Glasgow-based singer/songwriter GARRY BROTHERSTON spoke to Lins Honeyman about his wretched past and promising future

Garry Brotherston (photo: Graeme Hewitson)

Glaswegian singer/songwriter Garry Brotherston is a changed man. When he makes statements like "if it wasn't for Jesus, I wouldn't be here" he talks with a conviction that comes only from someone who has stared into the very gates of Hell.

Caught up in a street fight during his teens, Garry served an 11 year prison sentence for murder that came as a result of drug use and carrying knives. Within a month of his sentence, he attended a prison fellowship meeting and gave his life to Christ. Then followed a long journey of being nurtured by other Christians and in turn witnessing to other prisoners. While in prison Garry completed a music degree and later, during weekend leave, would often accompany the likes of Scottish worship leader Ian White at outreach events. Since his release, Garry has been invited to countless churches and organisations to tell his story and continues to visit prisoners in the hope that they too will come to know Christ. Now he has recorded his first full album, 'Stuck In The Lampshade Of Life', under the watchful eye of Wet Wet Wet guitarist Graeme Duffin at Motherwell's Foundry Music Lab. I begin our conversation by asking Garry what was the reaction of his fellow prisoners when he decided to follow Christ.

"They thought I was nuts," replies Garry. "You can be out there taking drugs, drink, sleeping around and carrying weapons and nobody will notice but the minute you stand up for Jesus they think you've lost the plot. What I heard was a simple Gospel message. Jesus came to seek and save that which is lost. He came for sinners, not the righteous. Not the good but the bad and, I thought to myself, I fall into every one of these categories. He's come for me! It was amazing how God plucked me out of my situation right at the start. For the rest of my time, I immersed myself in his word. 11 years locked up - what a training ground."

'Stuck In The Lampshade Of Life' is the culmination of years of songwriting and I ask Garry how the album came about. "Ultimately, I felt God was calling me. I didn't just say I wonder what I'll do with the wee bit of money I've saved up since coming out of jail. I know - I'll do a Christian album and squander the lot!" he jokes. "I feel it's a ministry where playing some songs gives you an opportunity to reach out with the gospel message."

The album's closing track "The Table" has been getting airplay on Cross Rhythms Radio. "It's a communion song," Garry explains. "I was at church one morning and the speaker told us that Jesus says 'come not because you are good but because you are broken, not because you achieve but because you fail, not because you are full but because you are empty.' I heard the words and thought - pen and paper! I went back to my flat and it wrote itself in two minutes."

I wonder if this song sums up where Garry has come from. "Totally. If we could only come to Jesus because we were good, I'd have had no chance. I know what I deserve but grace cancels it out. I know there's no condemnation for those in Christ but the memory doesn't go. I wake up every morning and go to bed every night knowing what I've done yet God never brings it up. That's mind blowing."

(photo: Graeme Hewitson)

"The Table" also has had an effect on people's lives. "There's a lady I met recently who said the only thing that kept her from killing herself was listening to the message in that song. If that's the only reason for making the album then it was worth it."

Another album highlight is the stirring "Let Glasgow Flourish". The song itself is based on the Scottish city's old motto "Lord, let Glasgow flourish through the preaching of your Word" and reveals Garry's passion for the restoration of his birthplace to Christ. "There's a group of us guys in evangelical churches who are looking to get the motto reinstated with this song," says Garry. "God can do that through a convicted murderer's song. He would get all the glory - I couldn't get any of it."

Continues Garry, "The full theme of the song is Glasgow can't flourish without God. Glasgow has one of the highest unemployment ratios, teenage pregnancies and murder counts anywhere in Europe. This song could be about any city in Britain. The lyrics say that the former churches of salvation, places once full of praise, are now the bars and nightclubs of entertainment in these last days. To think that people used to fall on their knees to Jesus in these places and now they're falling to their knees through alcohol. There's something morally and spiritually wrong with that."

As one who once helped add to Glasgow's problems, Garry is keen to make amends. "My passion for Glasgow is to go out there and speak to other kids so they don't end up taking someone's live and have their mother visiting them for 11 years and some victim's mother broken-hearted."

Since his release, Garry is no stranger to adverse reaction to his remarkable story of salvation. Occasionally, people in churches have walked out when they hear about his life before coming to Christ. Happily, there are other stories that paint a brighter picture. "In a church I had been speaking at, a man came up to me and said, 'Son, you don't know what this means to me. I was on the jury that convicted you. You were up there tonight talking about my God and I've thought for many years about what happened to that boy.' That could not happen except through the Lord. He's been so gracious to me and that man."

With the release of 'Stuck In The Lampshade Of Life', a hectic ministry schedule and plans for a further album this year, Garry has his feet firmly on the ground. "I thank God that he's given me a gift to sing and I realise he could take it away tomorrow," confesses the songsmith. "We need to be careful because everyone loves an applause and it can puff us up. Then you catch what's in your heart and you realise it doesn't matter what I've just sung - I'm a sinner who needs his grace every day."