Brad Erickson

When I was a little boy, my parents were still together and would take me to church. I remember loving Jesus and asking him into my heart at a very young age. Maybe age 4. And I remember, at that time, meeting a missionary couple who visited the church and talked about missions and even brought some typical African food for us to try. I remember at that age deciding that I wanted to be a missionary someday. By the time I was about 7 or 8 years old, my parents divorced and everyone stopped going to church for some reason. But I continued to love Jesus, and by the time I was 8 or 9, I figured out there was a church a couple blocks from my house that I could walk to all by myself. By the time I was in Jr. High, a friend invited me to an amazing place called "His Place." It was a house with a bunch of couches in it and such that was owned by a nearby church and used as a place for the youth to get together and have youth services and hangouts. It was so cool to see how many youth would show up and were totally into God. And the youth pastors were so on fire for God, and I remember getting filled with the Holy Spirit in that place and soon thereafter, bringing my guitar and learning the praise songs and leading worship within a short time, and then within a few months, joining the youth group on Mexico mission trips. That was over 40 years ago and I've never stopped doing missions trips ever since. Just like I decided I wanted to do back when I was around 4 years old. Also, while attending that youth group, at around age 14 or 15, I joined up with a couple of the boys there and played music and did concerts together and we led many kids to Christ at our concerts through the preaching of the Word and altar calls after each concert. Soon after joining the band, called Upstairs, I started writing songs for the band. About a year ago I started the process of recording the Christian new wave punk songs I wrote back in the 80's and releasing them onto major music platforms. I hope people that listen to them are blessed and encouraged in the Lord!