Interview: Perry LaHaie
Singer/songwriter Perry LaHaie has released his acoustic/electric roots rock reimagining of, 'O Come, O Come Emmanuel (How Long)', ahead of his anticipated new album, 'Him'. LTTM spoke to him to find out more about the music and what inspires him to create it.
For those who haven't heard of you before, can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got involved in making music?
My freshman year of college I was sharing my faith with a student and she was just so closed. I went back to my dorm room and wrote my first song expressing my longing for her and other to know Jesus, that was really the spark!
Tell us about your new Christmas single and why you chose to record it?
I have a passion to see Revelation 7:9 fulfilled: After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. I wanted my reimagining of O Come O Come Emmanuel to be a prayer for that day to come!
You also have a new album coming soon, what can people expect from that and when will it be available?
My hope is that the songs will push the gospel of amazing grace deeper into our hearts and will also ignite a passion to see the gospel come to the over 4000 people groups in the world who are still waiting for the good news. I’m looking at a February/March release.
What message would you like people to take from your music?
That we would have an encounter with the Lord through the songs like Isaiah did. To see the Lord high and lifted up, to see our sinful selves in view of his holiness, experience deep cleansing grace and come away saying “Lord, here am I send me, I’ll take your grace to my world.”
How would you describe your style of music and what are your influences?
Matt Maher meets Andrew Peterson meets Audrey Assad. I’m inspired by Five For Fighting and was probably influenced a lot by the Eagles classic greatest hits record.
If you could work with any songwriter, who would it be and why?
Andrew Peterson, because I think only now has he begun to write songs that will be sung generations from now. That’s saying a lot because Andrew’s always been a great songwriter but I think maturity and pain is bringing out songs he could have never written until now.
How would you define success in your career as an artist?
One person whose heart is captured the beauty of God grace and is compelled to share that grace because they’ve been given a deeper understanding of it.
What is your favorite album of all time?
Eagles - Greatest Hits.
You're stuck on an island, it's hot, you only have enough battery life left to listen to one song on your phone. What track is it?
Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah.
What does the next year hold for you?
I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them ;I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them! Isa. 42:16
