Tony Cummings quizzed Ole Jose of JESUS LOVES ELECTRO about their dance floor ministry
Today dance music is well and truly an international language. And the Christian dance music sub-genre truly reflects this with DJs, artists, producers and groups working in trance, house, dubstep and drum and bass, all with the intention of communicating spiritual truth as well as groove to get the feet moving. As well as such acts as USA's Transform, Britain's Andy Hunter, Switzerland's Elishua Summer and Colombia's Jhonny Vergel, there are two dance floor creators from Norway who continue to make waves. Jesus Loves Electro will soon clock up an amazing 10 years of music making and their Cross Rhythms radio hits "Burning Love" and "Life (Radio Edit)" show the JLE duo - Casper Cornelius and Ole Jose - can make music which sounds good on radio as well as booming around a dance floor.
When asked how Jesus Loves Electro started Ole replied, "We started out as a group from our home church in Oslo in 2010. It's surreal that we will soon have been doing this for 10 years. We started out as a DJ crew wanting to do something for the kids in church. We love this kind of music, so we wanted to have a safe place for our youth to go and dance and praise. We played a lot of shows before ever releasing any music."
Some dance devotees may be a little uncomfortable with the Jesus Loves Electro name. Ole admitted, "People respond kinda differently but for the most part really positively. That response is from people both inside and outside the Church. Having the name Jesus in our name is quite bold. But the name of Jesus always gives us a reaction."
The single "Burning Love" was a popular track for the duo. Said the deejay, "'Burning love' has been the 'hit' for us, people sing along at concerts and it's our most streamed track. It's about God's burning love for us and that love draws us near to him."
One of their surprise releases was 2015's "All Things" single. Explained Ole, "The plan was to release an instrumental first. But somehow or other we have never finished it with vocals. . . Maybe one day." Talking about a more recent single, "Lift", Ole said, "We made that work as a banger in our live shows. It's also a song of praise and proclamation, because we really wanted to lift Jesus up."
This year Jesus Loves Electro have released the single "Made To Be (ftg Eric Tryland)" and a batch of 'Made To Be Remixes'. But Ole admitted that, unlike some other dance artists, the duo aren't particularly prolific. He said, "So far JLE is a side project for us; we work full time in other jobs and have our families. So it's the lack of time for us. Since we want our tracks to be high quality, it takes time to finish songs." They also have to find time to play gigs. "We recently played gigs in Bern, Switzerland and in Nashville, USA, and we're now playing shows in Norway and Sweden."
JLE very much feel part of the Christian EDM community. Explained Ole, "There's a lot of young Christian DJs and producers out there. It's not a big community, but we know a lot of guys from all over the world doing the same as us. So we definitely speak with these individuals on a weekly basis."
Ole gave his final thoughts about his near 10 years in music ministry. "We can always experience new things. Life can sometimes be hard, but God's promise is that he will never forsake us and never leave us. That is something we feel every day. Everything takes more time than we imagined when we first believed. But as long as we trust in God, we find we can keep on going."
The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.