Hootie Drummer on Faith and Addiction

ChristianPost — As the drummer for Hootie & the Blowfish, a band that has sold over 25 million records, Jim Sonefeld is a music industry icon of the 1990s. He wrote some of the band’s most popular songs, including “Hold My Hand” and “Time,” but after years of touring and suffering from alcohol addiction, he left the band in order to focus on raising his children. Today, Sonefeld is a contemporary Christian music artist, and he shared his story of faith, family and music with The Christian Post on Friday.

Sonefeld says he grew up in a loving Catholic family, and was the middle child in a group of five siblings. From third through eighth grade he attended St. Raphael Catholic School in Naperville, Ill., where he learned a great deal about God, but he admits he felt like he couldn’t see God working in his life at that time.

“For me, I was so arrogant it was a matter of, ‘Do I need this?’ It seems extremely arrogant looking back – it didn’t feel arrogant as a kid – I just put about every other passion or desire in front of me besides God,” he said.

At age 18, Sonefeld left his home to attend the University of South Carolina, where he began looking into other forms of spirituality and religion apart from Catholicism. His 800-mile journey to college wasn’t just a physical journey, he explained, but was also symbolic of the way he distanced himself from his Catholic roots.