Battle of the Bands (7/25/15)

In this story lies one of my most cherished comments ever made by a spectator, but we will discuss that further in a minute. It had been months since we had played a show on our home turf and this time it was a Battle of the Bands at The End Zone in Huntsville, AL. The line up consisted of ( Them Damn Dogs, Radiotron, and All About Them Tones)



We did our usual song set and threw in some covers to spice things up a bit. We unloaded our gear, took some time to chill and enjoy the other bands, eat, and then prepare for our set. I loved glancing around the room and seeing so many unfamiliar faces. I couldn't wait to just go meet new people and hang out with Huntsville folks.




Per usual about 10 minutes before it was our time to take the stage, we all went outside in the parking lot to run through the logistics, do our pep talk and pray. When we came back inside, our friend Mikey (who was hosting the show) came up to me and said that a girl at the bar asked him if we were Christians. He told her "Yes, I think they are. Why do you ask?" She replied " I knew it, they shifted the atmosphere as soon as they walked in the room."............... This comment stopped me in my tracks. How cool is it that at a bar someone noticed we were set apart and that the Holy Spirit was with us? I was completely filled with joy at this point and we hadn't even performed yet.

My friend Kierra showed up that night and cheered us on along with Raymond's wife Dixie.

 The crowd went nuts several times through out the set and made us feel like we were (for real) rock stars.

https://www.instagram.com/p/5nwQXjnbm2yktHNHRrzjNu4QILkXYwCwJzIFg0/?taken-by=meagan_reeves

I heard comments all night long such as, "How have we not heard of you guys?" or "Yeah, y'all will get signed soon. Y'all are too good." It was everything we needed to hear and experience at the time. GOD's timing is always so perfect.  Oh and we won, and moved to the final round of the Battle of the Bands. Stay tuned for what happened next.

Toys for Tots ( 7/24/15)

So you remember that previous post (Something From Nothing)? Well this is kind of part two. After we had talked to the judges from the festival, they invited us out to headline a Toys for Tots event in Tennessee. It was located at a place called Momma's Country. (Pause) Let me take just a moment to chuckle at the idea of my band-mates and I performing at a Country Club. The idea of me performing at one isn't shocking, I grew up in the Country Music Scene in Texas. However, the look on these guys faces when we pulled up to this place was priceless.

We were out of our element as far as target audience goes, but we still had fun meeting new fans and other well established artists, songwriters, Industry leaders, and even reality television personalities. I even danced to the Cha Cha Slide with some friends on the dance floor.

 We got a lot of great feedback and even gained some new fans in the process, and made even more connections with people in the music industry. It was different, it was weird at times, but over all I had a blast people watching and meeting new fans. Oh and I almost forgot, we were presented with a plaque from the Salvation Army for participating in their fundraising event. So yeah, that was a first. Along with performing while fake snow fell from the ceiling. LOL

Kingdom Come Festival (7/11/15)

For a couple of years we watched some of our other friends who were in other christian bands attend this annual festival called Kingdom Come located in Indiana. The pictures I would see online always looked like everyone was having a blast, but what really caught my attention was the heart of this event. I saw so many post about artists praying over people in the crowd and people would come to know Jesus through this event. I remember being so impressed and a spark igniting in my heart to want to join the party and be a part of this movement that was happening every year in Indiana.


This year we got our chance. As a band we got to drive up there together, and some of us got to bring our families as well. I absolutely love road trips anyway, and it was no let down riding with my boys for 12 hours. There were moments when I cried I was laughing so hard. Just ask John what our CB handle names are or ask Raymond to show you the HORRIBLE picture he took of me sleeping in the car on the way home.

 We had a blast, and just when we were about to go stir crazy we arrived at our hotel for a good nights rest. The next morning we got ready and headed out to the festival where we hung out with new friends and fans all day at our merch booth and waited for our time to take the stage.

There was one particular moment that day, I remember sitting at the table with Jeff and John gazing out into the beautiful open field. It dawned on me, I am living my dreams. Here I am with my band-mates traveling the country to go sing and share Jesus with people. I stopped what I was doing and asked them to take this picture with me to capture the moment.

There were lots of fun moments, like us giving each other our own CB Handle names and using them while communicating with our walkie-talkies or when we made a late night run to Applebees. Then there were some not-so-fun moments, like me having to jump out of a minivan at a a busy red light in Kentucky, so I could make a mad dash to the bathroom. I had just had a gallbladder attack a couple of days prior and I felt like round two was coming. There was nothing glamours about it, although it would have made for a hilarious scene in a comedy movie. There was also a moment right before I took the stage that I began to feel sick all over again, and the crew from Kingdom Come prayed over me and I seriously started to feel better as I got on stage. They were such awesome and sweet people to work with. I seriously didn't want to leave, it reminded me so much of my small town in Texas. I was at home with these beautiful people.

We had a blast during our set, and got to hang out and chill with fellow Alabamian's 3 Times Driven, The awesome guys from the Protest, our new friends from Ilia and Shine bright, and some of the old members from Lastwatch.

Our new fans/friends were so much fun to talk to, and since Kingdom Come I actually met up with two of them in Huntsville at the Space and Rocket Center. How cool is that?

We had a wonderful experience and for me this trip was a breath of fresh air, a glimpse into what I would love for my life to look like all the time. Just waking up and doing what God put me on the earth to do.

Something from Nothing (7/4/15)

I have to just say straight out of the gates, I had a bad attitude. I really needed to be at work instead of doing this show, but I was completely fine with walking away from the job to go do what I really love to do.

It was a weird, hot, humid, yet sometimes cool day. We were told to arrive around 2:00pm for a battle of the bands competition at the Spirit of America Festival at point mallard. There were carnival rides, food trucks, entertainment and fireworks. It really looked like a promising day of fun. The show we were competing in consisted of bands from all around our area and it was to be judged by some pretty well known Nashville industry businessmen and women. It look promising. But in the end it wasn't. Long story short, it was thunder storming and at 11:30pm at night we still hadn't played yet. I think it was a combination of bad management, weather complications, and too many artists booked in one day. I finally just walked up to one of the men in charge and said "So it looks like it's pretty safe to say that we aren't playing right?" The poor guy agreed and apologized for the disorganization of everything. I was nice to him but secretly was infuriated because, we had at this point spent 9 hrs waiting to take the stage only to find out we weren't going to in the end. We loaded up our gear in the rain, we kind of just said our goodbyes and then.... It dawned on me ( okay it was actually the Holy Spirit that reminded me ) that God's word (Romans 8:28) says he works everything into good. So I kind of took a step back from my temper tantrum and decided that this was the case even in this event. So I walked over to some of my bandmates and shared this with them, and they agreed.

As I was walking to my car to leave I remembered that I had the Merch booth items in my car, which consisted of our latest album. So I ran over to it and grabbed one out of the trunk. I looked at my bandmates and said "I'm going to go give this to one of those judges. I will be right back." So I made my way to the judges table and handed them a CD and proceeded to explain that we were sorry that we weren't going to be able to perform for then as planned. After playing a fun game of questions and answers with them, they invited us to be the head lining band for a Toys for Tots event in Tennessee with some other artists from Nashville. We accepted their invitation and as soon as we cleared the corner to where no one could see me I started to jump up and down like a kid about to open their presents at Christmas. I mean, what are the chances that one conversation would lead to an invite to perform with other artists from Nashville at a Toys for Tots event.?

See the catch here is... I never would have ever walked up to them and handed them our cd if we would have been able to participate In that competition. You just don't mingle with the judges when you are involved in a competition like that. It doesn't look right. But because we weren't able to participate I had the courage to go talk to them, and in the end they invited us to come work with them and play at a show for them. I mean God totally took that disappointing situation and turned it into good.

I really do love watching God take situations and making them better than before.
He is an awesome God.

The Making of the "WARRIOR" Music Video.

Sometimes in life you have those moments where you pause and take a brief second and say to yourself "Is this real life?" I had one of those moments (day one of our video shoot) for "Warrior". So much preparation goes into what might seem like a simple day of filming, but it's just not that simple. You have to prepare for what you need to make happen, but you also have to prepare for what might go wrong. We packed/ bought everything from tarps to Cheetos, from adapters to hand sanitizer. The list goes on and on, and somewhere in the middle of the process as I was watching Adam and Jeff film their running scenes my breath was taken away from me. In that small moment I had my mom, dad and best friend Marisol (who flew all the way from Texas just to share this memory with me on her birthday.) with me in the middle of the woods. Here I was filming my first music video, and luckily God blessed me with a second to take a step back and breathe it all in. It was beautiful.

Toss to the side that I don't make any money doing music, and I still have a normal day job, and just hours before the shoot I was removing staples from my head due to a car wreck I was in 10 days prior

....... It didn't matter, the point was, it may not look like what I expected, but the truth remained...... I am living my dreams.

Day one was a complete blast in my opinion, it started out with Adam and Jeff filming their running scenes in the woods, and me following soot running thru a creek and almost drowning when I tried to film my verses in a (snake/ river rat infested pond of water) that surrounded some old bridge ruins. It was fun, I got dirty, I got to act again ( haven't done that in forever) I got to run in the water, fall in the mudd ( We got a lot of good laughs from that one)

https://www.instagram.com/p/9P1B-MnbuwS_cD1VJrf463zJ6QfC3WYDSYLR40/?taken-by=meagan_reeves
See for yourself by clicking the above video. LOL

 I was able to watch and learn from Cody our videographer. I was doing everything I ever wanted to do all in one day.

After those takes were completed we drove over to the second location and filmed John joining the group as they ran thru the wilderness. We had some laughs and I'm pretty sure the ground ate John's boot. We were hot and sweaty and I'm sure we smelled wonderful.

So we thought it only made since for us to go share in our adventures with the rest of the world and go have lunch at Zaxby's together. After our much needed break and tummy fill up we headed out for Tennessee to film at the last location. This is where the story gets really interesting.

During the drive up we realized we had to race against time or should I say a massive thunderstorm in order to complete the filming for the day. Honestly, there isn't enough space to explain the craziness that unfolded that night, but I will try to some up the adventure with this. There may or may not have been at one point 9 people outside in a lightning storm standing in 2 inches of water trying to make 7 Tv's and 7 DVD players work simultaneously to film the shots we needed. We later took those same Tv's in the same lightning storm and destroyed them without being electrocuted. Talk about being on pins and needles. I know when I wasn't filming a scene I had to participate in that night, I was praying. Praying that God would protect us from our own stupidity.

Somehow, it all came together and we were all able to go home despite all of our cars almost being stuck in the grass. I remember talking to Marisol that night and telling her the last time I was that exhausted was when I went to bed after day one of building a house in Guatemala on a missions trip. Whew, just writing about it makes me tired.

Day 2 came quick and we headed back out to Mary's house for the more flattering scenes of us rocking out to a live audience. It was a lot of fun and some of our nearest and closest fans, friends, and family attended to be extras. We took pictures with the fans, got to sit down and eat and chat with them. I cherish those moments. But I think my absolute favorite memory out of that day was being able to share the story behind "Warrior" with all of our fans right before we started filming.

Each one of us from Estoria had our real personal stories play on the TVs . Jeff's represented being bullied and picked on as a kid. Raymond's shined a light on broken homes/families. John's painted the actual picture of what life looked like while his wife fought for her life on a daily basis while she waited on a double lung transplant. Adam's revealed the raw emotion from experiencing grief, while mine unveiled actual video footage from my family surviving a Natural Disaster.I began to pour out the heart and soul of Warrior to the crowd and I could see the look on their faces, several of them with tears in their eyes. I knew that they understood me when I said this was more than just a song. Warrior was an anthem we had to sing over ourselves to survive the horrific season that was about to come. We have been fighting for survival since the moment this song was created and even through out the filming process we fought to get the job done, from so many different angles.


The process of filming this video was a fight and it completely reminded me of the true meaning behind our song. We are all "Warriors"!!!

So here it is ladies and gentlemen "Warrior" by Estoria.
https://youtu.be/uZ-KVFOIG80

SoulStock 5-16-15

Never in our wildest dreams did we see what Soul Stock had in store for us. It was such a huge reminder of how God knits things together perfectly. So many moments for me that made all of the suffering over the last few years worth it. One of the many cool side stories started two years ago when my band-mate and I saw For King and Country in concert in Cullman, AL. At the end of the set I jokingly said to my band-mate, "You know we are going to share the stage with them one day." We laughed the idea off at the notion of anything that grand actually happening for us. It wasn't until the night before Soul Stock that I remembered this conversation. I was blown away at the thought of God actually allowing that to come to fruition. He really is so kind, and does pay attention to the tiniest details of our hearts and I desperately needed reminding of this truth. I mean, how cool is it that exactly two years later we would share the stage with not only For King and Country but unspoken, and Sadie Robertson as well?

But in true Estoria fashion, we had an obstacle to overcome. Well, actually it was more like a mountain. You see our drummer was supposed to be in a wedding at the exact same time we were supposed to be on stage. So.... yeah.... We had to find a fill-in drummer. Luckily, God worked out that detail too, and our good friend Shane Russell agreed to fill in for Adam. Shane was a great sport, and did a great job that day. Then came obstacle number two in the form of Jeff's guitar not working at all during the first song of our set. We pushed through the song, and by song number two he had it working again. But talk about a nail biter.

We finished the show strong, but we all had this attitude of regret. We just knew in our hearts nobody liked the music, and that we did a horrible job. I know I was afraid that we didn't make a difference in anyone's life that day. So as we exited the stage in defeat, we prepared to load up and call it a day, until I looked over towards our merch booth and saw this huge line of people waiting to get autographs. I remember thinking "Wow, everyone sure did like our friends at The Protest. There is a huge crowd at their table, no one is at ours, we must really suck." I walked closer and closer to the crowd so I could get a better look, only to realize the closer I got the clearer the picture became that the huge line of people waiting to get autographs was for OUR BOOTH. Wait let that sink in for a second. I repeat. It was our booth that had the huge line of people waiting for us to sign autographs and take pictures with our fans.

I remember stopping right where I was at and thinking to myself, "NO WAY!" By the time I fully processed what was going on my feet kicked into gear and I rushed to the table to greet all of the fans. Eventually the guys followed suit and the looks on their faces were priceless. They were just as shocked as I was. We were all in disbelief. We stayed at our booth for hours signing and taking pictures with our fans. This one little girl came up to me and said, "Thank you for being someone I can look up to." (talk about my heart falling out of my chest) and right after her was another little girl who gave me a hug and said, "Thank you for teaching about Jesus today." These two comments didn't just make my day. They made my year, my career. Ever since I was a child, I always said I wanted to be someone that little girls could look up to. I literally had to fight back the tears with these two.

The day was filled with surprises such as Way-fm asking me to record a couple of liners for them. Ya know, those artist liners that sound like this, "This is Meagan from the band Estoria and I am Way-Fm." (Which I am going to admit, I always wanted us to be successful enough to be asked to do that.) We got to hang out with and talk to Joel and Luke Smallbone from For King and Country, and Joel and his wife Moriah Peters made a video just for my best friend Marisol.

Marisol Amanda Saenz , a message from Joel Smallbone of For King and Country & his wife Moriah Peters and I. Love you chica!

Posted by Meg Mreeves on Sunday, May 17, 2015

I also got to meet Sadie Robertson and we finally got to share the stage with our friends The Protest.

It was literally one thing after the other. We all walked away from that night with a glimpse of what our dreams looked like. It was overwhelming. All we could do was take a step back and thank God for his faithfulness.


They say pictures are worth more than a thousand words......So I am just gonna leave these here. :) Enjoy!