Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonathan Cyphers.
Hi Jonathan, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I grew up surrounded by music. My father was a worship leader and a gifted songwriter and my mother had a passion for classic musicals, really anything featuring Gene Kelly, and as a result, our house was always filled with music. There wasn’t much that was said in passing that my brothers and I couldn’t turn into a song – it was a game for us. I learned to play the bass guitar in high school and joined the worship team and then an improv funk band when I was in college. I had inherited my father’s ability to play by ear and music came easily to me, but I found the bass guitar had its limitations. The summer before my sophomore year of college, I went with my father to a little guitar shop in New Hampshire and purchased my first guitar. Growing up, I watched my father come home from work and head down to the basement and write songs. It was a form of therapy for him and I saw the impact it had on his heart and mind. College life was complicated, emotional, real, and I needed an outlet. Songwriting felt like it had the potential to quiet my soul as I had seen it do for my father. I learned to play quickly and it wasn’t long before I was writing songs – lyrics and melody came naturally and the more I learned on guitar, the stronger the songs became.
I wrote songs to process life, but it wasn’t long before I started writing songs about what I saw my friends and family going through. Music became a way for me to show my heart to the people I cared about. I didn’t really care to learn covers, so I didn’t really play in public much, but I was fine with that. I didn’t learn guitar in order to perform for people.
It wasn’t my plan to make a career out of music, but that was the road I found myself on. Following in my father’s footsteps, once again, I became a worship leader and began working in full-time vocational ministry after I graduated from college. The faith in God that I had found in my youth never really wavered in college, if anything it grew stronger, especially after I began writing music.
Working in ministry full-time, songwriting remained a hobby for me – I didn’t really have the time or creative energy outside of work to invest in even dreaming about doing anything more than just writing a song ever so often for fun.
Fast forward to 2020, I had transitioned from full-time ministry to freelance graphic design and was praying for some direction. I had experienced some burn-out a few years prior, but had walked through the healing and recovery process and was ready to “get back to work.”
Then the world locked down.
With all the free time I suddenly had, I found myself turning more and more to songwriting to kill the time. I had a moment with God during that time, where I felt Him call me out a little bit. Songwriting was something I “did,” but I held it loosely. When you care about something, it hurts when it fails, and I was far too practical to even let myself dream about being anything more than a guy who could write songs. During those days in lockdown, the distractions of life were stripped away, and I was left with the question: “Are you willing to own this gift?”
It was a heavy question, but I decided that I did want to own it – regardless of the fact that I didn’t see any practical outlets.
I’m not exaggerating, I felt a shift in the songs that I was writing almost instantaneously. It’s amazing what happens when you are willing to invest yourself into what you are doing. I began to write songs that I actually cared about – not that I didn’t care about the songs I had written in the past, but you can tell the difference between something that you “did” and something that a piece of your soul resides in.
It wasn’t long after that when things accelerated dramatically. In the fall of 2020, I met a Nashville-based artist manager at a little coffee shop in New Hampshire where I was playing an acoustic set, made up of a blend of originals and covers. It caught her attention and we exchanged contact information. I honestly didn’t think much of it, but about a month later she invited me to play a writer’s round in Nashville in April 2021. I was ready to travel, so I took the opportunity, which then led to two more visits that summer to write and network. After years of praying for direction and feeling like I’d been living in a doorless room, I suddenly had a hallway open that I could walk down.
I moved to Nashville in October of 2021 and it’s been a wild adventure, thus far. It wasn’t even a thought that I might move to Nashville when I first visited six months prior, but God has a way of making the road clear. There have been ups and downs, for sure, but the opportunities that I’ve had, the people that I’ve met and been able to work with, have all been incredible. It’s been quite humbling to think back to the days of sitting in my dorm room, writing songs to help me process life, and now seeing where I am today. My heart – the “why” behind the songs I write – is the same as it was back in the days when no one heard the songs that I wrote. It’s amazing to think about how far things have progressed in such a short amount of time.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
More than anything, it’s been a long road. Part of the struggle I found was the willingness to own the dream that was floating around in the back of my mind. There isn’t really a way to make a career out of music in New Hampshire and I never dreamt I would just move to Nashville and give it a go. There was a lot of fear of failure, comparison, and a lack of direction and clarity about what I was pursuing, so I didn’t let myself dream. I just kept writing, hoping one day the investment might lead to something.
After about five years of working in full-time ministry, I experienced some burnout, which was a major turning point for my life. Everything changed – I felt like God called me out of the area I had called home, out of the stable job I had been working, out of the community I called family, and into the unknown. It was a feeling I brought to mentors and family and, after some prayer and many conversations, they agreed with what I was sensing. I’m a long-term planner – I thrive when I have a five- and ten-year plan. Suddenly, I found myself not knowing what I was doing or where I’d be from week to week, month to month. God really used that season to reveal His faithfulness and provision, which have both been essential since moving to Nashville.
I didn’t move to Nashville with work lined up or even that much money saved. The timing felt right and the door seemed open, so I said yes and walked through. When I packed my car with everything I owned, I didn’t even really have a place to stay lined up – but I knew it would all work out in the end. I don’t know how else to say it than I felt peace about it all.
There have been ups and downs, for sure. There are things that music labels are looking for in artists that I have had to work on or just accept that I won’t be able to do. There have been a lot of lonely nights. I didn’t know that many people when I moved and I’m living on a budget, so I’m trying to not go out every night. I don’t always know where the next month’s rent is going to come from, but I have a roof over my head and an air mattress to sleep on at night. It’s all part of the story and I’m grateful to be walking through it.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a Christian singer/songwriter. I write songs about real life, struggles, and faith. I came to believe in Jesus at a young age and have kept it into adulthood. New Hampshire – New England in general – does not have a high Christian population and the people there are kind, but they tend to ignore you if you talk about Jesus. I think that’s becoming more and more true with the world, as a whole, with each passing day. My faith is real, just as the struggles, the depression, the highs and lows of life are real and my desire is to write songs that are willing to put all these things in contention – letting my faith wrestle with the hardships of life. The difference for me is there is a robust hope within me that stems from my faith that will ultimately come out in the songs that I write. I may not say “Jesus” in every song, but He’s there in the tone, in the heart behind the song, because He’s in me and I can’t help but have hope in the midst of the hardship because of that. My desire is to write real, authentic songs that would be heard by people who normally wouldn’t listen to “Christian” music and be impacted by the hope, the real and non-cheesy hope that I know exists because I live with it every day. We live in a world that could really use hope – my only desire is to play a part in sharing the hope that I’ve found in Jesus.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs, or other resources you think our readers should check out?
I’m a songwriter and I have found reading and listening to a variety of music to be essential. It keeps the ideas fresh and interesting.
I love to read classic literature and poetry. There is something to be said about the way that Hemingway, Robert Lewis Stevenson, C.S. Lewis, or G.K. Chesterton wrote – I feel like something has been lost with time and the evolution of language. I’m an avid reader, often reading multiple books simultaneously, but I always keep a classic book and a book of poetry (Robert Frost is a favorite) in the rotation.
Contact Info:
- Email: cyphersmusic@gmail.com
- Website: www.cyphersmusic.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/cyphersmusic
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CYPHERSMusic/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf4HpRuuD0NyVZCzB6_laMg/featured
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3JwXWRtJollDRj2AnWLUoQ?si=Q63015gFTlqXHkV8yYQ_mg&dl_branch=1
