The Making of "With The Sword Held High"

Picture for back CD Cover taken 2000

I wanted to go into some detail about the making of "With The Sword Held High" and what the CD and the people who worked on it mean to me. It was about October of 1998 that I began working on the CD and it was finished and released in April of 2000.

First I'd like to talk about my cousin Brett Helling (Left) who, because of his fantastic producing and awesome guitar skills, really kicked the album off with a bang. The first song to be recorded on the album was "Battle Song". I had a really corny demo of the song that ran a couple minutes longer than the final CD version and I sent it to Brett. He called and said he loved the song and had some ideas for it. It was perhaps a week later and his demo came in the mail. I ripped the package open, put it in the player and couldn't believe what I was hearing. He put guitars everywhere, Bass, ryhthm, lead it was great. I felt that from that moment the album would turn into something really special.

Then along came the incorporable Chris Brekke (Left). Chris and I met after I had published a great song of his called "Trials of Faith". I recall us meeting at a coffee shop in Tacoma and the next thing I knew we were in the studio. He would come over and I'd review songs with him, burn a CD with two or three songs, and then he'd be back the following week with fantastic leads for the songs. It didn't take long for Chris to do the lead on the songs but once his guitar parts were finished his work transformed the album into something far better than I'd ever hoped.

When desiding what to do for the Cd's artwork I came across the idea to write out the first song on the CD, "Battle Song". I don't remember how long it took to write the song out in the shape of a sword but I liked it. Many people who get the CD don't realize at first that the sword is made up of words from "Battle Song".