We caught up with Gage from To Speak Of Wolves. Check out his band here.
Temptations on the road
Gage: I’ll be laying in the van late at night and its like well I can’t sleep right now but I have this iphone and the internet so I’m gonna go look at porn and jack off in the bathroom stall.
Staying accountable
GS: How I stay accountable is I have my bible on my phone so I read my bible a lot. That makes me feel really bad when I look at porn because I know I’ll look at the Bible app on my phone right before I click on the internet so I’m just like “Ah I’m an idiot”. Micah from Oh Sleeper is a really good accountability partner for me. I’ll call him and tell him I’m really struggling with this and he’ll say “Dude get your head out of your butt” and he’ll pray for me, things like that. Another good accountability partner is my good friend Phil. I’ll call him up and do the same thing and say I’m really struggling with this. He’ll tell me to keep in mind that that’s somebody’s daughter you’re doing that to. And I want to chop my hand off and never do that again. I notice it really starts when I’ve slacked on diving into the word or praying or whatever. I notice it kind of starts creeping in and I’ll start lusting after women and I’ll stop seeing them as human beings but objects for my pleasure. That’s some dude’s future wife or some guy’s daughter. In the moment you’re just like “She doesn’t have any family, this is her job, this is what she wants”, but its really bad.
Porn in music
GS: Even since I’ve been on tour I’ve seen it even bleed into merchandise on t-shirts and stuff. It’s like “Girl get on your knees, you stupid whore, you stupid bitch”, stuff like that. It’s really sad and you see girls at shows you can’t be any older than say 17 and they want that band dude to notice them. It kills you, it breaks your heart. They’re worth so much more than that. Even in music videos too you see a bunch of girls half naked. I just saw a music video a couple weeks ago when we were playing this bar and it was called like “Porn Star” or whatever. Just stuff like that that’s really degrading. A couple weeks ago we played in Chicago and this band there had two girls on stage with them in really skimpy outfits dancing onstage with them. I’d never seen that before in a band. Your band sucks anyway so obviously you’re trying to give people something else. I fee like, God aside, bands have forgotten how to play real rock n’ roll. They’re like “Hell yeah, lets get girls here on stage”. That’s just what I’ve noticed.
Advice.
Throw your computer away (laughs). Get an accountability partner, someone who doesn’t have that struggle or who has had that struggle who has gotten out of it and has had those chains broken from their life. A couple years ago, don’t get me wrong, there’s some months I can go and its great, no porn, no masturbating, nothing like that and its the days where I dive into the word and keep a clear conscious. I had a laptop and that thing was of the devil, it was awful. When I had it and I was home by myself, it was like “I’m bored, I’m gonna wack off or whatever”. I’m not saying it was so extreme that I had to get rid of my laptop but I don’t need one anyway. I sold my laptop which was awesome but then I got an iphone. If you do look at porn on your iphone, I really encourage you to download the Bible app and put it right next to your Safari. There’s a lot of conviction in that. I can either read the words spoken from the creator of the universe, or I could defile some girl. I urge you just to seek that out and seek out truth in the Bible, in the word of God and ask God to break those chains in your life. That’s what I did. I’m just a dude and I mess up all the time. What’s awesome about God is that there’s grace and progress. You can make progress and break those chains through God.