Though we sing to give glory and honor to Jesus Christ, it is not our intention to write songs to be sung by worship teams. The focus of our songs will be on broken and lost humanity's need for Christ. We'd rather record a song about an addict with a messy life who finds deliverance through Christ late in life than to write another formulaic worship song that sounds like all the other worship music.
We have no delusions of grandeur. In fact, we are two friends who simply enjoy writing music together. We want to produce music, as a hobby, that we like to listen to. If other people like our music, well that would be like jimmies on a vanilla frosted cupcake. We have no intentions to pursue a career in the music business or to sign deals with executives in the Christian music industry. We do pray that the singers that we work with will be blessed for their contributions to our music.
To tell the whole truth and to reveal our not-so-hidden secret agenda, we hope our music creates greater awareness of the Gramazin mission to encourage believers across America to prepare and share their testimonies on church websites. To put it bluntly, our music is a component of the marketing strategy of the Gramazin ministry.
The advantage that we have as an obscure songwriting team is that I have a weekday radio show in New England with an estimated audience of 130,000 daily listeners. This provides us with the opportunity to share our music not only with our listeners but also with the followers of all of the influencers who have been and will be on my radio show.
Who knows the future but the Lord? Should something happen to either of us soon, we may have already produced our last song together. However, Lord willing, we have over 20 songs, from many different genres of music, that are in our pipeline to produce rapidly over the next few years. Each song has a unique message that we want to share with our audience to draw them into a closer relationship with Christ. We’d like to invite Christian singers and musicians from across America to join us and contribute to our songs.
Peter Mercurio is a graduate of the Berkley School of Music in Boston, MA. He played in a rock band for over 13 years, consistently traveling a circuit of venues throughout New England. Peter is a brilliant composer and accomplished musician on multiple instruments with an uncanny ability to play a song on the guitar within a minute or two after hearing it for the first time. A music teacher, Peter has performed in various other bands throughout the years, especially having enjoyed those moments when he performed pure jazz live.
Our songwriting partnership began in 2018. My stepdaughter graduated from college and asked her Mom, my wife Karen, to buy her a guitar. Both Karen and I had tried to learn how to play a guitar back in the early 80s but both of us had abandoned the pursuit. When Karen and I went to the guitar store for my stepdaughter, we decided to buy a second guitar so we could both try guitar again. However, it was clear that Karen wasn’t as motivated as I was and the guitar became mine.
I asked the music director at our church to recommend a guitar teacher for me. She recommended Peter. He cheerfully began teaching me how to play the guitar in late 2018. However, a friendship quickly grew and our relationship changed from guitar teacher/student to mutual friends who loved Jesus Christ and classic rock who talked about how to play dozens of songs from way back when. Peter would write the tablature to the songs so I could learn to play them on my guitar. This continued from 2019 into 2021.
I received word in April 2021 that my sister’s husband was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. It was a total shock to our family. I was stunned that I had no emotion when I heard the news. I wrote a lyric entitled I Cannot Cry and I shared it with Peter. He decided to put it to music and just like that we had written our first song together. We enjoyed the process so much that we quickly jumped into the production of Smiling followed by This Christmas Eve, Victory, and, as I write this, Heidi Lonsberry.
I have been an intense listener of popular music of various genres since I was in elementary school in the late 1960s. According to Peter, I seem to have the gift to hear a single chord or a note and then to be able to quickly identify one of the 1,200 songs filed away in my brain where that note or chord is heard. I am continuously listening to my library of music in search of musical ideas for our songs. Such a database of music in my head has proven helpful to Peter and I when we think of creative ways to engineer our songs. The Lord has given me the gift of writing. I have published five books, including two books on prayer, a two-volume commentary on the New Testament, and a Christian novel.
A song typically begins with me going to Peter with the idea for the song, the title, and the lyrics. On two occasions I’ve suggested some chord sequences as well. The two of us discuss the sound, style, genre, tempo, and structure of the song. Peter then composes the music for the song’s intro, verses, choruses, bridges, interludes, and closing. The two of us massage his composition, and sometimes tweak my lyrics, until we both agree on the tune. It is at that point that we engineer the bass, percussion, secondary instrumentation, instrument solos, sound effects, and musical accents. It is my responsibility to recruit vocalists for the song and to coordinate their auditions. Once Peter and I have chosen a vocalist, we work with them through various renditions until the final recording is complete.
It is our prayer that our music touches your heart as you enjoy singing along with it over and over. If you enjoy our tunes, please share them with others and direct them to the Gramazin website where they can not only connect with our music but also learn about our mission to encourage believers to share their testimonies.
Blessings,
Charles Wagner
Executive Director/President
Chairman of the Board
Gramazin Inc.
Host of the "Gramazin Testimony Report"
WEZE 590 AM, WROL 950 AM Boston
