John Mehler, born August 27, 1948 in Long Beach, California

Long Beach, California

Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...

, drummer for Love Song

Love Song (band)

Love Song was one of the main Jesus music bands, one of the first Christian rock bands. It was founded in 1970 by Chuck Girard, Tommy Coomes, Jay Truax, and Fred Field. Additionally, the earliest members included David Ingram on keyboards, Ernie Earnshaw on drums and Jack Schaeffer on bass. It was...

, Spirit of Creation, Noah and other bands. John graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1969 and soon thereafter moved to Salt Lake City with two musician friends, Chuck Fraher and Jay Truax

Jay Truax

Jay Truax is a bass player and singer with Love Song, a pioneer Christian rock group. Jay formed a Salt Lake City rock group with John Mehler and Fred Field called Spirit of Creation...

 to form Spirit of Creation. Later, he joined Chuck Girard

Chuck Girard

Chuck Girard is a pioneer of Contemporary Christian music. He was born August 27, 1943 in Los Angeles, California, and moved to Santa Rosa, California in his young teens...

 and Tommy Coomes in Love Song

Love Song (band)

Love Song was one of the main Jesus music bands, one of the first Christian rock bands. It was founded in 1970 by Chuck Girard, Tommy Coomes, Jay Truax, and Fred Field. Additionally, the earliest members included David Ingram on keyboards, Ernie Earnshaw on drums and Jack Schaeffer on bass. It was...

, a band known as one of the pioneers of Christian rock

Christian rock

Christian rock is a form of rock music played by individuals and bands whose members are Christians and who often focus the lyrics on matters concerned with the Christian faith. The extent to which their lyrics are explicitly Christian varies between bands...

 music, now known as Contemporary Christian Music (CCM).

His solo album Bow and Arrow was a pioneering work in the then young but blossoming Contemporary Christian Music scene and is still loved by many who collect early Christian rock

Christian rock

Christian rock is a form of rock music played by individuals and bands whose members are Christians and who often focus the lyrics on matters concerned with the Christian faith. The extent to which their lyrics are explicitly Christian varies between bands...

music today, though the album is hard to find and is out of print.

CCM magazine says,

"John Mehler's musical contributions have graced the "fine print" of more Christian albums than just about anyone I can think of. As a member of Love Song (one of ccm's foundational bands), his distinct style as a drummer was to have as dramatic an influence on the sound of many early Christian bands as Ringo Starr did on the British bands that followed in the wake of the Beatles. As a session player on countless records, John brings to the drums a unique musicality thoroughly individual yet always complementary to the sound of the artists he's accompanying."

External links

• http://www.johnmehler.com/