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Catholic musicians motivated by faith

By Jean Denton
Special to The Catholic Virginian

Hey, everybody who rocked to Godsend’s song “Amplify Christ” at Youth Convention last summer, they’re coming to Youth Day at Busch Gardens, and they’re going to play it again! Yeah.

Godsend is a new Christian rock band formed by several Catholic Richmond area musicians who have been playing for years in church. Now they appear to be on the move after making a splash at the diocesan youth convention in July.

Andy Mercadante, 46, lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter for the group, said Godsend formed about a year ago. He, along with drummer James Iglio and bassist John Shepherd, all serving in music ministry at Church of the Epiphany in Richmond at the time, were the core group.

“Jim and I had talked for years about recording our music because we wanted to share it, “ Mercadante said simply. “Then John said let’s think about performing (as a band), too.”

Meanwhile, Mercadante was actively involved as an adult leader in an annual Confirmation retreat for parishes in the central part of the diocese. For each of the last four years he wrote and played an original song based on the particular theme of that retreat.

These four songs, plus “Amplify Christ,” which Mercadante wrote specifically for this year’s youth convention, make up the band’s current portfolio of original music and provided the impetus for the group actually to begin performing together.

Joe Beaudet, who knew Mercadante through the Confirmation retreats, approached him about playing at the convention closing session.

Mercadante said, “Originally it was going to be just me and my acoustic (guitar), but I asked if it would be all right to bring the band and he said sure.”

As for the new song “Amplify Christ,” he said, “It was literally only a week before the convention that we worked it all out.”

Beaudet, an adult advisor for the Diocesan Youth Council who yearly serves as disc jockey for the convention dance, was thrilled by the band’s performance and even more so by the response of the young people.

“They did an awesome job on Sunday morning,” he said. “If you have been to these conventions, you know how the kids usually barely make it through a 15-minute morning praise at this session without entering a totally catatonic state,” he joked.

“Well, this year’s morning praise was an hour long and they stayed on their feet clapping, singing, and dancing to music that really amplified Christ! People were beginning to believe that those giant speakers on the stage were real!” Beaudet laughed.

Mercadante has been a member of Epiphany parish for 20 years and a regular in the music ministry for 14. He also is a tenor in the Richmond Symphony Chorus. He said his faith inspires his music.

“I enjoy writing songs about faith,” he explained, adding, “When we decided to form a band, we chose Christian music. We wanted to play because of our faith.”

The group quickly added three more members: vocalists Michelle Chimento and Elise Iglio, and piano player Steve Aldridge who is music minister at St. James Parish in Hopewell. Ms. Chimento and Mercadante are both Epiphany parishioners and the Iglios and Shepherd are now members of St. Edward’s in Bon Air. Other than Aldridge all the band members have jobs outside of music. Mercadante is director of a software company in Richmond.

Besides Mercadante’s original pieces Godsend also plays well known contemporary Christian music. He described the band’s genre as mostly rock. “But I have a couple of mellow tunes in there — we really mix it up,” he explained.

Godsend’s immediate plan is to begin recording. The group isn’t looking for commercial success or even a big schedule of gigs.

“We just want people to hear the music,” Mercadante said. “If people call us then we want to play, but we aren’t going out of our way to set things up.”

However, it looks as though they can count on a flurry of activity in the near future at least, as he mentioned that as a result of their convention performance, he’d received a few requests for CDs as well as invites to play.

And they’ll be at Busch Gardens for Diocesan Youth Day on September 29.

At that event they will provide music for the Mass in the amphitheater as well as perform a few songs as “preludes” and after the liturgy — including their newest, “Amplify Christ.”

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