BARRY BYNUM


During my early years in the Texas Panhandle, (Lubbock area) I had a growing interest in music, at first forming groups with my brother and cousins, then at school. Most people figure it stood to reason, my dad was a band director and sax player, and both my folks sang in a choir. I seemed to have a leap forward in that interest about the time of the Beatles and the whole stream of artists that followed. I started playing ukulele at the age of 7 and it went on to guitar from there. I also managed to keep my head just above water in the school band playing trumpet, copying the guy next to me, and took piano lessons for about 3 years. It seemed I was often not a source of pleasure for my teachers.

When I was 14 my family moved south to the Austin-San Antonio area (San Marcos) and I soon met other musicians there. (Bruce was one of them) We had garage bands and some of them were OK and others were a real train wreck. We enjoyed trying to create something new, although truth be told, we probably sounded like a thousand other bands who tried to emulate Vanilla Fudge, Blind Faith, Quicksilver Messenger, Iron Butterfly, Zep, Grand Funk, some Crosby Still and Nash… etc. Also I had a growing love for blues and R & B styles. We tended to work out our music like our lives, full of chaos and anarchy, which caused us to not get much done sometimes. Unfortunately in my case the music crowd I ran with also had themselves pretty tangled up in the drug culture, and although I was never a heavy user, my experimentation with the ‘liberated’ lifestyles left me empty, a bit confused, and discouraged. I was even writing songs that, as I think back to the lyrics now, it seems like I was screaming out to be rescued by God.

Suddenly one summer, two friends of mine had lost their interest in pursuing those lifestyles, and began to talk to me about a relationship with Jesus Christ. It was the bass player and drummer in our band, and suddenly they did not want to go where I thought we were going. I knew who Jesus was, and knew bits and pieces of the Bible, went to church with my parents, even had spent a little time playing guitar for this sort of rock n roll youth choir, but I really couldn’t see how that would connect with what my life was about. Of course looking back I see that it was because I did not know what my life was about at all. Someone a lot bigger and smarter than me had a plan.

Some of the exact details of that few weeks are a little fuzzy, but I know that soon I was feeling drawn to explore a real relationship with God, asking God for forgiveness and seeing that there was a lot more to Jesus and what He is up to in this world, than first meets the eye, and it was a lot more than ‘religion’. I found that as I was drawn more to Him and letting Him sink into my heart, I was finding much less attraction to the supposed ‘liberation’ I had chased so hard before. I was instead discovering a very different sort of liberation. I couldn’t have given you any theological verbiage of what had happened, but I was discovering things in the Bible after they had already happened to me in my spirit. This got me very excited and made me realize how personal it was supposed to be. I was being born again, I later learned, and I would not be the same person anymore. This was a supernatural and spiritual occurrence, something I would not have dreamed of, or been inclined to do, or even able to do.

Within a few months my songs, in fact, my whole approach to what I cared about was changing. Even teachers at school were sort of astonished at how much some of us started to change, for there was by this time a group of 20 or 25 of us that had done pretty much a 180 turn. Some of my same (previously) drug buddies, now being transformed rapidly, got together with me to pray about putting a band together to use our music to share how excited we were about this. We did not know if anyone else was doing this sort of thing with rock music, but it was sort of burning in our spirits, to communicate our faith with it. Before we were walking with the Lord, we had seen Jesus Christ Superstar which, after we came to this real relationship, seemed so unlike the truth of Jesus and what we were learning by knowing Him. My music was increasingly an overflow of what was happening deep in my spirit.

We formed a group called Liberation Suite, and began to play out in parks, school dances, student unions, street parties, whatever. It soon became something with a lot of momentum from the Holy Spirit and we went on a 5 month tour of the Southwest, then to live in Ireland and London, touring all over the place, playing for thousands, seeing hundreds and hundreds of young people coming to have a personal relationship with the Lord. After 2 years, moving back to Texas, on to L.A. , and 2 or 3 record deals etc, the group went into a part time status, and continues to play to this day.

I left the group on good terms in 1992 and my wife Kristi and I went to live in Ireland again from 1993-1999, where I played and toured doing ‘coffee bars’, some university student unions and high school concerts, some larger concerts too. It was there that I encountered the new dimension that worship music has brought to my life, through Christian Fellowship Church in Belfast. God gave us a son in 1995 and he has been a real delight. We have relocated back to San Marcos where I serve as a worship music leader and director, but keep close ties overseas and try to go back often. I also love working with and growing in friendship with the members of Wear That Shoe. Praying, playing, laughing, crying, thinking together is what this group is all about. What a blast!

In the summer of 2001 I had been talking with Seth and a couple of the others about starting a band- I had been ‘solo’ for a few years, but I love the interaction and synergy of a band of creative people doing something for and with God. I was gone on a tour of Ireland in Aug 2001 but in emailing the others we felt the time was right to start a band of collaborators, songwriting, arranging, and playing together, but much more than that, to be a community of spiritual and Christian support for one another. I returned from the tour on Aug 30. In a very few days we had set our first date to jam and talk together.

Wear That Shoe was formed just before the shocking events of 9/11. It is kind of awesome that before that upheaval, we all sensed that there was a real important timing and purpose to what the Lord seemed to put in front of us to do. So far it has been a lot of fun and hard work, and people seem to be touched by what the group brings to the events we have performed at. It is a bonus that there is a tremendous watershed of creative talent here, and an energy born out of pouring these streams together. It is our hope that what we are privileged to bring to people in music and relationship is of real value and speaks to their hearts, pointing them to the wonderful God who rescued me, and brings redemption to people every day.

BARRY'S INFLUENCES:
The earlier Brit rockers, the Beatles - especially Lennon and Harrison, and Cream
Blues cats like Freddy King and Johnny Winter
The "songwriter" bands of the 60s and 70s like Simon and Garfunkel, The Byrds, People
I would have loved to sing like Joni Mitchell or Bonnie Raitt but I'm a guy.
Progressive rock from the early 70s, like Steely Dan, Yes, etc.
Oh yeah and I really loved this slightly corny, but great band called the Association
Quirky experimental rock like Jefferson Airplane, Steeleye Span, and Quicksilver Messenger