MY TESTIMONY

"Chris, you've been reading too many mystery novels!", I said. It was early in 1969, and Chris Friend, an aptly named friend of mine, was attempting to explain something to me in regard to our plan to transport a relatively large amount (for us) of hashish to Salt Lake City, to share with some friends. "What you do", he said, "is put the hash in the bottom of the door panel, and cover it over with black paper. That way, when the cops shine their flashlight down through the crack in the door, it will just look like the bottom of the door, and they won't see the hash", Chris said. "Fine", I said, not really caring what he did, but not really believing it would ever be a necessary precaution. After all, we were hippies, and God would protect us, since we were just bringing some good dope to our friends in Salt Lake, who we hadn't seen in some time. The drive from Laguna Beach would take about 16 hours, and Fred Field, Tommy Coomes, Chris Friend and myself started off, for the drive, anticipating the enjoyment of having a good hit of LSD along the way. The LSD would make the trip go very quickly, and we were anxious to get started.

By the time we hit Vegas, we were beginning to come on pretty good, and decided to do the prudent thing and avoid the Strip. We wanted to avoid Las Vegas altogether, because in those days Nevada laws were very strict on drug usage. Large foreboding signs greeted you as you hit town reading: "Don't gamble with drugs in Nevada. Possession 25 years, Dealing: Life". We actually wanted to heed the sign and get through as quickly as possible, but knew we had a short stretch on the north side of town where the freeway ended, and you were forced to go on surface streets for a mile or two to get back to the freeway.

We took the last exit off of Hwy.15 and started down the street. Not a few blocks later, we saw the black and white in front of us. "Be cool, and just drive by, we'll get past them and get out of here," somebody said. We got right alongside the slow moving cruiser, being careful to keep our speed down, and tried to avoid eye contact as we passed. But it wasn't to be. I saw the excitement in the eyes of the cop who was driving as he looked up and saw a bunch of hippies, ripe for stopping, whether or not they had a reason. In seconds he was behind us, the lights went on, and we were pulled over. They got out with shotguns at the ready, their vicious looking dogs in the attack position, as if we were big time criminals. "Out of the van", they ordered, and as we complied, they put us spread eagle against the patrol car. They began to search the van in earnest, as we waited, knowing the only thing to find was the hash. I literally couldn't believe my eyes as I watched the officer shine his flashlight down the door of the van, exactly like Chris had described in our earlier exchange. "Thank you, Chris, you're not so stupid after all," I thought to myself with great gratitude. The search went on for some time, until one of the cops finally came back around the van, announcing "well, you boys look clean". What a relief! Chris had been right, and we were going to make it out of here tonight. In a fit of bravado and lack of good judgment, Fred blurted out, "you can search all night, you'll not find anything!" "Shut up, Fred", I thought, wishing he would just leave well enough alone. But then I heard other words which turned my joy into dread: "Well look what I found" said one of the officers with that sarcastic little sting in his voice that all of us have heard when we find ourselves at the mercy of another. Triumphantly he held up the "roach", the butt of a marijuana cigarette, claiming he had found it in plain sight on the engine cover. "I don't think so", I thought to myself. How convenient, 20 minutes into the search to find a roach that would have been found in the first minute of the search. To this day, I believe that roach was planted. It didn't matter though, for in a matter of minutes we were cuffed, brought "downtown" and booked. The police took particular delight in cutting our shoulder length hippie hair, an act which was probably illegal, but what did we know? Unbelievably, Fred had a gram of hash in his hand throughout the whole bust, which they never found. He was so stoned, he stayed cool, and he and Tommy, put in a different cell than Chris and I, swallowed it when they got to their cell. High in jail in Las Vegas, scared, still very much under the influence, we made our phone call to Fred's dad, and sat back to wait out the consequences.

We all looked pretty funny with our nearly shaved heads and beardless faces as Fred's dad came to bail us out the next day, all the way from L.A. They said the F.B.I. searched our van, and never ever found the hash. We would have been in real trouble if that was found, but God had other plans for us than to spend a good part of our lives in jail.Our trial date was set for 6 months later, so we had a lot of time to think about things. This was a turning moment for me. I was scared, and I didn't want to go to jail for a minute, much less for life. It turned out I did a lot of thinking about God and the meaning of life.

I had been raised in a legalistic denomination, and had burned out on religion about the age of 15, when I discovered rock and roll. I left the church, believing I was on my way to hell, but unwilling to go for some of the stupid things they said I would go for. "If I'm going to hell, I'm going for wine, women and song, and not for eating meat on Friday", I thought to myself. And wine, women and song I did, as I began my recording career with my first group, "the Castells" in the early '60s. We got a top 20 hit with our second record ,a song called "Sacred'. Off I went, still in my senior year of high school, to do shows with people who were my heroes, Roy Orbison, Jackie Wilson, Jerry Lee Lewis. What a thrill for a kid from Santa Rosa, CA, whose closest contact to these people up until now was as I played the 45's and LP's I bought, learning every lick, every chord, every label, every publisher. I was truly a fan, and now In was a small part of the rock pantheon. It felt good. Later on, we recorded another top 20 hit, "So This Is Love". After the Castells broke up, I worked for a few years with a guy named Gary Usher who co-wrote a couple of Beach Boys songs with Brian Wilson. I was part of Gary's studio group, and recorded many "surf/hot rod" type albums in the '60s. We recorded under many different names, the "Super Stocks", the "Revells", the "Weird-oh's", but we really struck gold when Mercury Records pulled a single off one of the albums we did, and the song "Little Honda" went to the top 10. I was the lead vocalist on that song, but just participated in the recording of the second Hondells hit, "A Younger Girl".

I got more and more into alcohol during this period, and slowly but steadily my life went out of control. I needed booze on sessions, I thought, and often got so drunk I couldn't sing. Later I discovered marijuana, and wondered where that had been all of my life. About a year into marijuana, the publicity began to hit on the hippie scene, and I got very curious about LSD. My first LSD trip was great, but I had no opportunity to try it again for a year. LSD became more available, and a year later I got into it seriously when I obtained some while playing in a night club in Honolulu. My drummer and best friend, Ernie Earnshaw and I would drop after work many a night, and stay up stoned all night and most of the day , catching just enough sleep to start all over again the next night. This went on for many months, and then the group, which was called "Six the Hardway" wound up playing in Las Vegas, where I met Denny Correll. Denny was in a group called the "5th Cavalry", and both our bands were playing the "Pussycat A Go Go" on the Vegas strip. One night on a break, Denny got us all in the back room. "You have to accept Jesus, man, you have to repent and get your life right"., he preached. The force of his conviction, his boldness and his personality deeply affected me, and I knew I had to look into this. After Vegas, we all went back to California, and I began to go down to a club called "Gold Street" in Orange County where the band played. By this time they were called "Bigfoot", and "Gold Street" was one of the hot places in town. But our interests were different from the majority of the night club crowd. We would study the Bible, and talk about God. We were still taking drugs, because we thought it was all a part of finding God. We were sincere, but in error, but God is able to take you through all that.

Eventually, we wound up in Laguna Beach, CA, where we rented a beautiful house overlooking the Pacific Ocean in South Laguna. We weren't dealing drugs, but we could make good money by playing in night clubs, and with eight or so of us living communally, we could support a pretty comfortable life style. As good as life should have been, I was miserable. facing the bust in Las Vegas, and another bust in Orange County, I faced an uncertain future. I knew that I couldn't go on taking drugs forever, but I wanted to maintain the high. I heard that the "guru" type guys were able to maintain a high without drugs, and I was definitely thinking that Eastern religions might be the way to go. I had made a deal with God that I would not stop searching for truth until I was totally satisfied that I had found the ultimate answer, whatever it was. I had read in the Bible that if I would "seek, I would find, if I asked, it would be given unto me, if I knocked, the door would open." I figured that if God was as fair and just as He was reputed to be, that if I did all I could to discover Him, and searched with all my heart, that He couldn't fault me if I didn't find Him. I realized that there was nothing more important to find out about in all of life and whatever I had to do to find it, I was willing to do. I didn't know if there was heaven or hell, but I didn't want to take the chance on dying and finding out that I went to hell. I felt funny about the Eastern philosophies, the Urantia Book, the Aquarian Gospel, and other books I was reading, but seemed to feel most comfortable with the Bible, even though I wasn't comfortable with the idea of becoming a Christian. I needed satisfying answers.

Well, answers began to come. We began to pick up more than one hitchhiker who would ask, "have you been to Calvary Chapel yet? God's really moving there." Believe me, if God was moving somewhere, I wanted to check it out. And so I did. One night a bunch of us went down to a Christian commune in Newport Beach. Hippie Christians had taken over a whole motel complex which was in escrow at the time. The realtor, being a Christian, allowed them to live there during what he knew would be a long escrow, and they had taken over the whole motel, turning it into a Christian commune. A bunch of us at the Laguna house were having a debate over some controversial scripture, and decided to go down to the "Blue Top" as it was called, and talk to these guys who were fully Christian. What I mean by that, is that if you asked me what my religion was at this time, I would say "mostly Christian". We knew that these hippies had given their lives to Christ, whatever that meant.

We knocked on the door of apt. 1, and were invited in. We really felt the love of God in the place, they all talked very enthusiastically about their church, and especially their pastor, a man called Chuck Smith. They invited us to church and after some wrestling with my misgivings about anything called Christian, a few of us went that night.

The service was very low key. I remember being very impressed that Chuck didn't yell or scream, just shared stuff about Jesus with a big grin on his face. I don't remember what was preached that night, I just knew that something very powerful and important was going on in that room, and I wanted to understand it and be a part of it. I didn't go to the altar that night, but the Spirit of God got hold of me in a big way. I began to weep deeply, as all my control and pride was broken like a twig in the presence of God. I had deep release as I wept before God, and felt such a cleanliness in my spirit, unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. I repented to God, for the first time I realized how spiritually bankrupt I was. Snot and tears were pouring all over my face and beard, but I felt cleaner than I ever had in my life. I knew I had found a piece of God, though uncertain it was all there was. I told God that I would stay there until He showed me different.

I had been trying to carry the sins of the world on my shoulders, believing that no one could have peace until ALL had peace. What a comfort to find out that Jesus had carried all sins already, and died for all men. The big difference I saw between the Eastern way and Christianity, is that the Eastern philosophies pointed to an elusive, barely attainable place of peace somewhere in the future for the few who were able to bear the rigors of spiritual disciplines. Christianity offered peace right now, and didn't depend on my ability to be spiritual, just my brokeness and repentance before God. They explained that Jesus had done it all, and all I had to do was accept what He did. At that point, I could have spiritual peace, and eternal life, which was a free gift, and I couldn't earn my way into heaven by my good works or holiness. What a relief to know that I could be right with God, and that if I died the next minute, I'd go to Heaven to be with Jesus. In fact, I wished in the best way that I might die that minute, so at peace was I and so ready to go. Later I realized that we had purpose here on Earth, or God would take everyone home, the minute they would repent. There was a job to be done, to share the same message with others who needed what we had found.

Well, that was 25 years ago, and I've never looked back. I was baptized with the Holy Spirit a week later, and about that time LOVE SONG started playing at one of the Bible studies at Calvary Chapel. As what was to become known as the "Jesus Movement" started in earnest, we got caught up in the attendant wave of media attention, and in the space of 2 years became world famous. We continued in the ministry for a total of 3 years, when I went off to become a solo artist. My albums became successful as well, and I continued and still do today, to record, travel, preach and teach, and do my best to serve God.

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