Ex-Voto

A GOTH’S SPIRITUAL CONVERSION

 A testimonial by Mark Allen, former guitarist with Ex-Voto

  First off, a couple of facts from the distant past. The first is that my Dad died when I was 12 years old. We were close and my Mom didn’t tell me he was dying, so it came as quite a shock when it happened. I didn’t cry, or have any outward signs of distress. But the impact of this event would shape my life over the course of the next 25 years.

 The second of these major points is that I started using drugs of all kinds about the age of 12. Beginning with pot and finally reaching my personal pinnacle of drug use, heroin. I was a “hope to die” junkie at the age of 25. I didn’t care about anybody or anything other than my music and my drugs.

 When I first made a conscious musical detour from the heavier rock of the late 70s and early 80s bands, it was in large part due to the Psychedelic Furs. Their music had a deep and profound impact on me. This band became my first real obsession with music. I followed everything they did. Went to as many concerts as possible, and started a band that was similair in Orange County in 1984. I cut my hair like John Ashton the guitarist, fashioned my guitar style after him, the works. I was still doing pretty well as far as holding my life together. Working at National Lumber in Garden Grove, living at home with no bills and responsibilities, all the while I was drinking, doing drugs and going through multiple dysfunctional relationships with women.

One day, I happened to be reading a music magazine and in the pages was a picture that caught my eye. It was a band in all black, standing at night in front of a porno theater whose sign read Detroit’s Finest Adult Films. Now that was cool to me. These guys, especially the singer, had the image down. I wasn’t sure what the image was, but I was hooked. I read the accompanying article, which spoke of this bands success in England and how they were beginning to make headway here in the States. What really got me was the comparison to Psychedelic Furs along with other bands like Bauhaus and even David Bowie.

 I just had to check them out. The name of the band was The Sisters of Mercy. My life would never be the same again from this moment. I ran out and found a 7” single on vinyl of theirs and immediately put it on my turntable (hey, gimme a break, it was 1984). I dyed my hair black and started to grow it out to distance myself from the influences of my past, namely the wimpy British New Romantic bands that I had lived for up till then.

I found a band that had advertised for a guitarist with influences ranging from Sisters of Mercy to Bauhaus and I called. Needless to say I was offered the position and we started setting up shows right way. During this time, my drug use and occult practices which had started a couple of years earlier when I had discovered Alistair Crowley’s writings quickly overtook me.  

I was slamming heroin and practicing Crowley’s version of Magik any chance I could get. I felt like I had power for the first time in my life, and that something big was going to happen. I thought that I would be a star! I beleived that the devil would protect me and that he would give me the desires of my heart (sounds like what Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker said in an interview around that same time period). I was even willing to give up my own soul for this. I had written a contract one night while intoxicated on heroin and cocaine. The contract read that for seven years of fame and fortune I would give me soul. I cut my hand and bled all over the page, did an incantation to seal the deal and hid the document behind the Sisters of Mercy portrait that hung on my wall for safekeeping. My thoughts and dreams were frequently filled with demons and death as I had given the devil a foothold that wouldn’t be broken for almost another decade.

 Back to the band. We were playing clubs, getting better and better, and more people were coming. Our manager ran the Krypt Klub in Los Angeles, which was the only real Gothic Club in town. The Scream was also open, and while we played there, we didn’t consider it a trued Goth place. They had all of the hair bands, wimp rock bands and washed up English new wave bands playing there. The Krypt only showcased Goth. Premature Ejaculations (Rozz Williams), Ex-Voto, Death Ride 69, Radio Werewolf, Red Temple Spirits, Screams for Tina, Kommunity FK. Those were the bands that were in the scene during this time. I was the guitarist for Ex-Voto.

  As the band got more exposure and played bigger shows, my drug use got worse and worse. I would be doing heroin right before a show in the dressing room or bathroom. We had been receiving a lot of press from the LA Weekly

and people that were important were starting to come to our shows.  We signed a small record label deal with BOMP Records and began recording for it. I was so strung out that I was becoming a liability to the band. My drug use and temper (I was always getting in fights) caused a severe rift within the band. Just when we were about to go big time, I imploded.  

It was a great line up with a strong set of material that I had written and arranged. We were set to debut at The Blitz Club. I read about it in the papers.

“Former Guitarist from Ex-Voto Debuts with his New Band”. Sounded exciting, but I never made it. I ended up slamming heroin in my car that night. My music career was over. The year was 1988.

 The next several years found me either in jail or on the streets. I was staying in homeless shelters and sleeping anywhere I could stay warm and dry. My family had given up on me due to all of the times I had ripped them off, lied to them and hurt them. My mom told me she didn’t want to talk to me unless I had cleaned up my act. I wandered about the streets of Santa Ana, my music career long gone. Just trying to survive day to day and keep the heroin flowing. During this time period, I probably had to endure about a thousand sermons about Jesus. Whenever you get a meal when you are homeless at a shelter or somewhere, you have to hear someone talk about God. It was something I had to deal with to get what I needed. So I put up with the Jesus stuff. This went on for several years with no change. Then one night, something happened.

 There was this church group that came to the streets by the Orange County Rescue Mission every Monday night. They would sing, bring food, and preach. I basically didn’t mind these people too much because they seemed to be a little cooler than some of the other Christian groups that came around. However, I never spoke one word to anyone involved in that group. I just hung out, waited till they were done with the Jesus stuff, got my food and disappeared into the night without a trace.

 One night, I was standing in a crowd of about forty homeless people waiting for them to finish so that I could grab my food and leave. The preacher was intense as he read from his bible. He caught my eye once and stopped his sermon dead in it’s tracks. He said to me “son, come up here for a minute”. So I did. He looked at me in the eyes and said “I believe that Jesus is going to deliver your from your heroin addiction tonight’. He asked me if I believed that Jesus could do this, and that He was the Son of God? I said “yes, I did”. I couldn’t believe I said that, because ever since my Dad died I had been a God hater. My heart was changing and God was doing the change. I got down on my knees in the dirty streets of Santa Ana and made a confession of faith in Christ Jesus and accepted Him as my personal Lord and Savior. That was October 1993.

 I found out there was a Christian Discipleship program at the Rescue Mission so I entered the program. It was a difficult year and a half from that point. I kicked heroin cold turkey in the Mission and had to work hard to study the Word of God and stay clean. But I made it. I graduated with honors and left the Mission with a job, a car and a purpose. To reach the lost and hurting and tell them about Jesus Christ.

 I became involved in the same church that I got saved through (getting saved just means that I accepted the Lord by way of this group of people). I met my future wife at church and began working in the church’s Homeless Ministry. I eventually was placed over all of the church’s outside evangelism, sent to seminary all expenses paid, and hired as the Assistant Pastor of Evangelism. During the next few years, the ministries that I was part of saw over 15,000 people make outward confessions of faith in Christ. This was including the homeless ministry, the prison ministry and the street outreach team that distributed tracks at the beaches and malls of Southern California.

 After I graduated the Mission program, I began working in the printing industry as a Customer Service Representative for a small print company in Santa Ana. I now work for a Mixed Martial Arts magazine and still write and play music as well as staying involved in homeless concerns throughout the County. I met and married my wife, Angela and we have two children and reside in Cypress, California.

It has now been over a decade since I entered the program and did heroin for the last time. I still remember how lonely I felt in those days within the Goth scene. I had never had more people around me, and yet felt so alone. I thought I fit in that scene, but just like every other scene before it, I never really fit. I just fooled myself into thinking that I did. The reality is that until you are ok with yourself and with God, you can’t fit anywhere. Only through Jesus taking this lonely, lost, hurting and broken soul, cleaning me up and setting me in another direction did I finally find out who I was, where I had been and where I was going. There really is a plan for you that is bigger than you could imagine. Don’t let the devil sell you a bill of goods that is just a cheap imitation of the original. The bible says that the devil’s plan is to steal, kill and destroy. I sure allowed him to do a pretty good number on my life up until I accepted Christ. If he has stolen from you, and destroyed things and relationships in your life, he hasn’t finished with you. He intends on killing you and will not be satisfied until this is accomplished. Be aware, there is a spiritual battle for your soul. Use wisdom and choose rightly whom you will serve. It is a matter of life and death!! Choose Life, Choose Jesus!!

God Bless, Mark
 

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