Q/A With Sara Damon
A former atheist, now turned Christian Artist, gets candid about her career and life.
Sara Damon is a twenty year old Christian Artist with a ton of passion and drive. She has many goals, one which is to sing music about her journey with the Lord. The entertainment industry has been a pivotal part of her life growing up, extending into her high school years in NYC. At the age of 19, she discovered her love for Christ that was buried inside of her. Sara has worked on accepting Jesus with open arms and redirecting her once flesh driven life towards the Lord. Moving into 2020, she chose to surrender her career to Christ and has found her calling to make Christian based music for the youth community.
Sara is currently working on her freshman EP, which shall not be named just yet. The only hint she gave us is that it will be all about this new journey that she has taken on to serve God.
Q: What made you take the leap into faith based music?
S: As soon as I became Christian, I felt the Holy Spirit tell me I needed to be a Christian Artist. During worship in church, I would see myself using my art for the Lord. I would get such clear visions and would feel so overwhelmed with happiness. After church I would go home and suppress this feeling. I did this for months. I was comfortable with my secular music. Without sharing my faith, I was able to be less vulnerable. I was terrified of the world’s reaction and how exposed being a Christian Artist would make me. As a result of my growing faith, I had no choice but to listen to Jesus, and the purpose he gave me. Music has an entirely new meaning to me.
Q: Were you always a religious person?
S: Absolutely NOT. First I’ll explain this- it is relationship over religion. Loving God and living for him doesn’t mean you have to live by a set of rules created by the church. You have to live by the word of God (The Bible). Religion is merely a set of man made rules. You can follow all of these rules and have a suffering relationship with Jesus. Relationship means you pray to God, you talk to Him, you read your Bible, you try your best to be like Jesus. THIS is what He values. Moving on (laughs), no, I didn’t believe in God for the first 19 years of my life. I have only been a Christian for about a year and four months. When I was younger I would think about Him and want to believe, but I never could, because I never actually knew Him. Eventually, any want I had for God strayed away. God used one of the most important people to me, my boyfriend Isaiah, in order to open my heart to Jesus. Isaiah was so kind and never pushed the idea of God onto me, but always told me he knew one day I would believe. He helped break down the misconceptions of God that made me stop believing in Him. One day, while we were driving in the car, I was thinking about God, and I started speaking about Him to Isaiah. This conversation we were having somehow made Jesus click in my brain. I remember the day. I just all of a sudden believed. I was an atheist for 19 years, and one random afternoon in August, my entire life changed.
Q: What does God mean to you?
S: God means everything purely and authentically good. There’s a lot of “good” in this world that is fabricated. God is ALL good, PURE good, and the ONLY good. He is love in the rarest, most perfect form.
Q: What do you say to atheists that don’t believe in a GOD?
S: I want to say: I am not a stranger to the idea of hating God. I had many moments where I told myself I would never believe in Him. I am not here to judge you, I really want you to be saved. Not because I want you to believe what I believe, but because I know how perfect God is. I want you to experience how good He is too.
Q: What does faith mean to someone that doesn’t understand it?
S: Amazing question. I don’t think I can determine what faith means to anyone but myself. I think faith, in a general sense, is similar to all those who believe in something. Even if it’s not Christianity, it’s a reason to keep going, to keep trying and know everything will work out. Someone who doesn’t understand faith at all, probably doesn’t understand that they have no control over their life. Many people cannot grasp the idea of God being the only one who can determine their outcome.
Q: Why is faith so hard to have?
S: We can’t see faith. It’s not tangible. What we want is never guaranteed. Many of us are control freaks and we don’t know it until we try and have a little faith. With faith, you just have to understand that what happens is in your best interest, whether you are happy with the outcome or not. That’s clearly one of the most difficult things to do.
Q: What was your decision process in dropping out of school and pursuing music?
S: I initially had the conversation with my parents because of COVID. After having to move home in March, and with 2020 being one of the scariest years many of us have seen, they weren’t comfortable with me moving out again. Staying home and going to school didn’t make sense because my local school has nothing that interests me. Luckily, we spoke through it and they are just as ready for me to live out my music career as I am!
Q: What are some of the obstacles that you have faced in pursuing your passion?
S: I have always felt stressed about the entertainment industry. Growing up surrounded by friends and mentors in the business, I got to see how evil Hollywood really is. The problem is that society makes you feel that since you’re in the music business/ entertainment industry, you will eventually have to take yourself to LA. I love Cali for Cali, but honestly, I can’t go there in hopes of a career. The place is so toxic! This fear held me back a lot. Luckily, after making the change to Christian music, I feel such ease. I know I have invited God into my career and now, it’s His. I don’t have to stress a thing. I’m protected.
Q: Who have your biggest inspirations been?
S: My biggest inspirations are the women in my family. Each and every one of them are hard working, funny, intelligent and STRONG! I wouldn’t be who I am today if I weren’t raised by strong women. As far as musical inspirations, my friends at ET Studio Productions have always inspired me the most. Majority of my pop music training (vocal lessons, songwriting lessons, performance workshops, artist development, recording/ production sessions) has been from ET Studio Productions and I mean it when I say the artists there inspire me each and every day. I love them!
Q: What have you been doing during your quarantine?
S: Writing and strengthening my faith! I wrote some of the songs that will be on my EP and came up with MANY creative concepts. During this time I finally focused on the word and learning who God is. I have to know who He is in order to sing about Him. I’m still learning, and I’ll always be learning, but I had a lot of time to dive deep.
Q: What was your biggest life changing moment?
S: Oh wow this is the hardest question. I think I have three major life changing moments.
Going to high school in Manhattan for four years. I studied Musical Theater in Midtown Manhattan as a part of my high school education. I grew such independence and strength from this. It was difficult, but amazing.
Meeting my boyfriend Isaiah. This sounds extremely cliche but I am 10x a better person because I have him in my life. I believe being with Isaiah has made me MORE independent. He has taught me all about self love, self care and of course, God. He taught me not to rely on anyone for happiness and to be unapologetically me. I don’t think many people can say this about their significant other. He is a blessing.
The day I accepted God. Of course this changed everything for me. It changed my entire purpose, career path, perspective, etc. God teaches me each and every day. God convicts me of my wrongdoings and makes me better. I was so lost without Him. God really brought me home.
Q: Can you talk more about the beach clean up that you do?
S: Yes! My boyfriend and I started Nurturing Nature which is an account we created in order to spread awareness about Global Warming and how each of us can do our part in caring for the Earth. We spent time going out by ourselves and cleaning up our neighborhood. Eventually we bought equipment and led a local beach clean up. That day we ended with about ten bags of trash. With school and other obligations our consistency faded, but we still have the account and are extremely passionate about continuing this in the future. It is one of my goals to have an organization dedicated to caring for our planet. It kills me to see the damage being done.
Q: What do you have to say to people that don’t believe that we are in danger of destroying our planet?
S: There is loads of scientific evidence to prove that our lifestyle has negatively impacted our planet. We can see it in the color of our oceans, extinction of animals and inconsistency in weather/seasons. I believe many of those who “don’t believe in global warming” do know that our planet is suffering, but choose to value other things, such as money or convenience, over the Earth.
Q :How can we make the world a better place for generations to come?
S: We need to empathize with each other. Caring and doing for ourselves is beautiful. We should all make it a priority. But there is a time and place to care for yourself, and there is a time and place to care for others. BOTH should be made a priority in our lives. Many people lack one or the other. I feel people are either too selfish and never learn to grow with the world, or they are too worried about others and forget about themselves. You can’t forget about yourself. If you forget about yourself, your morals, your standards and your beliefs, how do you know what you are giving to others aligns with the good in who you are? You need both in order to contribute to life in harmony. Also, we must put a stop to cancel culture. How sad to live in a world where we let someone’s past define them. Society has refused to let us grow as individuals, and that’s the most toxic habit of them all. Our Father forgot our past, who are any of we to hold on to it?
Q: What do you think of Kanye West’s transition to gospel music?
S: I believe for Kanye to turn to God in an industry that can be so evil is BOLD, and I am here for it. Despite your personal opinions on Kanye, he’s transitioned his life to severe the Lord, and that’s not easy. He put everything he built his career and income on behind him to build a relationship with God and serve something better. In all honesty, I believe it’s amazing and he has my respect.
Q: What do you think of Kanye West’s fight to reclaim master rights for all artists?
S: As an independent artist, owning my master is crucial. These are my songs. I’m a writer of lyrics, melodies, chords, and I set arrangements. I always co-produce my tracks. I sit down with my audio engineer and producer at ET Studio Productions (Joey Martino who by the way is a genius) and we add the elements together. We sit and go through 50 sounds just to get the right drum. I sing these songs. I experiment with layers and harmonies. I have my hands in every part of the process. Now, if I were singing someone else’s creative work, and my voice is just being used, I wouldn’t have this same passion about owning the master, but that’s not the case for me. My process is similar to many artists, both independent and signed to labels. We have the right to control what happens with our own creative work. I am grateful for a person like Kanye, with so much power and voice in the industry, to stand up for us little people. This is what we need.
Q: What do you think are the barriers that many independent music artists in the music industry face?
S: It is clear there are barriers but the biggest issue is the mindset of upcoming independent artists. With new technology, there are a number of things we can do to reach our goals without a label and without a lot of money. If you are complaining about the industry, upset that you're competing against labels and embodying the “starving artist” mentality, rather than being innovative, unique, bold and consistent, you’re your own problem.
Q: If you weren’t doing music what else would you be doing?
S: I have always been involved and loved human rights activism, so I know human rights, in some form, would be my career. I don’t exactly know what I would choose to be my main focus, as I am passionate about a number of problems. To name a few, I could see myself working on policy change in education, the foster care system and gun control.
Q: If you live anywhere, where would it be and why?
S: I’m content in New York, but for fun, I would wanna live in the mountains of Italy for a couple of years. It is so gorgeous and it is so fresh and clean compared to the city. It would be the most amazing getaway to just be focused on myself and the peace God has allowed me to have.
Q: What does EGO mean to you?
S: In a general sense ego is the form of someone’s personal identity. In this world, having an ego gets a bad rep, which makes sense, because a large ego can cause someone to be self centered. Ego isn’t always bad because you need a sense of self worth and importance. Ego is bad when you consciously make choices that degrade someone in order to achieve your own victory.
Q: How have you stayed positive despite all the chaos and fear that is going on in the world right now?
S: My faith has been tested. I’ve had many moments filled with fear and tears, but the only thing I can do is give all of my problems to God. Someone reading this who doesn’t believe in God may think that is the dumbest, most cliche answer, but once you actually know what it’s like to give your problems to God it almost feels simple. I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s not easy to give your stress away and agree to not be in control of your life, but when you think about how God tells you to give Him your stress, it becomes so simple. I just give it to him. He’s got me. Whether the world ends tomorrow or in 300 years, I’ll be safe in heaven.
Q: How important is self love? How do you practice self-love?
S: Self love is CRUCIAL! You cannot be all God has made you to be if you neglect yourself. It is impossible. I practice self love everyday. I celebrate the small accomplishments like cleaning my room, organizing myself, writing a song and taking a walk. It is my way of rooting myself on throughout the day. I also take time away from my phone and social media to clear my head. I sometimes even delete the apps and re-download them once a day to post. I go to sleep early, spend time alone, spend time with God and listen to my body. When I need a day off, I take it.
Q: How are you making the world a better place?
S: I am sharing my faith in a way that breaks away from society’s idea of God. Many people disregard Jesus because of what society has led them to believe about Him. Although I would not call myself a teacher or a worship artist, I wanna sing songs that make non believers and believers feel something and makes them think. Christians have feelings! Being a twenty year old in 2020, I can tell you, I have feelings! I want to sing about the way God makes me feel beyond church and worship. I want to break away from misconceptions of Christianity. As a former atheist, I know I needed this, and I know the world could really use it. Just then will others think about opening their hearts to Jesus. That to me, is making the world a better place.
Q: What does success mean to you?
S: Success means getting into Heaven. Of course there are other victories like happiness and peace, but those can only come from Jesus and Jesus gets you into Heaven. So the main form of success is getting into Heaven.
Q: What does happiness mean to you?
S: It’s the same answer as success. I can’t have either of these things without Jesus Christ.
Q: What legacy do you want to leave behind?
S: I of course want to leave an impact on my family. I want to leave this earth knowing my family has at least thought about God- that those who would normally neglect Him, would become curious. I pray that the work I do here on Earth reaches a number of generations and gets people to want to do God’s work. I pray I have an influence on the idea “Relationship over Religion” and help people understand THE WORD, NOT what society has told them about Christ. I don’t necessarily care if people remember my name. My name doesn’t mean anything to anyone except my close family, friends, myself and God. I don’t need my name to have meaning to anyone else. I mean, none of us can actually be remembered forever, and why would we want to? I would rather my impact be so strong that action is taken, and generations turn to the Lord. Whether they feel impacted by me or not doesn’t matter, what matters is at least they were touched.
What’s your story?