Rocker 'Reverend Dred' considers prison time a blessing

Rocker considers prison time a blessing

By Paul Clark • pclark-Rv/Vftox3dRWk0Htik3J/[email protected] • January 22, 2011

[image: photo]<http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?template=zoom&Site=AB&Date=20110122&Category=ENT03&ArtNo=101220343&Ref=H1>
The Enquirer/Cara Owsley
Jayme "Dusty" Murphy.

> On Halloween night a dozen years ago, an intoxicated teenage
> devil-worshiper thought he heard Satan tell him to burn down a church in
> Northern Kentucky.
>
> Jayme "Dusty" Murphy, then 17, played ringleader as he and four friends
> poured gasoline and ignited the exterior of Fairview Christian Church near
> Williamstown.
>
> "I went to a concert that night and was trying to get some LSD," Murphy
> recalled. "I couldn't find any, so I drank whiskey. I was a drug addict, an
> alcoholic, a crazy kid."
>
> Wet weather conditions prevented a devastating blaze, but Murphy was
> arrested a few days later and tried as an adult for arson.
>
> He served 39 months of a five-year sentence, a period he now considers a
> blessing. Today Murphy - under the stage name "Reverend Dred" - is vocalist
> and frontman for a heavy-metal band called Datum Point. He considers it a
> metal ministry for Jesus.
>
> "When I was incarcerated, a guard came to me and said, 'Jesus will forgive
> you if you ask him to,' " Murphy recalled. "I don't even know if it was
> legal for him to tell me that, but I'm glad he did. In a jail cell I gave my
> heart to Jesus."
>
> Datum Point, formed two years ago, is among four finalists in the "Battle
> of the Bands 2011" to be settled Saturday night at the Underground in Forest
> Park. Top prize is $4,000 as the band competes with Achilles Descent,
> Plastic Inevitables and The Waking Point. Elimination rounds involving more
> than 30 entrants began in September, decided by a judges panel and audience
> votes.
>
> Murphy, 29, of Williamstown, became an ordained Pentecostal minister six
> years ago. He's married with three daughters ages 12, 7, and 5, and holds a
> day job as a machinist for Alstom Power in Northern Kentucky. Datum Point's
> name derives from Murphy's trade, but refers to his religion.
>
> "In my field, on a blueprint there's a datum point, which is a reference
> point that all other dimensions come from," he explained. "If you don't have
> God in your life, you're missing the point."
>
> Murphy realizes some Christians are dubious about metal music as a
> ministry.
>
> "We try to avoid those people," he said. "I say 'judge the fruit.' I used
> to do gospel, and I'm not putting down people who do it, but 90 percent of
> the time they're not going to lead kids to Jesus, not the kind of kid like I
> used to be. Those kids will say they're out of touch.
>
> "In the Bible, Jesus was a radical who stirred up a lot of people who
> thought they had God in a box."
>
> Murphy acknowledges he still struggles with demons that haunted his youth,
> but says faith has relieved his fears. As for the workaday world, he says
> the next step toward escaping his felonious past is a petition to get his
> gun-owning rights restored.
>
> "I have a 12-year-old daughter and it won't be that long before she'll be
> dating," he says. "I want to be cleaning a gun when the guy comes to pick
> her up."
>


Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |

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