Fresh off the release of the mega viral song “Fingerprints,” Singer/songwriter Jon Kahn went on Steve Bannon’s WarRoom to discuss how his walk with God began, the evolution of the song, and how trials, tribulations, and a season of loss inspired its release.
Kahn took Bannon to the beginning of his walk with God, explaining how five years ago, in a conversation about life with Nashville songwriter Michael Farren, the son of a Baptist preacher, ended with Farren telling Kahn, “You know, you talk like a Christian.” Kahn, who wasn’t exposed to faith or religion growing up in Los Angeles, said he asked Farren what that meant. “You have a seekers heart,” Farren replied, “I can tell that you’re yearning for something more.”
“So, I tucked that away,” Kahn said. “I started having more conversations with people about God and faith. I started going to church for the first time in my life. And I liked what that did for me. I like the idea of holding myself accountable to something greater than myself.”
Kahn told Bannon how he started noticing “interesting things” happening in his life. “People came back into my life who I hadn’t seen in years,” Kahn explained. “An ex-girlfriend of mine, who’s a screenwriter, I hadn’t spoken to her in fifteen years. She says, ‘I’m writing a script about faith and I want you to read it.'”
Those conversations about faith kept happening. The interesting events kept occurring. And just as Kahn was noticing how his life was changing, a close friend said to him, “I’ve never seen God chase anybody like he’s chasing you. He’s got his fingerprints all over you.”
Kahn says he “tucked that away and thought, that’s the name of a song.”
“Fingerprints,” Kahn says, “was originally about my exploration of faith and the journey I was on. It’s been ready for about a year and a half. And then I wrote “Fighter” and that took precedence. I didn’t release ‘Fingerprints’ because I was so new to faith. I didn’t want to go into an area where I felt like I was treading where I didn’t belong. And in the many conversations I had with people, they said you wouldn’t have those words to the song unless God wanted you to.”
Now, years into his faith journey and a year and a half after writing “Fingerprints,” Kahn would weather a season of immense loss.
“After I wrote the song, I had a series of really rough times,” he told Bannon. “I had a breakup with a girlfriend, my mom passed away. My dad fell, had surgery. And then my house burned down.”
Bannon wondered if the hardships, loss of a loved one, and the fire rattled Kahn’s newfound faith and had him wondering if “maybe there isn’t a God. Or God would have not done this to me if He was a fair God.”
“I didn’t think that,” Kahn said. “I had a strange peace about it.”
Courtesy Jon Kahn Music
“I spent six weeks on my dad’s sofa,” Kahn recalled, in the immediate aftermath of the Palisades fire that completely destroyed his home. “My dad is not a believer. He and I weren’t always very close. We’ve gotten close in the last couple years. He’s 93-years-old now. About four weeks after the fire, I was still trying to process what happened. Every time I would say to him, ‘I’m going to church on Sunday or I’m going to church right now,’ he was very accepting of it. But there was always this little bit of ‘Really, you’re going to church?'”
“So there was always a little bit of a push-and-pull,” Kahn said. “One day I walked in his bedroom and said ‘you know, I don’t think I could be handling this situation as well as I am had I not gone down this road of faith. And he looked at me, at 93-years-old, and he said ‘I 100 percent agree with you.’ Which I thought was a pretty big moment for him and for me.”
“I never lost faith and I always had a peace that things were going to work out,” Kahn said. “And I thought what better time to release a song like this than in the middle of a storm.”
Bannon asked if Kahn has lost friends after finding faith, or if there are now people or situations he finds himself avoiding.
“I got to know a Navy SEAL,” Kahn recalled, “And I asked him ‘when you’re on patrol in Afghanistan or wherever you are, are you always looking for the bad things?’ And he said ‘no, I’m always looking for the beautiful things.’ And I said ‘why is that?’ He says ‘when you look for the beautiful things, all the bad things stand out.'”
“That story really stuck with me,” Kahn said. “So when you’re on a journey like this, you look for the good. It makes you able to identify the energy you don’t want to be around, the people that you don’t want to be around who might not be on the same journey. I don’t think I’ve lost friends as much as I’ve gained a lot of friends from this process. And met so many amazing and kind people through it.”
On the heels of the Billboard Digital Sales chart-topping success of “Fighter” and now with the immediate viral impact and positive reaction to “Fingerprints,” Bannon asked Kahn what the future holds.
“I’m trying to pick up the pieces after the fire. I’m going to relocate to Nashville, hang there for six months. I write a lot of music there,” Kahn explained.
“I’ve got a buddy named Jeffrey Steele, who’s in the Nashville Hall of Fame, he’s an amazing writer,” Kahn said. “He always says ‘Just write what’s in your heart.’ So there are certain things I get inspired to write about. Usually they’re kind of tough situations. I’m going to keep sitting down at the piano and picking up the guitar and see what comes to me.”
“I love ‘Fighter’ and I love this,” Bannon said. “‘Fingerprints’ is going to be a big hit.”
“‘Fingerprints’ has been praised and promoted by John Rich, Sean Hannity, and Ric Grenell, among many others. This week, Scott Stapp, the front man for the rock band Creed, called “Fingerprints” “a gift” and said “I feel the divine in this song. I feel God.”
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Jerome Hudson is Breitbart News Entertainment Editor and author of the book 50 Things They Don’t Want You to Know About Trump. Order your copy today. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter and instagram@jeromeehudson
