Bio

Jeremy Horn is an interesting guy.

He grew up in Memphis—“Home of the Blues” and the “Birthplace of Rock-n-Roll”—but his music sounds more like the Beatles than B.B. King or Elvis.

He writes songs for the church and songs for the radio—yet his songs are often deeper and more complex than either has traditionally allowed.

He lives in a city that is known as much for its racial unrest and inner-city violence as it is the place Elvis called home—yet leads worship at one of the largest multicultural churches in the South, where half the congregation is African-American.

Jeremy Horn is an enigma. But when you meet him, he looks and sounds just like the guy next door—if the guy next door has a traditional southern drawl.

“The best way for me to describe Memphis,” laughs Horn, “is that it’s a small town with one million people. I can’t go anywhere without seeing someone I know. It’s not the cleanest city and it’s seen some tough times. But at the same time, there are real people here. There’s a lot of musicians here who are just interested in making music, not being famous.”

Making music is what has preoccupied Horn ever since he was given his first guitar at the age of fifteen. Growing up on the sounds of Tom Petty and The Beatles, Horn spent most of his early years emulating the sounds and songwriting styles of the popular culture. It took him a few years and one wise, older friend to realize there was more to being a songwriter than just sounding like one.

“I thought he was taking me to lunch to talk about getting a record deal,” laughed Horn. “Instead, he wanted to help me meet Jesus.”

“I used to write songs about social injustices in the world. My friend said, ‘Hey man, why don’t you try to give people some hope? You have this talent and this skill, but what are you going to do with it? Are you going to try to find something to say, or just write what everybody else is writing?’”

“That kind of progressed into writing songs for Jesus, and that was the process that unknowingly led me to become a worship leader.”

That precipitous meeting started Horn on the path of continual discovery—listening to artists both Christian and not—to figure out how to express feelings and concepts that came from within, rather than from the evening news.

“I just started hunting around for meaningful artists, somebody like Keith Green. And I’d think, ‘Wow, this guy’s not writing the same old same old trite Christian-ese. He’s saying something real.’ Keith was saying something in every single song. It taught me that if you’re gonna write something, write something substantial.”

Along the way, Jeremy started working at world-renowned Ardent Studios, whose clients have included Led Zeppelin, Dave Matthews, B.B. King, Todd Agnew, Al Green, and DC Talk—to name a few. Here, he fell in love with the art and process of recording—getting just the right guitar tone, chiseling a song idea down to the best parts.

Later, he moved to Ardent’s Christian record label under the mentorship of multi-award-winning songwriter and artist Dana Key, of the pioneering rock band DeGarmo & Key. “Dana taught me about the importance of song selection and what makes a great song great—you’ve got to get in, say what you have to say, and get out.”

His job at Ardent often required him to be away from church on Sunday mornings. But a close friend and keyboard player invited him to his church on Wednesdays. This church was in the early stages of what would become a massive Holy Spirit movement.

“There were church services almost every night of the week,” said Horn. “There was only one guy leading worship at this church, and he was overloaded. It was a unique situation because there were all these people who wanted to spend all this time worshiping Jesus—and I was suddenly right in the middle of this exciting move of God! I was put into a situation where I was playing music and leading worship four or five nights a week.”

Horn took the opportunity and ran with it, eventually becoming the full-time worship pastor at the church. Since its start, Christ The Rock has become one of the most vital Christian communities in Memphis—and one of the city’s largest multicultural churches.

“When I say we’re multicultural, that doesn’t mean we have a handful of African-Americans,” said Horn. “Fifty percent of our church is African-American, and we’ve got a vibrant and growing Latino community as well. Since I’ve gotten into this environment, I wouldn’t have it any other way because this is what heaven will be like.”

Leading worship in that environment, in a city like Memphis, is a challenge that would test any music minister. And Jeremy says there’s no formal training you can go through to get prepared for the job. “It’s definitely challenging as a worship leader who loves classic pop and rock and roll,” admitted Horn, “but I don’t try to bring my role as an artist into my role as a local church worship leader because that’s sort of self- serving. I do some of my own tunes, but I have to look at the whole picture.”

“I’ve got twelve year old kids and sixty-five year old women; I’ve got African-Americans and Latinos; I’ve got plain old run-of-the-mill thirty-something white folks, so I’m just trying to be like the apostle Paul, who said he was all things to all men.”

Over the past few years life has taken a few new twist and turns for Jeremy. He spent a lot of that time touring the country in support of his first album Atmosphere which was released by independent label, On The Grove Records, in 2007. Surprisingly it seems that all roads still lead home and Jeremy has come full circle in his life. His new album We Welcome You In will be released by Ardent/INO Records in April 2010 followed by a studio album in the Fall.

“I’ve got a new album and a new label, so it’s been pretty amazing to be back making music at Ardent. It just feels like I’ve finally come home” says Jeremy. “I’ve been connected to the Ardent family for almost 15 years so it’s wonderful to be on the other side of the fence and now be recording albums for a label that I’ve admired and respected for so long. It’s a real honor.”

We Welcome You In is a live worship record that was recorded at Jeremy’s church and finished at Ardent. “Both places are such creative hubs for me because they are so comfortable; so making this album has been so relaxed. Being relaxed makes for an environment where the band and I can just worship and let the Holy Spirit do His thing. Hopefully we caught some of that on this record.”

“These songs may be geared toward local churches, but I am extremely excited and prayerful that We Welcome You In will be a blessing to churches across the globe.”