Episode 553: Kenny & Claire

Well, welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I am your host Rick Lee James, and I'm so grateful for all of you who are here today. The music you're hearing as, uh, as we're coming in today is from my guests, and you're going to get to hear more from Kenny and Claire in just a minute, but let's just take a moment to pause and listen as they sing.

All right, beautiful.

I know we want to continue listening to that, but we have a conversation to have today. So welcome to another episode of Voices in My Head. We are going to dive in today with a story of resilience, faith, and truly the power of God expressed through music. And my guests today, as I already mentioned, are Kenny and Claire, a husband and wife duo whose new album Upon the Storm blends folk sounds with timeless hymns and original songs born out of some of life's toughest battles. We're going to explore the heart behind their music, the journey that led them here, and how their faith has been a guiding light through it all. So let's get into it and hear what Kenny and Claire Hilliard have to share. Kenny And Claire, welcome to Voices in My Head.

Thank you so much for having us.

It's my pleasure. Wow, you're just so in sync this morning. You're both talking in stereo. That's amazing. So, well, I've been really enjoying the new album. I've been playing it on Apple Music quite a bit. And so I'm always grateful to have new music and not only your originals, but some of the really classic songs that a lot of us have been singing for a while, some that you've redone, and they're just beautiful. So thanks for sharing it. And I know a lot of our listeners today are going to— if they haven't had a chance yet, I'm sure they're going to want to go listen. But for me, um, songs especially take on meaning when I hear stories behind them, the stories really behind the people who create the music. And sometimes that just like cements it in our heart, I feel like, the message. So today I'm, I'm really happy to be able to just hear some of your story, which is in many ways breathtaking, um, to hear how God has worked in your life through many different difficulties. And I just want to start first with Kenny, if you don't mind. Today you have faced some, uh, significant health challenges in your life, and I wonder if you wouldn't mind just kind of telling our listeners some of your story, um, maybe just up to date right now so we can get a little bit familiar with it.

Yeah, so, um, New Year's Eve 2015 going into 2016, um, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor And, uh, at the time, the neurologist said that it looked malignant, it looked inoperable, and, you know, just, I hope you can find a surgeon that can help you. Um, we had an infant at the time and two toddlers, and I was pastoring a church, and it was just, um, it was a hard time to, to even try to, you know, lead spiritually and different things. And, um, By God's grace, we were able to eventually get to Duke. We did have one surgeon that we talked to, and he was talking about how people— he did the surgery and the lady's face didn't come back right. And that didn't comfort us at all.

We got a second opinion.

So really, I have to keep it short, but just a very providential situation led us to Duke University., and I was able to have my, my tumor removed by the leading doctor in the field. And, thankfully, the only risk is that the tumor may regrow in the same place, but, we're 8 years clear now, so, very thankful for that. But after the tumor was removed, instead of my health getting better and better, my health got worse and worse and worse. And, to the point that in 2017, I had to go to the doctors and they told me that the most I could do was sit upright in a chair for 30 minutes, and then I I had to lay down. Um, I had to rest. And so I went from being the breadwinner to, uh, being, um, kind of an invalid at home. Um, in that time, uh, Claire started music business. You want to kind of take over from there?

Sure.

Well, I'll say this. So, uh, eventually I was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which is a genetic disorder. It's degenerative. And so on my end, the past, um several years has been learning to live with it. Um, I can't control the normal functions of my body, so I can't control my body temperature. Sometimes I go into hypothermia. Um, my body will mimic heart attack symptoms. Uh, I have joint pain, muscle spasms, all the different things. And it's been a process of learning to live with the illness, learning to work around it, not let it define our life and who we are. Um, and one sweet thing has been sharing our journey at churches and being able to talk to people who have other autoimmune diseases or even Ehlers-Danlos. Uh, uh, you know, in a lot of ways, churches aren't well equipped to care for people who have autoimmune disease because it's weird. It, it just presents in such odd ways. A lot of times even doctors don't know how to treat patients with it. And so it's been really sweet to be able to talk to some people who are going through that journey and, and try to comfort them as well. But I'll let Claire talk about, um, after this.

I think it's important to note too that there are varying degrees, if you will, of Ehlers-Danlos. And so sometimes it can be completely disabling, and then other times you can function more, uh, more normally.

Yeah, some people end up in wheelchairs in the wintertime because the winters are hard on people with my disease. I'm not there. I'm not there.

So 2017 was definitely the worst of it. And at that time, I was a stay-at-home mom, and my plan was to homeschool my kids and serve our church and still make music. In my brain, I thought, well, maybe like on the side. Uh, just as, as I could, but really felt burdened when I realized, oh wait, I really need to make a career. And my career was supposed to be at home, and now I have to earn an income. And as wild as it was, I really felt burdened to make music, and I didn't know exactly what that would look like or how that that could support our family. And a couple of friends in our church said, don't you teach? You should maybe consider teaching music. And I was a little intimidated by that at first, but felt convicted that that was the direction that I needed to go. And I started with one student in July of 2019— no, 2017. One student, July 2017. By God's complete grace, by November of 2017, I had a full music teaching studio, and, um, that was my job. And the Lord just provided in amazing ways. And that meant though that we had to sell our house, and we moved to an apartment where Kenny was still enrolled in seminary, even though he wasn't taking classes. They let him take a break for his health. Yeah, but we could still live on their campus, which helped our family a lot at that time. Um, but yeah, and then from there, Kenny, Kenny started to get slowly better and to be more functioning. And as he was able to function more, he started to join me in teaching. He also plays a million instruments, and so it was really helpful for, for teaching. And, uh, but in 2019 We— two things happened. One, we both already felt convicted that we needed to be writing our own music, though at that time we still didn't— weren't sure 100% what that would look like. And two, we kind of outgrown where we were teaching, and we were at a crossroads of Kenny's health was doing much better and he was functioning a lot more But we were also thinking, well, where are we going to settle our family? And I, I popped the idea at Kenny, what do you think about Nashville? I thought he was going to laugh at me, and he didn't. He said, yeah, well, what about Nashville? And so again, series of just providential events, um, he got a job working for Gibson building guitars. I ended up teaching music online, and we moved our family And from there, COVID happened come 2020.

To all of us.

Kenny, Kenny came home from Gibson because, you know, COVID. And we both just said, this is an opportunity to write and work on our music together. And that is where we put together our first EP, Are You Weary? And in the fall of 2021, we started touring and sharing that. And then by the spring of 2022, touring and sharing music became our, became our job. I still love my students, still try to keep in touch with those who I can keep in touch with, but we just didn't have time to do both, teach and tour. And so this is what we do now.

And so it's wild that a brain tumor and a global pandemic led to us doing what we do, but that's where we are.

Well, that's, that's very significant, I think. And it enables you to, to write songs, I think, from a deeper place than maybe some writers actually go from when, when things are going along smoothly. I think oftentimes it's not that, not that we don't write good content, but there's something about something you can hold on to that you're trying to put into your songs too in those moments. I, I don't know if you all know this or if Brian or Emily told you, but I actually work as a hospital chaplain part-time as part of a day job that I do.

I saw chaplain on your Instagram, but I wasn't sure what that meant.

So, yeah, so working in healthcare, I find that there are many different ways that people cope. One way often is music. So I've been amazed to find how many times I get to use music that I've written or even just, you know, sing hymns with people. And I always find it fascinating, the kind of music people want to hear in times of crisis that they're in. So like, say when they're in the hospital, it's always the worst day of your life. You never want to be in the hospital, you know, as you know. And it's always fascinating to me that if I bring a guitar to somebody's room and I ask them, you know, is there a song that you find meaningful or you find helpful? It's never some, you know, fluffy worship song that, you know, is popular. It's something that really has teeth to it and has been something that like carries them through storms or some old hymn or So I think all that is to say, the songs that you're producing, I think, are coming from a weightier place with, with a lot of depth to it. And that's something I really appreciate about your writing, for sure. And I'm also interested to just both as someone who's an interviewer and a musician, but also even from the Chaplin side of my music, would you say both of you, that music is one of your coping methods whenever you are in difficult times? I mean, it seems like it would be.

Yeah, actually, uh, you share in our concerts a bit about around our song "Are You Weary," some of the influences there.

Well, the short answer to your question is yes, but I will say in that season of time between Kenny's brain tumor diagnosis and, uh, the surgery, in that season of waiting Now, I'll grant it, it was only about a month, and I know some people's waiting seasons are so much longer and harder. But nonetheless, it was a season of waiting and frankly not knowing if I was going to lose my husband or what cancer would look like or what treatment would look like. And just my mind was a fog and I was trying to take care of our, our kids. And I remember there was one particular instance where I was sweeping the floor in our kitchen, and it was one of the times where I was simply trying to do the next thing and put one foot in front of the other, because otherwise I just felt like I was going to crumble with trying to process all the emotions. Because there's a lot to process even when you don't have an answer, but still. And, um, a song came on the radio of— it was based on the Psalms. And it felt like such a balm to my soul because I knew it wasn't words that the artist had made up. I knew that it was scripture, and I knew that I could trust the Lord and trust his word. And it was so helpful to have scripture to cling to and to hold on to, um, rather than the, the, I guess, the emotional exertion it takes to be discerning if what they were singing was true or not. It was just, okay, this is the scripture, I can trust it. I can't even tell you the name of the song now. I just remember that it was the Psalms, and it just helped me continue on in my day in that time. And that greatly influenced the way that we write and the way that we, we want to write.

Um, I'll say two. Um, one, I want to say, uh, I admire you as a hospital chaplain. As a pastor, I've done, you know, lots of hospital visits, and those are hard. Um, and it's weird because they'll let the pastor into certain situations that you would not let family in sometimes.

It's true.

Um, and, and so the guys who were there day in and day out, I really respect and admire. So thank you for that. Um, thank you. One thing that was amazing to me growing up, the first band I was ever part of was a grass band for my church, uh, when I was 10. These old guys would take us to— into nursing homes and try to provide church services for the nursing homes. And it took probably 3 or 4 visits, but I started noticing like there's some people— like there was this little old lady who would hold on to a handrail going down a ramp, and she would talk to— greet us for the first time every time, you know. She, she had dementia. She probably, she probably didn't even know her own family. But you would get these people into a room and you would start to sing old songs, particularly old hymns, but even old-timey tunes, and they would know every word. And there's just a significance to how the Lord has designed music and how it affects us in a very deep way that we, we, we can hold on to songs even better than we can sometimes hold on to our own children's names, our own family. And as a pastor, as a worship leader, it says something about the importance of what we're having our people sing, what we're singing ourselves, because it will stick with us. Yeah.

Well, it's true. And, you know, you said something a few minutes ago too. Well, both of you, I have all these thoughts going through my head. But I was thinking about your song, Surely His Goodness, I believe is the title of it. It's based on the 23rd Psalm. That, which is a beautiful song, by the way, I encourage everybody to check that one out. But that, that is often a song and a scripture that people I notice in hospital rooms take a lot of comfort in. So sometimes if I grab a guitar, it'll be some setting of the 23rd Psalm, you know, that I'll play for people. And it's really a comfort. So I think there's something to what you said about the power of scripture in those moments that helps us in those times and with our coping. But also even thinking, you know, you mentioned the little lady with the handrail a minute ago, and you also said one of the— in your first answer, you were talking about how churches are not always very well equipped for people with autoimmune diseases or even people who have disabilities and things. And it's actually a powerful thing when we realize that and when we go into churches and we can see like, oh wow, we've got, you know, Talk about not just a mission field outside the church, like sometimes we're not even equipped in the church to be a place where people are able to get to. One of my favorite books, the title is The Disabled God, and this is not a direct quote, but it's close. It says something like, "For too many people with disabilities, the church is a city on a hill that they can't climb up to." And I just, when I heard that, I thought, "Oh, wow." what you're saying today is resonating with me as a musician, as a chaplain, as you know, so many different things, as somebody who works in a church, and so many ways that we can still find to help other people as they are coming to God. Like, sometimes it's as simple as trying to figure out how can we make this place more accessible, you know. And I—

yeah, go ahead. Well, I was gonna say, I guess one One kind of anecdote that kind of brought that to my attention was early on in the ministry I was in when we were dealing with these health issues. My first house visit was with a mother who had breast cancer for the second time. She had teenage kids, and I was a 29-year-old, didn't really know, you know, I didn't have enough life experience to know what to say or how to say it. I knew I was trying to cling to encouraging them in the gospel whatnot. But I know I didn't say the right things. But I didn't know that at the time. I did the best I could. But after going through my ordeal, after having to research cancer and treatments and all the other stuff that goes into it, and dealing more with the autoimmune stuff, one day she was in our church decorating, her mother would decorate the church for seasons. And she was in there. And I just said, hey, Hey, let's sit down and have a conversation, you know. And I just, I apologized to her. I was like, I'm so sorry, like, I didn't know how to respond to what you were dealing with. And we had a really great conversation. Um, but there is something to how life experience affects how you pastor. Um, and I think over time, as you deal with trauma and, and, and all the different things that you have to as a pastor, as you walk with people through it, it softens you a bit. You realize, yeah, there's a lot more to it than just one thing or the other.

Oh, I totally agree with that. And, you know, in, in addition to not only just the health challenges that you were going through and both of you going through this together, you mentioned also 3 children, I believe, that you have at home. I mean, that's challenging anyway as a parent. It's some of the best challenges we ever face being parents. Um, but how has that looked for you, balancing, you know, your music career with raising 3 children, with going through health difficulties within a pandemic? I mean, all this stuff, uh, I, it's— I know that's a huge question to ask, but just curious as to how you have found, uh, some good ways of kind of managing family life along with like creating and touring and all the other things you have going on.

One, I will say I'm constantly reminded of the Lord's sovereignty over all things. And one thing that I consistently try to encourage my kids in as we travel and tour is to remind them, hey, I know that the Lord has you in this city and this time, wherever we may be, for purpose. Yes, Kenny and I play music, but the Lord has them there in that season for a purpose too, and he's making them and shaping them in ways through these experiences, um, that is for their good and the glory of God. Um, and in, in all of that season, it wasn't— our home life didn't end up being what I had expected it to be because I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. I greatly value all the work and the beauty that goes into that. And then a lot of my time was, uh, well, had to go towards work and building businesses and all the things. And one of the graces that the Lord gave us was that we had just finished our first year of homeschooling before all the craziness of the life came through. And by God's grace, the homeschooling ended up being a consistent thing for our kids. So we moved, but at least schooling stayed the same. We moved again. Schooling stayed the same. That was helpful.

The pandemic came. Yeah, schooling stayed the same.

Yes, schooling stayed the same. Such a grace. And I will say, especially in the, the teaching music business side of things, I felt so incredibly stretched because I would get up in the morning, work on the business side of things, do school with the kids, and then in the afternoon to the evening I would be teaching. And It just— I mean, we all have long, hard days, you know. It doesn't matter, I guess, what job you do. But I just felt like I could barely get to sleep before starting all over again. And while it felt very stretching, I can look back and say that the Lord provided. And I will say, I am so incredibly grateful for the time with our kids. Um, as we, as we travel, we try our best because our kids are with us to— we try our best. We're not always perfect at it by any means. Um, but we try our best to make it fun for the kids too. If we're in an area and there's some cool national park nearby, we're going to try to swing by and see the amazing thing there. We're just trying to find different ways to make it special for them. As with anything in life, there are pros and cons. Yes, it is a pro and wonderful to get to travel and see the country. The con is that we're away from home. For a bit, and that is hard. And from your friends and your family, and, um, I think any— anything in life, you're gonna find that. But just grateful that we get to do this together as a family.

Um, I think one of the big things we learned was the importance of communication.

Yeah.

Um, we naturally— I think we have a tendency to assume the worst in each other. Um, and this is just a relationship thing. I think everybody deals with this. Um, when there's not good communication, you start assuming what they're thinking or assuming what they're doing. And just learning to communicate, to think the best of each other, and, and to work together. And we've had to learn the hard way to work together in a lot of ways. Um, we kind of got forced into it. Um, and I think the other thing— so I'm gonna write a parenting book called Winging It. Because I just, I feel like that's what we're all doing. You know, we, there, there are things that we can learn from others that are, that are good practices, but sometimes it just doesn't even work in your own household.

Yeah.

But one of the things that we've, we've always tried to do is make life an adventure and to encourage wonder in our kids. And we're not always the best at it, but that, those are like two values that we really want to hold on to. Um, and, and so it's been fun to watch them see things for the first time and just stop and be like, what is this? Um, so, so those have been great. Those have been, those have been good. But, um, it's been fun because we travel so much and because we are away from home. You know, there are a lot of negatives, like they don't get to see a lot of their friends like they want to and and stuff like that. But one benefit I have seen is they are the constant in each other's life. And so they've developed friendship that's really, really tight so that like if Claire takes one of them out to go do something one-on-one, the other two just don't know what to do without the other one there. And so it's been really neat to watch. I feel like as parents, no matter what we do, it's always going to be a mixed bag. Um, you, you try to, to serve your kids the best you can. It's not always going to be received well. It's not, you know, they're, they're not always going to understand. But, um, but the Lord's been really kind to us.

I will say, in the beginning of our parenting journey, I had all these wonderful ideals in my brain, and then life happened.

Yeah, we knew how to parent really well before we had kids.

Yeah, yeah, here, here.

In looking at the scriptures, you see that like my call first and foremost as a wife and a mama is to love my husband, love my kids, and that can look a lot of different ways. Um, and that's, and that's also very indicting because sometimes it's easier to do the service of, say, serving a meal than it is to do it in love. And that, that is something that's constantly on my mind of, Lord, help me love my husband genuinely.

Show him that I'm hard to love.

It is a thing. Well, show it, show it, you know. And, and to our kids, and that includes, and as we travel and all over the place and just trying to Yeah, to pursue that.

Well, that's— thank you for those insights. And I love that you're, you're actually giving your kids experiences too when you're traveling that way. And, and I think that's something that they'll remember for a long time, is they'll hold on to that. So, well, this has been great. Uh, do you have like 5 more minutes we could go on? Uh, because I feel like we've, we've been getting to know you, which is awesome, but we really haven't talked that much about your new album. So I want to make sure we, we do that too, which is really why we're here. The new album Upon the Storm is out now, and it's wonderful. So tell us real quick, give us the quick elevator pitch about this album and kind of, you know, any highlights or any fun things that have happened as a result of it or in the making of it, just whatever. We just love to hear from you because it's great music. Everybody listening is going to go out and immediately download it. And listen through it on Spotify or wherever they are. So tell us a little bit about it.

Sure. So the title track is God Moves Upon the Storm, and the album is called Upon the Storm. And the reason we chose that was because, one, we wanted to recognize the reality of the storm, the reality of suffering. Frankly, scripture promises, says, beloved, don't be surprised when the fiery trial comes upon you as though to test you. Something strange is happening to you. Or when you face trials and tribulations in James and different, different scriptures. And so recognizing the reality of the suffering, at the same time recognizing the reality of our Lord who rules and reigns above all things. And we really want that, wanted that theme to be throughout the entire project. As we mentioned earlier, we wanted songs that either were direct scripture or directly pointed to scripture. Um, hymns aren't scripture, I don't claim that, but I know that a lot of them are deeply rooted in the truths of scripture. So we wanted these songs to again be something that listeners could hold on to, something that was real and firm. Frankly, the gospel, the good news of Jesus, is woven throughout, uh, throughout the record, and we just hope that the truths of the gospel can encourage hearts and whatever that they may be going through. And there's different songs that we did to accomplish that. One is taking old hymns that have fallen out of use and— or mostly out of use— and rewriting them into new songs. Some are— we've done our arrangements of well-known, some well-known hymns: Oh, the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus, Come Thou Fount, Be Thou My Vision, even a version of In Christ Alone.. And with that version, we intended— intentionally wanted it to be a personal reflection of trying to hold on to the truths of the gospel in the midst of hardship. We love the original version. Go listen to the original version too. But if you need something just in those dark-hearted—

ours isn't quite as joyful and triumphant.

Um, let's try it. It's just more somber, I guess, if you will. Um, and and then also originals that we've written.

And I'll say this, you know, we want to hone in on truth, but at the same time, we don't want these to feel like songs that are speaking down to anyone. And so the goal of the album is for the songs to be like a friend who comes along and puts their arm around you and walks along with you through the difficulties. And so we wanted to kind of have that feel. As well. Um, yeah, I think, well, the, the In Christ Alone thing, um, was kind of a surprise in the studio. We recorded the scratch track and, um, for the musicians, and somehow we ended up not realizing it was in 6/8 rather than 3/4, rather than 3/4, which the original was in. And so when the musicians came in and played it, they played their part in 6/8 And then we go in to do the vocals and we're like, wait, something changed. And, and at first we were terrified that we were just going to have to scratch the whole thing. But as we worked it out and as we, we thought it through, we just saw a very beautiful kind of direction it could go. And so it's really neat that it was like a happy little accident and it was fortuitous. Like, so that's, that's the beauty of welcoming other people into your art. Is you go into the studio and you don't exactly know what's going to come out, but you know, because other people are involved and, and their creativity is being added to yours, that there's something good is going to happen. So yeah, just a neat little story there about the In Christ Alone track.

All right. I can see everybody's going to go right now and run out and listen to it so they can hear that for sure. But that's great. I agree. It's always fun and a collaborative process., and sometimes you don't know what's going to happen. I've had songs that I've went into, um, that turned into a completely different song that didn't even have the same lyrics anymore or the same chord progression by the time I was done. It was just— it just strikes in the moment. So, well, thanks for sharing in that way, uh, both of you, Kenny and Claire. It's been wonderful to get to visit with you today, and I appreciate you taking some time to be on Voices in My Head. And I'm going to try to play the outro music, and hopefully Zoom has not changed anything too much and it'll work work for us here as we are on our way out. There we go. So thank you everyone for listening to Voices in My Head today. Thanks for being with us, Kenny and Claire. And I, I do, I recommend the new album Upon the Storm, and I just hope everyone will go out and give it a listen at the first possible possibility, first chance that you have. Thanks for listening to Voices in My Head, and I'll be bringing you new podcasts as soon as we are able. So thanks for listening, and God bless.