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Music has been a part of Toronto, Ont. native Jeremy Tozer's life since the day he could remember, even falling asleep under the piano at church where his father was a worship leader.
"I would go early in the morning to church and I would always fall asleep underneath the grand piano. That's my earliest memories of being around music and then just throughout life," Tozer says.
Tozer spent part of his childhood doing musical theatre, which would eventually lead him to study music and lead worship in high school. "I want to sing while all of my friends were into sports and stuff, but I was the artsy guy I guess, so I just picked up a guitar and sat at the piano."
As he grew in music, all the different avenues of leading and being an artist became more relevant to him. "The art of performance and diving into it like what does that mean? What's performance and later on in life, realizing performance is about telling stories. I think that's when it kind of naturally started to weave into my understanding of what worship is and what worship leading is."
As Tozer has been a worship director for ten years, he has learned more and more about how to cultivate an environment for other people. "So much more than just playing your song really well. How are people encountering the music encountering the emotion behind the music?"
The 'My Reward' artist said that song, while he hopes that it's fun and upbeat, the heart behind it is quite simple. "At the center of all my longings, my wants, my desires is Jesus. I can go through life. The broken the terrible things, the people that hurt me, the people that hurt people around me, I can experience just great joys. I can even experience just like mediocre things in life. But throughout it all, life's about aligning my values with God's values. When that happens, Jesus is the only thing that I need."
While he doesn't have any tour dates set right now, Tozer does say that he's going back to the studio to record and listeners can follow along his Instagram for the latest updates.