- Gary Rea (25)vocals, guitar, bass
Deon Kleinhans (27)electricguitar, bass
Darrell O’Donoghue (25)drums
Kim - Tell me about the Peculiar People Band
Gary – We’re from Cape Town in South Africa. We all come from a little church in a little fishing town called FishHook, which is like a little subdivision in Cape Town. Darrell’s dad was the pastor of our church back then. We started leading worship in the church and then we started branching out. We started playing youth outreaches and it really was a snowball effect. We never said “We want to be a band and in seven years we want to doing this and that.” It was just that we believe that God’s hand is on this and despite us and our music He used it. That’s what happened back then and that’s what is happening now. Obviously a lot has happened since then. We’ve had quite a bit of success in South Africa, like radio, and we toured around South Africa for about five years. We prayed that God would open some doors for us to go abroad somewhere and extend the ministry and He brought us over here and we met up with a record company called Maranatha Music. In itself that’s quite a miracle because they’re a great company and they share our vision for worship and for reaching people. We didn’t actually shop it – we didn’t send them stuff. I happened to bump into one of the guys from Maranatha Music on a fishing boat and we started chatting. They were looking for a band like us and we were looking for a company like them and it was just definitely a God thing – not the kind of thing you could write a script to. That’s our story in a nutshell and we’ve just released our new album with them two weeks ago. It’s called Not Ashamed and we’re going to be touring it up this year. That’s why we’re at GMA. We’re just promoting it. It’s exciting times for us. Everything is happening fast and furiously.
Kim – What were you all doing before doing the music full time.
Gary – Darrell and myself went to seminary for three years studying theology and straight after that it was music full-time.
Deon – I was doing some free-lance photography for four years and I also did some computer things and some construction later.
Kim – Where do you hope to see this go since you’ve already gone from one continent to the next?
Gary – I’m not sure. What I am sure is that God is using what we’re doing now. My prayer is that He’ll use it on a bigger and bigger scale and that eventually we’ll be influencing the world with what God’s called us to do. We want it to get as big as possible. But whether it does or doesn’t, the cool thing about doing this for God is that we’re fulfilling our purpose every day.
Deon – Every day counts.
Kim – Are your families still in South Africa?
Gary – Our wives are with us.
Deon – All of our other families are still scattered around South Africa.
Kim – What about kids? Any little bitties?
Gary – I’ve got a little bundle that’s two months old. His name is Ethan and if you could give him a little punt, it would be great. He’s my first born.
Kim – New baby smell … the new car smell just can’t compete!
Gary – How long does that smell last by the way?
Kim – With mine it lasted about 8 months and then, as we introduced more and more food, that nice smell was replaced by other, less pleasant smells!
Gary – We could always breast-feed him until he’s about 5! (laughs)
Kim – I’m betting your wife might not go past the teeth stage.
Gary – (laughs) Yes, we’ll probably only go until he’s six months old with the nursing.
Kim – Darrell you talk way too much. The other guys just can’t get a word in edge-wise here. (laughs)
Deon – We take turns who talks during interviews. The other one just sits there and looks wise. (laughs)
Gary – Now that we’ve got a child in the band we’ve got a whole new topic of conversation. This is what all interviews should be like.
Kim – I believe that there is a whole side to you guys that we don’t see. There’s the music, that’s obvious, but you also have lives the other 23 hours of the day. You’ve got family and babies and new smells and dirty diapers. I try to show a bigger picture than just talent. You’re normal people who have incredible jobs and a lot of responsibility, but you’re still real people.
Deon – That’s so cool.
Gary – Can you come with us to our next few interviews? (laughs)
Deon – This is just really refreshing. I think you’re on to something. Sometimes you feel like you’re answering the same five questions over and over again.
