Welcome to another episode of Q&A with Kola. the devil's nightmare. Welcome back to another episode Q&A with Koloff, questions and answers, where you get a personal phone call from the Russian nightmare and get to ask me a question or two. And if you'd ever like to do that, go to koloff.net and submit a request and we'll line it up. We'll get a date set.
With me today, Bill Glover, all the way from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Bill, Welcome to Q&A with Koloff. What's up? How are you guys doing out there? Doing great, Bill.
Doing great. Of course, we met just a while, not that long ago, down in Florida. We were down in, I believe, Naples, Florida. You were doing a small concert down there. I was a guest speaker for a mutual friend by the name of Tim Sensabaugh, pastor of the church down there.
And we connected, man. I just, I love sitting in on the concert and just had a great time and connected with you. And I thought, man, I got to have Bill on the show. Of course, for those who don't know, here's the deal. Let me just set this up.
If you're wondering who Bill Glover is, let me just tell you. He's a renowned drummer, a percussionist, a vocalist, and he has had a storied career spanning five and a half decades. Yes, you heard that right. I didn't say five and a half years. I said five and a half decades, 55 plus years, launching into his career in 1971 and infamous for his drumming with the band who pioneered an industry called Christian music named Petra.
Bill, so honored to have you on the show today. Thank you, Nikita. I appreciate it. It's a pleasure to be here, and it was fun in our time meeting and what we had to experience together down there with Tim. It was.
It was. It was a cool city, outdoor. Tim has this outdoor church in Naples, Florida, and these guys did an amazing concert, and I had the privilege of speaking. Tim was dedicating their very first child and celebrating an anniversary for the church, and it was just an amazing time. And so if the name Petra rings a bell, and it may or may not, I realize this show goes out all over the world, and some of you may not be familiar with that band named Petra, but they're a Christian rock band, really an iconic Christian rock band that helped shape really a signature sound that led to multiple Grammy Awards and Dove Awards.
And, Bill, when did you guys get the idea? I mean, I said 1971, but how did Petra formulate itself? How did that come together?
Well, we were being prepared for sure at that time in 1971. And in 1972, the fall of 1972, we were all Bible college. And I happened to be the drummer at the church where the Bible college was located. It was a small little college accredited. And all of the members of the band at the time, all the founding members of the band, were students of that Bible college and going to that church.
So in 1972, in the fall, that's when we were able to start the band. And it was just because we were there and we were available. And for those who are maybe not familiar, let me give you a little quick back story. you know there was a revolution of sorts in the late 60s and early 70s that Petra helped pioneer helped lead this whole music industry that prior to that really had not existed prior to that you know he's mentioning you know in the church would have been hymnals and organs and maybe a piano you know at that point in time and if Bill if I'm not mistaken Calvary Temple was at the Bible College and the church? Yes, Calvary Temple was the church, and the Bible College was called, appropriately, Christian Training Center.
Christian Training Center.
Now, out of curiosity, is either Calvary Temple or Christian Training Center still in operation today? No. No, okay, So they have since— The church, Calvary Temple, kind of split up into a whole bunch of other churches around the city.
So the effect was there. The seeds were planted, and the ministers grew out of that little Bible college to have churches of their own. And so Calvary Temple the bishop who was the pastor at the time he passed on with the Lord and his family is no longer in ministry with Calvary Temple So there really that ministry is no longer in existence Gotcha But the effects of it keep going Yep, yep. On and on and on and on. Yep, absolutely.
And, of course, I'm a little bit, I familiarize myself with what happened back in the late 60s and early 70s with a movie that came out not that long ago called Jesus Revolution. and that started out on the West Coast and of course it just kind of spread like wildfire across America. And of course I know, and I want to encourage people, you know, I did a full, full, full interview with Bill over on the Man Up Show, so be sure and go over to the Man Up Show where you'll get the full story. But you guys, of course, met some resistance back in those 70s as a Christian rock band But you persevered, you overcame that. And, Bill, you guys are on tour, like the Petroband tour.
What do you guys call on the tour? The 50th anniversary reunion tour. And it started in 2022, in August of 2022, right here in Fort Wayne at Buck Lake Ranch. We held our first concert, and it went so well that it's continuing on through today. And if anybody out there wants to see Petra, they can go to PetraBand.com and check out the schedule.
That's amazing. And I'm telling you, listen, I listen to these guys up front and up close and personal down there in Florida just not that long ago. and Bill, you probably know this, but people came to that little church service that they heard you guys were going to be there, man. They're like, no, man, we're like, we're going. And it was like, you have fans from way, way, way back that came there.
It was incredible to meet these people. Big Petra fans. Yeah, yeah, it was fun. It was really great fun. And it was unusual being in that it was an outdoor church service on a Sunday morning.
We've never played anything like that before as the band Petra. And then the band that I have now, GHF, here in Fort Wayne, which is made up of three of the founding members of Petra who are out doing concerts as well.
Well, it's just something else. The way that the whole phenomenon moved, you're right, it moved like wildfire. It was the Holy Spirit that moved across the country, and it caught us up. We were musicians. We were rock and roll musicians who got caught up in the movement.
We called it Jesus music, and what happened is a whole genre of Christian music was developed, and is popular today. See, contemporary Christian music is an offspring of the Jesus music movement, the Jesus movement, the revolution that you mentioned just a couple seconds ago.
So the whole thing is just a massive move of the Holy Spirit. It was a big revival. It was a massive revival. I meet people that were a part of that. Like they said, no, we came out of the Jesus revolution.
I mean, you know, they may have powerful testimonies, Bill, because they're like, yeah, we were part of Woodstock, you know, but then we got caught up in that revolution and that music movement, and it changed and transformed our whole life, you know, and our family's lives and genealogies. Thank God for that. Yeah, absolutely. And so, well, thank God you guys persevered. and even against opposition of drums and guitars and other things, you know, that had not been inside the doors of a church, but you guys persevered.
And, of course, GHF, the new band, that's an acronym for God Has Forgiven, for those of you listening out there. And, you know, Bill Glover, if you had, I'm telling you, you're going to want to go listen to the full interview on the Man Up Show because he, and especially at the end, man, he really brought it home at the end with some things that he said there. But his dedication, his impact to Christian music as a writer, a musician, a performer, it continues to inspire audiences to this day. And you can probably hear his passion both for music and his love for the Lord. And so PetraBand.com is where you can catch these guys on tour for their 50th anniversary reunion tour.
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It is called Q&A with Koloff, and I did want to give you the opportunity to fire a couple questions at me. And so if you... You got it. Yeah.
So let's segue there and I'll give you that opportunity. What's your first question for me today, Bill?
Well, the first question is, is how did you, how did, I mean, we met at Tim's church and it was a great service, but how did you get there to his service? What got you into the ministry being a wrestler? Yeah, so part A, how'd I get down there to Florida with Pastor Tim Sensabaugh.
So a mutual friend who was also there with us, he's known as Ronnie Dean the Preaching Machine, Ronnie Dean Raven, who did the actual baby dedication for Tim and his lovely bride there. Ronnie Dean and I have known each other for going on 30 years now. And when I say the preaching machine, Ronnie started preaching at age 15, and he's 75, Bill. And he has actually two years ago preached his 10,000th sermon. And he knows that because he has every one of them recorded and documented.
So that's how he knows he has preached 10,000 sermons.
So he had known the Sensabaugh family for years and years and years and years and years, going back to Missouri and eventually introduced me to Tim.
So I've been in several different churches. Tim and his dad had pastored or Tim was a youth pastor and now he's the lead pastor there in Naples, Florida. And so that's how I got down there to meet you, which I'm thankful that God crossed our paths, but I really am. Yeah, cool. Yeah, I'm thankful for that.
And then the second part or part two of your question in terms of the wrestling, it was certainly nothing that I, as a child, which I may ask you one final question before we hang up, but certainly as a child, wrestling wasn't on my radar. I was, at a young age, I embraced weightlifting and bodybuilding. I see. Yeah, and then eventually kind of fell in love with football and got a vision that one day I was determined I was going to play in the NFL, you know, like many young boys playing football, right? And I set off on that path through junior high and high school and college.
In fact, I was scouted my senior year, a small college in northern Minnesota called Moorhead State University, and playing football up there, scouted by the NFL. And I had a major injury that year. It was a setback, but I was still determined. And a bunch of my buddies from high school actually got into wrestling and were having success with it. And then one of my college buddies dropped out of college and got into it and was having success with it.
And he called me and essentially recruited me into the wrestling world. And so I never followed up on pursuing the path of football, but never looked back because of the meteoric rise I had in professional wrestling.
So that was in 1984, Bill. That sounds like the Lord opened the door for you.
Well, he did. And for the record, and many know my story.
Now, I wasn't serving God back in those days. But looking back, you know, and or let me just say, once I understood that, you know, we have plans, but God has a plan, I can look back now, Bill, and figure even though I thought I was going to play pro football and I had it all figured out at age 12, God had a different plan and revealed that plan to me at age 34. And fast forward to today, Bill, I've been to all 50 states, 36 different countries, and the largest audience to date that I have played or spoke in front of was over 73,000 on the island of Jamaica. Awesome. Yeah, pretty amazing.
Just out of curiosity, what's the largest audience Petra's ever played to?
Well, it'd have to be one of the Christian rock concerts. A big festival? Like one of the big festivals? A lot of those, you know. And then also the festivals, the Christian rock festivals, and also the theme parks, because we got to play Disneyland and all the different major theme parks But as far as one audience at the same time it would probably have to be either maybe up in Chicago for the that would have been Cornerstone or one of those festivals where they just had buku audience.
Thousands, right? I don't know how many people. Yeah.
Yep. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Finish your thought. And also then live broadcasts also did great at getting audiences in South America and different places where that was available.
Really huge audiences heard. That's pretty amazing. The gospel sung at the same time. All right, one other quick question before we run out of time.
So at what age did you know music is going to be my path that I take? How old were you when you figured that out?
Well, I would say I'm probably 12 years old.
Okay. Age 12. That's when I have started my passion for music, and my dad got me my first set. He was a road manager for Tommy Rowan and Roman, so he was in the music business. My uncle, his brother was the lead guitar player, so that was in our family.
It was kind of set out that if I loved music and wanted to be a drummer, then that's just the way it was going to be because my parents both were into music. My mother, on the other hand, was a Christian woman, and well, my dad was too, but she was involved with church music, and she was the choir director, and she was the director for music in many of the churches that I grew up in.
So at an early age, I started playing drums in church.
So the Lord had it all set up, and it probably wasn't ever a question in my mind. That's amazing. Well, let me... I never knew that Petra would go to be as big as it is. yeah Greg Hogue had division the original guitar player that's with GHF now with me he had division that uh that Petra would minister and play around the world so you never know I did I didn't think much of it at the time I was 18 years old when we started the band and I just wanted to play Christian rock well you said on the man up show hey just make yourself available and watch what God does.
And Bill, you have certainly done that. Bill Glover, the original drummer with Petra, member of both the Gospel Music Hall of Fame and the Christian Rock Hall of Fame, currently on tour, PetraBand.com. If you want to go catch one of their performances, check that out, and maybe you'll get the opportunity to meet Bill and tell him, Hey, I heard you on Nikita Koloff's podcast radio show. And so, Bill, thanks for being with us today. You're welcome, Nikita.
My pleasure. And thank all of you each and every week. You're so faithful to help spread the word for this show and the Man Up show. Hey, go check it out. Go over to Truth Radio.
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