During the period that I was doing the Rock Seminars, I was also putting the band Messiah back together. We were to the point musically that we were about ready to start playing some small clubs. We were broke and needed additional equipment in order to play some small jobs. Mysteriously, money was in the band house mail box in a sealed envelope. Every week we seemed to get an envelope with cash in it, and this enabled us to buy the equipment needed to start playing out. It wasn't until a few months later that I found out where the money had come from. Jan was putting money in our mail box to secretly finance the band. How she knew we needed the money, came from our once a week Bayside Rosary group. When we prayed we prayed for each person present and their needs, and mine and Scotts intentions were for money to finance Messiah. Jan was part of this Bayside Rosary group and also it was Jan and her husband Tom who eventually signed Messiah to a management contract and formed Shepherd productions to produce the albums. Eventually, Messiah played a few little clubs around our area, without much publicity because we were new and wanted to get tight musically and wanted to work in front of an audience, and get a reaction to how we were doing! At this point we were playing cover songs - nothing original. We were short on material, so we would end up back at the band house and would rehearse for a few weeks and the go and play a Friday and Saturday some where and then back to the band house again to fix our mistakes. In the meantime Scott and I were still doing Rock Seminars and attending daily Mass and our weekly Bayside Rosary group. It was around this time that I started to notice Jan and her friend Pat were always around. They would attend the same churches Scott and I were attending, they were part of the same Rosary group, and now were showing up at the clubs we played. Then one day Jan brought her husband Tom to see us play. That began the relationship between Messiah and soon to be Shepherd productions. Jan also brought Tom to one of the Rock Seminars and he eventually turned those into professional looking, and sounding events. Shepherd productions was formed and Messiah was signed to a management contract. We were moved to a building for our rehearsals, and we started writing songs for an album that Shepherd productions would finance! It was at this point that Tom suggested that I stop doing Rock Seminars. His reasoning was that it was a conflict of interested. I'm doing Rock Seminars about how Satan is using Rock Music to influence people and at the same time I'm in a Rock band playing Rock Music. I asked him why he helped me make the Rock Seminars look and sound so professional, only to want them ended now, especially since there was talk about the archdiocese of Detroit putting me on tour throughout Michigan doing Rock Seminars at Catholic Schools and Churches. He said I would influence people through the music of Messiah, and reach a wider audience than just the Catholic Churches and Schools in Michigan! He made sense, so I ended the Rock Seminars and devoted all my time to Messiah. TO BE CONTINUED.................
