29th November, 2006

DAVID ADAMS

Around six years ago, singer and musician Jess Hammond spent several weeks of a northern hemisphere summer at a drug rehabilitation centre in a small Siberian village.

Part of a Youth With A Mission (YWAM) team, she was helping with some building work at the centre but says it was the stories of the people there who ended up inspiring her music.

MUSICAL MISSIONARIES: Jess Hammond and husband Daniel. "I find it a bit hard just to write off the top of my head but a lot of my songs were written...from experiences of see God really work or move in those times. It really inspired me to write songs.”

“We’d all sit around the fire in the evening and just sing worship songs together,” the 26-year-old recalls. “That was really inspiring for me just seeing these guys who really had nothing and still just being able to worship God. We felt really humbled being there - we kind of felt like we were being ministered to more than we were ministering.”

That was just one of countless experiences Hammond had during the five years she spent volunteering with YWAM and one of the many that she subsequently drew upon when writing songs.

Having grown up in Tamworth, she moved to Melbourne in 1999, initially to complete a six month YWAM “entry-level course” known as the Discipleship Training School. But after completing the course she started working full-time as volunteer for the organisation, a role which eventually led her to minister on the streets of Kings Cross during the Sydney Olympics and to lead overseas mission trips to places like Nepal, China, Singapore and, of course, Russia.

Looking back now, Hammond says those trips played a crucial role in her personal walk with Christ and her move into a fulltime music career around a year ago.

“It was amazing...especially the Third World countries. It just changes your whole world-view, I think...” Hammond says.

“I think it was only until (then)...that I had something to write about. I find it a bit hard just to write off the top of my head but a lot of my songs were written during those times or just from experiences of seeing God really work or move in those times. It really inspired me to write songs.”

Hammond signed on with Small House Records Australia late last year. In September this year, she released her first album, There Is Hope.

Produced by Mark Tulk of Small House Records, the predominantly acoustic album features Phil Gaudion (ex-Paul Colman Trio) on drums, Andrew Naylor (Roma Waterman and House2House Band) on bass, and Niki Tulk, wife of Mark, on cello.

Along with Daniel, her husband of two years (who plays lead guitar on the album), Hammond is now in the midst of a national tour.

Hammond became a Christian at a Black Stump music festival when she was about 14-years-old. Her parents, both of whom were professional musicians, had recently divorced - an event which she says caused her “world to fall apart”.

“I guess God knew that I was needing that love and that total acceptance from Him having lost that family unit so I had a real encounter with His love, I guess, and just started crying and was really emotionally touched then,” she recalls.

“But it wasn’t really until about four or five years later going to YWAM that I actually really dealt with a lot of the emotional stuff from the divorce.”

Despite her upbringing in Tamworth - the country music ‘capital’ of Australia, Hammond, who has been playing the guitar since she was 15 (her father is a guitar teacher) and singing for much longer, says her sound isn’t “distinctively country”.

DEBUT: Jess Hammond's first albumwas released in September. “Some people do hear country music in there but it’s kind of folky - a mixture between contemporary, pop and folk I guess,” she says. “I have influences like Joni Mitchell, Eva Cassidy - that kind of folky sound - but I also love bands like U2 and Delirious? so it’s kind of a cross.”

“Some people do hear country music in there but it’s kind of folky - a mixture between contemporary, pop and folk, I guess,” she says. “I have influences like Joni Mitchell, Eva Cassidy - that kind of folky sound - but I also love bands like U2 and Delirious? so it’s kind of a cross.”

While her vocal sound is fairly well established, Hammond says the music she and her husband create is still evolving.

“Daniel and I both have similar music tastes but even as we explore playing together and writing together, I think we evolve in that as well,” she says. “We really like playing with a band as well, so the more opportunities to do that, the better, but we definitely still have folky, acoustic roots.”

While There Is Hope is technically her first album, Hammond had previously recorded an album in her father’s studio with many of the same songs on it (although it was never officially released). Given that the songs were already formed, Hammond says that, as a result, the recording of There Is Hope was “pretty straight-forward”.

“But it does have a bit of a bandy sound which was something I was hoping for...” she says. “And I guess signing with a label was a whole new concept and experience for us so there was a lot of unknown territory there. There was a lot of things where we didn’t know what to expect really, but it’s all been really great.”

Hammond is already signed up to do another album and at this stage envisages beginning work on it in the middle of next year. She is looking forward to writing songs with her husband, something they’ve never done before.

Hammond says that while, despite her musical success, she continues to wonder whether she is called to overseas mission on a long term basis, her own overseas trips have helped her to understand that all Christians should be involved in mission where-ever they are.

“Our lives are to be poured out for God where-ever we are and really that’s the essence of how we love and serve Him because really our whole lives are an offering to Him,” she says.

For details of the remaining dates on Jess Hammond's national tour, visit www.smallhouserecords.com.au.

~ www.jesshammond.com