Behind the Music with Wes Hampton

is super excited to have you so I'll kind of explain like what this is and then we'll just go from there but so we basically wanted to start this thing - it's called behind the music to showcase what like we both see because we both kind of work in this industry but a lot of the fans like don't really see what happens aside from like coming to the show like they see the nice perfectly parked buses and the stage setup and the product tables with a nice laid out merch but they don't get to see what y'all do aside from that the non glamorous part of what we do which is the majority yes so we're gonna showcase you and I was like who better than to have then the most amazing tenor West Hampton you're so sweet thank you you have any questions comments or concerns before we start nope bring it on okay so tell us how you join the vocal band and how many years you've been in the vocal band sure all right well I would say 15 years ago this month is when I auditioned and I was leaving worship at a church I was an associate worship leader and I was not even the head guy I was just kind of a helper and I always dreamed of doing this and but I had given that up it wasn't gonna happen so I was a pre-med major and I remember God tell me to walk out of class and he didn't me to do that and I thought wow I'm supposed to be a doctor but okay and I went to work part time at church thinking this is not this is not what I want to do you know this is this is fine I enjoy it you know I make a pretty decent living but this is not this is not fulfilling to me this is not what I feel like God has for me that there has to be something else and we had a mutual friend who lived in Indiana at the time and she was best friends with Suzanne when a Bill's daughter bills oldest daughter go Gators oldest daughter and she knew that I loved the Vocal Band so she got some stuff I had recorded at the church - bill we signed some stuff to her she got into pickle and then I didn't think much of it honestly we sent it off and I thought no one's gonna call you know they're there they have so many people that are auditioning for this they won't even see mine and guy called me three days later Andrea and I were singing at a wedding headed home and I didn't answer the call cuz I didn't recognize her number and so I called him back and I started a seven-week audition and the very end of that audition process was the Billy Graham crusade the last one in New York City and that was again as I said 15 years ago so here we are today and I'm kind of the veteran of the group besides bill so I never thought that would be me at bur well look at that well talk about like your first moment like he walked out on stage and you were like oh my goodness that's Bill Gaither I'm on stage with Bill Gaither like yeah it was crazy the very first public performance I had the very first public one was it was in Indiana and I'm I think it was Anderson Anderson and it was a Church of God convention I believe and this was kinda this is right before the Billy Graham Crusades so right before my final audition this was the night before I think and then we did New York the next day and I was so nervous so nervous and I remember I had had to use the restroom and you know whenever I this is probably TMI but whenever I do get too nervous I have to have to go pee so I had to go and because I was just so nervous and I was all this waiting around and so I go to the restroom and then I hear someone Westminster going on they're going on so I run a strain on the bathroom and if if you know anything about me I'm kind of a germaphobe and I I was so rushed didn't wash my hands which is a big deal for me what ran out went on stage and saying say a couple songs with the vocal bed and that was my first performance so oh yeah I was quite nervous leading up to that the Billy Graham crusade I was even more scared and I was just terrified so yeah it's still surreal to look over some nights and to to see Bill right there he's usually to my left look to my left and see Bill there and he's just stand right next to me I think wow this is the guy that I've listened to his music pretty much my life and now he's my boss and he's my friend and I get to sing with with this legend so it's still pretty surreal even after all these 15 years of doing it it's still it's still pretty crazy to think about honestly that's great oh my goodness well you hadn't worked or had you worked in like the music industry per se prior to the vocal ban no I had no experience at all in the music industry as far as unless you count Church for me that yeah that was it I was on staff at a church that was it I knew nothing of the music industry how anything worked I had even tried before the vocal band to try to get some solo like a solo ministry silicon cert ministry going and I just I could not no one would return calls I remember saying hey I'll come sing at your church for free just just somebody come in saying and people wouldn't call back and I got really discouraged I thought well maybe I'm not supposed to sing and you know well I'm not gonna be a doctor now I've quit school for that and got a music degree in psychology of all things and can't do much with either those unless you want to teach and I certainly did not want to teach so I was just kind of sitting there wondering what in the world have I done I have really messed up my life so far and then God told he turning the corner and then taking me in the direction that he wanted me to go so it it's it's it's pretty cool and even now in the middle of all this and uncertainty we're going on eight weeks now of of no concerts of no senior no work for me and the vocal bands paid what we're paid per concert so we're not a little celery so when we don't sing we don't get paid and there's been times you know to be pretty candid with you there were times of these past few weeks where I just I get kinda anxious and think you know gosh if I if I were a doctor I'd have work right now I would not be worried about going out there and making a living providing for my family and right now I can't I cannot do that because there is no work there there's nowhere to sing so then think God reminds me of where he's brought me from and the things he has done in my life and that he will he will continue to to provide for us and he will he worked things out where there is in music or whether it's some other Avenue I'm gonna trust I'm gonna trust regardless of whatever direction he takes me whether it's you know the food direction or I just I don't know I'm wide open to whatever God wants for me I hope it's music but the way this is going right now you know I can't keep going this direction for a lot longer before I have to look at another your choice yeah yeah hopefully that everything turns up soon oh yeah you're on right now August August will be the earliest hour is August so that's that's kind of a best-case scenario right now is August so my fingers are crossed that August comes around have a couple of solo things in August then we have the Vocal Band reunion that's scheduled for August as well so I'm praying that those those things pan out for sure yeah for sure well speaking of the vocal band reunion what does like a typical concert day it looked like for you whether it's solo or whether it's vocal man well so an vocal band are kind of different for me with a vocal band I typically will go to bed pretty late you know typically midnight 12:30 sometimes 1:00 in the morning because it takes me a while after a concert to settle down you're just for my nerves and there's everything my body just to kind of take a deep breath and so typically I got a bit pretty late but then I will sleep late - I'll sleep til I usually cannot sleep past past 10:00 10:30 that's like the latest I can sleep I just get sore I have to get out of the bed so basically I will have a sleep late on concert mornings for me my voice needs about nine hours to kind of reset for the next concert after a full night of singing and that I would just walk out to the to the lobby of the bus and get at least one cup of coffee I coffee sit down and I just kind of just slowly sit up and just kind of wake up and sometimes rage it will come out who want to talk and I'll just obviously not yeah yeah I know I'm not ready to talk and uh and I'll I'll finish my coffee and then typically also I like to you know do my quiet time in the morning you know just get that the first thing the day it really kind of sets the tone for the whole day and a lot of times I would actually even do that in my buck before we got a buck I actually just read you know read some scripture and praised up in my bunk so that I'm uninterrupted so people won't you know bother me at all because I need that time to concentrate guess I'm not a great multitasker sometimes I need full concentration yeah so I have somebody talking to me asking questions or playing music or watching TV I'm out of my mind it's just like what you know yeah I can't focus for anything so once I do that that I won't get breakfast and then I would typically start looking for a place to go work out I'll go look and see if there's a Planet Fitness nearby or a lot of times the the facility where we are the church will have a workout facility there and we'll weights or whatever and then we'll kind of get the guys together I you Adam and Adam and I forget their names now because it's been so adamant Reggie typically will sleep a little later you know - 11 o'clock 11:30 or so and I'll say hey man I found a place let's go work out and they'll say yeah so we'll head out in about an hour or so and go find a place to work out and then we'll usually clean up there if it's at a planet fitness because they have showers there let's take our suitcases here clean up there come back and then by the time we get back Network out all that it's we're typically within an hour hour and a half or two hours of soundcheck we go soundcheck after soundcheck that's typically 45 minutes at least sometimes an hour of singing on mics we caught the pre concert concert and then we will go do dinner after that and they go back to the bus to start getting ready getting our picking out our clothes and ironing and all that stuff so and then we uh oh and then before before I go we're at let's go back before I go work out I typically go set up my product table so regards to the lobby and open in my case and put my cloth down I don't have a mic that does that for me I actually got set up my backdrop and make sure all the CDs restock the cookbooks around you know everything's set I make sure my iPads out there my square card reader setup and all that and I get all that settled and then I could work out just to know to know that that's done and really that's that's it then it comes concert time and we were repeat you know play repeat play repeat love it oh my goodness but so you talked about like your typical concert date but then when you get off the road some day sometimes you're still not done like you sold like projects to work on whether it's like a new recording so I talked about that process a little bit like what does that look like when you come home and like there's still stuff to do aside from what maybe some people might we bus out of Nashville and I live in Birmingham so I would just get my car whenever yet whenever we get back to Nashville I will get in my car drive back to Birmingham and typically that's in a Sunday morning and a lot of times I'm at home in time to go to church which is great you know get home and the house is still quiet because typically it's really really early when I get home and I'll take a shower then we'll be ready to go to church and but a lot of times when we when we are sorry there's someone in our I'm in my studio which is in the basement someone's out there making a racket sorry so a lot of times in the summer we the vocal ban us off the road typically in the summer but the summer is typically when the boca baron works on recordings yes so I would you know be quote-unquote off from the road but I'm still going to Nashville to to record to work on bulk of em projects now since we're in the middle of the quarantine right now I'm actually been working on a new vocal band song at home I'm halfway through a new song building glory just wrote it's amazing called here I stand and you can see back behind me there's my little lyric sheet I worked at it last night I'm haven't been halfway done with the song and I might try to finish that up this evening get that done and then I will send my files off to the studio and then they will give everything tweaked and mixed in with everybody everyone else's vocals so typically when I'm off road I'm doing stuff like this or I'm working on you know finishing up my next cookbook right now I'm actually sent stuff off to the designer she's already putting stuff together so you know doing this quarantine I'm staying pretty busy working on solo finish I'm finishing up another solo project finishing up a Vocal Band project finishing up this cookbook so and then I'm doing YouTube stuff I'm staying busy I'm staying busy and and we just finished home school this week praise the Lord that's exciting like if there was like YouTube smellivision that would be perfect that would be a good weight off your cookbook figure out a way to do that yeah that's your list that would be cool especially those super waffles my LeAnn's they are so good I had a dear friend text me and said yeah I made your sugar offers us today actually she said I met him today and she said the out Sabbath scrape the inside was was not right I said well did you did you let it rise enough she goes I'm not sure I said well it should be at least doubled in volume even tripled goes oh no I didn't I didn't wait long enough so but if you if you do them right they are amazing actually we were we were playing a family game last night I was a clue remember clue thank you nobody in my family likes to play it so I always like round up like somebody on the street to play it with me totally and and they probably would yeah but we were we were playing that last night and not typically once we dinner I'm done for the night I don't go back and have a snack I don't do ice cream or anything I just I'm done what's dinners done I'm done until the next day yeah and Savi brought one of those shirt waffles because I make a lot at once and then I freeze them yeah and then all you have to do is just put in the microwave for you know 20 seconds kind of thought out I've been putting the toaster and get him real real crispy on the outside cuz you're still soft in the middle and uh said he brought one of those and just right next to be eating it was just killing me Oh sign your you are just killed but that smells so good oh so badly but I didn't control control is important so what tell us your moat like you've kind of said a few things they could possibly be but we've asked all the dignified questions we can possibly ask you now because this is my idea now some people on the team did not agree but this is my idea I saw I had to Megan it up a little bit sure Ellis your most embarrassing moment ever whether it's been with a fan on stage with other artists we want to know okay I have to actually one was with a Vocal Band this was several years ago but I always chew gum on stage and if I have a solo I usually will take it out if I'm going to do a solo if I know we got a feature but one night I always I'm dealing with allergies 24/7 all year round doesn't matter what season it's in I'm always always of stuff you know congestion of my vocal cords and I'm always kind of stuff you know I've had sinus surgeries I've tried pretty much every kind of allergy okay Shane yeah well okay have you tried yes yes I have tried that I had thought to try funny yes I have so anyway we were in the middle of a song and I go to clear my throat I didn't cover my mouth my gum ate poop flies out of my mouth into the audience I don't know where and I was just praying that bill didn't see me so that was pretty embarrassing I also did a Vocal Band concert one time with my pants unzipped an entire first half so that that was that was exciting one time I did is solo event this was just a few years ago and I don't know if you remember geraldine and ricky but they were part of a lot of Gaither videos years ago and they were part of homecomings as well and but geraldine has this little mannequin named Ricky and she's she's a quite a quite a good than twi'lek West she's very good anyway her husband the time David was very very sick had been in hospice and just had cancer it was just awful it was awful and she came to a concert that I was doing locally just to support me and I I heard that she had recently passed away I was just so sad for her and I was setting up a song and said Geraldine I'm gonna have seen this song for you with the pass your husband David I'm so sorry and people just like you know that's just horrible and she goes why actually where's he he he didn't die he's still he's still alive and I want to say it are you sure cuz I heard I heard that he had passed away I said I remember the words I said when she lost her husband oh no no I said in Walmart she lost her husband today at Walmart they were there and she had no clue where he went you know trying to salvage it and I just wanted to die I just wanted to drive the microphone to say I'm an idiot I'm done singing I'm gonna go work at Home Depot yeah I didn't think you would have multiple but like that was pretty good mm-hmm it's a good one but do you have a highlight from your like whole career that like one of the highlights was my final audition that last Billy Graham crusade was pretty amazing to know this was his last one I got to be a call got to be a part of that and you know obviously got that he called to do that was just mind-blowing to me and then another one was we sang at Billy Graham's memorial service yeah full of years ago that was probably the biggest honor career-wise for me was being asked to sing at that that was that was amazing and that was another one those moments where I was I was pretty nervous about it but there right before I got Ronnie hey this this is about you this is about honoring this man so get out there and do what I'll called you to do and do it well and get over yourself so so so that's that's what I did and it was it was uh as far as the singing conditions it was it was kind of the worst of all scenarios singing wise you couldn't hear well it was a terrible sound system there was one little monitor wedge right there Italian when literally about that big for us to share so we were all our voices were coming out of this one little monitor that sounded like something you bought RadioShack from 1984 and it was windy it was cold it was all these different variables they were all negative but you know we we still sang through that and I was proud of the guys too I thought they did a great job and they represented I think bill and Gloria well too and hopefully did some justice to that great song I love that oh my goodness but before I let you go I have a story for you um it's been heavy on my heart and if I don't share it with us like burdens will not be list mmm it just is something yeah I don't have to carry that so you know like just about half of like Gaither fans across America like you know my family we grew up going to gate their concerts you know Gaither came to the area we were there you know our relatives from who knows where came they called us we might not even know them and they were there so we came to the concert and this was like right at the transition where guy had left the group and Michael and Mark and date coming back in but at this particular concert Marsh was still with you all and so like we arrived to the arena but like we like fill a row like it's like legit like family reunion out of Gaither concert just like matching t-shirts everything it's kind of hot but so 12 year old me I was like getting ready got to the product table my grandfather like hands me money he's like God and get something you know like make memory and so like it's only $5 and so I got and they've got to the gave a table and I pick up your poster because I'm like I don't know this guy like like this looks like cool like a fun type of thing to purchase with $5 so pick up your poster and then we continue to walk down the concourse and everyone's like you should get it signed go up and meet in an intermission Ellen yeah I think I will I think I will so we continue to walk down then we stopped at David's table and I'm thinking I'm like hmm David folks is like my favorite singer I would love to meet this guy and my 12 year old brain is like going like it's like the Energizer Bunny right now so what my mom buys like a new CD and the guys like David's gonna be out at intermission if you wanna meet him so I'm like yes mom we're meeting David everybody family's like well what about Wes you've just got that post and like oh she can wait he'll be sitting next it gets better it gets better so then we go back in the hole like through the whole concert they're like you got that picture of West you're just gonna leave it blank like who does that and like well I guess I do so get in line this is me at 12 so we get in line for David I'm the first one in line and like I don't know what I'm going to say so we didn't like we meet him and like David is at one end and like you're at the other and 1000 of my best friends are like filling the concourse of this arena and I meet David and I have no energy to like do anything else because like the intermission is like it 8:30 9:00 and my bedtime is like right then mine too yeah but my cousin's had gone to meet you and Marshall down at the other end and they call us and they're like Wes Marsh are out there really nice you gotta meet him so we're like my mom's like I don't think Megan once - and they're like she has the poster who doesn't want to meet them if they have the poster situation I just don't want to do it anymore so we go back and sit down and moral of the story was I had to bring this out of the closet this is the poster that I had it's never sign it was never signed and the David Phelps everything that we got from David's table it was completely signed and I just wanted to say if like I could redo a moment I would redo that moment burdens have been lifted thank you that is hilarious yeah you've got a ring that I've got a sign that I was much much younger in that picture right there holy cow yeah this was like wow look very beginning like I don't even think you had your own table like this was advocating nothing no no I didn't have my own table till probably a no probably close to ten years ago nine nine ten years ago but yeah that picture there was that was in gosh that was in about 2006 that picture was wow yeah so here we are 14 years later going through this quarantine I've aged yes hey it's alright I still feel good that's tough for age is only a number age is just a number just yeah but I ever see for sharing that thank you yeah I just felt like I needed to share it because if there would be a moment that I would redo over I wouldn't have met David I just want you to you to know true truth was was he at least nice to you was he not yes he was very nice I mean I still have the picture hanging on the fridge my 12-year old short self laugh but I've grown very much but still the picture on the fridge and but just let you know like you never met me until like maybe like five years yeah I don't know probably would have been five years later well I promise you that's good I'm glad that you can unleash burden now no you can sleep once again yeah it's been a whole like ten years no sleep mm-hmm you've gotta be Austin I thank you so much I've enjoyed this thank you thank you thank you absolutely and I wish you the best with all this up it goes incredibly well and I hope to see you and your family at a concert soon Megan thanks again it was fine it was fun have a great rest of your day and hopefully we'll see you soon absolutely tell your family hey Cory I will bye bye

Channel: This Day Music

Views: 39,646

Rating: 4.860465 out of 5

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Id: _JwFikotLpo

Length: 28min 51sec (1731 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 11 2020