sister, and our faith had become so real, so much a part of us recently... it seemed to be perfect. Frankly, I found it to be a bit corny for some reason... :-) But, I love my Mom... and we accepted. We were, "Brother And Sister In Christ".

Well, it wasn't too long after that that (that looks funny... THREE 'that's in a row...) I was thinking one day about the name and I noticed that Brother and Sister In Christ spells out "basic"! I thought... Hey, that's cool... Then I thought about it more and a light went off in my head... "The 'basic' plan of the gospel is that we all become 'brother and sister in Christ'!!!" I was pretty excited about this! I thought I had come up with the coolest thing in the world... and couldn't wait to tell people. It was shortly afterward that I saw a sign above a classroom door in our church building that said "BASIC".... standing for brothers and sisters in Christ. :-)

Oh well... it was still cool... and it stuck!

From there, we were all at Cincinnati Bible College together (Tara, Todd and I) as students and pretty happy with the little demo we had made. It was fun... and pretty good for having been thrown together. So... my Dad approached us about doing a full-lenth recording with all originals on it. We thought about it...

And then accepted!

And after gathering up two more friends, Matt Carswell (drums) and Bryce Davis (guitar/piano/vocals/songwriter - quite talented!)... we began practicing to record our first album!

A couple months later, we traveled up to Mark Recording studios in Clarence, NY, where we had done our first demo recording, and... over a five day period, recorded and mixed an eleven song project... Another Road Trip. (The title of course comes from the fact that we recorded the whole thing on a Friday and Saturday and the following Wednesday... making it another road trip... we liked to take those! It also refers to the song The Road Ahead, though...) :-)

That was released in the spring of 1996, and seemed to be a big hit! We arranged a mini-tour of lots of local places and people really seemed to enjoy the music! Both live, and the recorded. That is where I thought ... I think I may like to do this again. :-)

Then life changed a bit... and I moved to Rochester, NY to help a church begin Campus outreach ministries. On-campus extensions of the church's ministry at two local colleges. That was the summer of 1996. Tara was still at school, Matt moved to Colorado, Todd to Argentina (yes, the South American country) and Bryce was still in Cincinnati. So... the future of basic was a bit in question.

I continued to write songs... LOTS of them. And, I kept thinking... God, what is it you want me to DO with these songs? I was asked to do some concerts and/or worship leading here and there... but really... wasn't doing much except writing for a long time. It was sometimes quite frustrating to me... but I was happy to be serving God in campus ministry.

Then, my friend Jen came to town. Jen's brother is the preacher at the church I was working with. After a one-year internship in Indianapolis, Jen came to town to be our church's children's minister. That whole situation was interesting... and you'll have to e-mail if you'd like to hear the details... I don't think you REALLY want me to write THAT story here! (Very cool... just too long)

Well... that was May... by July... though we NEVER dated... Jen & I were getting married!!!! That was a pretty crazy "turn of events!" We were married by October of 1997 and life was good! I was still writing songs, and occasionally now, Jen would join me as the harmony vocal whenever I got to do them. But... that was pretty infrequently still.

Now, life was getting pretty hectic for the Campbells in 1998 for many reasons (again... quite a long story) and 98 was the year our first child was born.. Ian (well... by the END of that year...). So - life was changing rapidly, and about to get busier as our church was building a big new building.... life was busy!!!!

And I was still writing songs.

It was in 1999 that I really realized that there was a lot of great stuff I could do for the Kingdom, a lot of stuff I could do to help people connect with God... but music, especially the songs God had given me.... was the main way. I had seen it over and over again, but was too busy doing other stuff to think about it or enjoy it.

It was then that we decided to offer our services to our church as full-time worship leader (instead of campus ministers) and we also made a commitment to use the songs that God had given me (and was still) to help people connect with Him.

So, in April of 1999, we started recording our second CD (the first for Jen and I as basic). We wanted it to be a worship CD because we did a lot of worship leading and would even use some original songs that people wanted to be on our recording. So... we did a worship CD! Lord, Hear My Voice - released in June of 2000 and is a collection of 13 original worship songs.

The best part about the CD... we started the whole recording process with $177!!!!! (You can't make a CD for $177....)

God has provided. God will provide. We have given our lives to him and now Jen and I, as basic, serve him through music... worship leading, concerts, coffee houses, recorded music... I still write songs! :-) On July 1st, 2001, we officially decided to follow God's leading and do basic music ministries completely! We have been doing just that since that day! We pray that He would use us (as He has apparently made us) to connect LOTS of people with Him through this great gift of music.

If you want to know MORE about us and what we do... :-)

Contact:
basic music ministries
p.o. box 53
Palmyra, NY 14522
(315) 597-4149
info@basicmm.com

top of page