Artist Feature // Darren & Jessie Clark // Calvary SLO

Over the past year I’ve had the pleasure to not only work with, but also become the friend and babysitter of the amazing Clarke family. British natives, Darren and Jessie Clarke, songwriters of the famous, “I Love Your Presence”, just released their latest seven-song EP, “Your Love Endures”.

After several live records with Vineyard Music, Darren toured with Jeff Searles in the band, “Everyone”, as lead guitarist. When Darren and Jessie got married they started a Music Academy – which they ran for 9 years together, all the while with Darren performing and producing music along the way.  Now they own a studio and Darren produces music for a living. They oversee the worship teams at Calvary SLO in San Luis Obispo, California.

In this feature, we were given the pleasure to share their story and the roots behind their new EP, Your Love Endures.

TCC: At what point in life did you decide to move to America? What brought you here?

Darren: I was playing guitar in clubs when I was 13 around London where I grew up. I got saved when I was 19. That’s when I decided to move to CA to do a discipleship school, which eventually led to becoming the worship Pastor at the Burn Service, Vineyard School of Ministry.

Jessie: I grew up in the Vineyard church in England so was always involved in worship there. In the early days of Soul Survivor, I would do backing vocals with Matt Redman. When I was 16, my dad was a guest speaker at the training school, where Darren was interning.  The first time I met Darren was here in San Luis Obispo. A few years later I came back to America with a girlfriend on vacation as tourists. Darren, the worship pastor at Vineyard Church, asked me to come back and work with him; helping him with all his worship bands. It took awhile, but we eventually got married.

TCC: You wrote the song, I Love Your Presence, talk a little about that. How old were you both and what influenced you in writing it?

Darren: We were in our early 20’s at Jessie’s house.  She was brushing her hair while I was singing and playing guitar. I started singing the verse and she sang the chorus.

Jessie: I had arrived back in the states after going home to visit family.  It was the first night back and I was feeling kind of tender. I was only 20, and really needed Gods presence and comfort. Darren was singing; he had already been working on a verse for the song. When Darren started to play and sing the verse and chords he’d been working on, I could feel the Holy Spirit. Then I started singing the chorus, I love your presence. It was such a meaningful moment.  Peace came into the room.

Darren: We started playing the song at church and people liked it.

Learn how to play “I Love Your Presence”

TCC: What were a couple of the different scriptures and themes that had the most impact? How did those contribute to the creation of the song, “Your Love Endures”?

Darren: The song, “Your Love Endures”, started musically. Beginning with a chord progression I was having fun with. When we recorded it with the banjo, it just fit.

Jessie: Something magical happened. Isaiah 44 is a scripture that I had on my mirror in my room for literally 5 years. A paraphrase of verse 22 says, “you wipe away my offenses like clouds like the morning mist.” Later on in the passage it says, “your love endures”. Quite a few phrases in that song are from that passage.

Darren: I was also thinking about something Bryan Stupar, our pastor at Calvary SLO, said in a sermon. He spoke about how God is the only one that allows you to find peace.

Jessie: So the chords got Darren’s attention; it was something special. As we started working on the song, I was reminded of Isaiah 44, so I went and got it. Then we put it to melody, started singing it, and began working on it.

Darren: Then we came up with the line, “Your love, your love endures.”

Jessie:  Darren added the line, “From the depths to the highest star”. You ask yourself, “What’s that last line going to be?” Sometimes just keeping it really simple and repeating a phrase, but changing it a little bit, makes it work. And it did.

Learn how to play “Your Love Endures”

TCC: Tell me about the song, “Talk to Me”. What is the story behind it?

Darren: We were at the studio trying to work on some songs. Our two little kids, who are wonderful but also a handful, were with us. We bring them to the studio and put them to bed there sometimes. We were trying to do that but they wouldn’t go to bed. They were screaming, so we had a really frustrating night.

Jessie:  It was ten o’clock and we were so depleted of energy we asked ourselves, “What’s the point? We’re not inspired now, we can’t get anything done.” We were trying to work on a record, you know.

Darren:  So we sat there on the bench outside of the studio and I just started playing the ukulele in the dark and Jessie just started singing talk to me.

Jessie:  Beforehand I had said to Darren, “Don’t you just wish God would just come and sit here with us? Like a father would and talk to us and explain what’s happening in our lives?”After I sang the first verse, “Talk to me I want to hear your voice”, we were sitting in the dark and the security light came on and flooded the whole area around us; as if someone had walked up, but no one had. Then the chorus came, “Every time you speak your light fills me”. So it just kind of progressed on. But it really felt like God was there. And that was it. All in one go. Boom. Whole thing.

Darren: We went inside and recorded it and that is what’s on the record. Just that. Literally walked in and out from the street and recorded it in one take.

Jessie:  It was an amazing thing. I mean it’s a really simple song but sometimes those can be really hard to write. It was a gift that one.

Learn how to play “Talk to Me”

TCC: What do you hope people will take away from this album?

Jessie:  I hope that it reaches lots of people and that it would do for other people what it did for us. It’s a big prayer but those songs did a lot for us. They brought a lot of life and they brought a lot of hope to us in deep dark places. At the time, it seemed like there were lots of anthems being sung in the church scene; big powerful, and victorious anthems. Anthems, which we love, but I know for us, and probably a lot of people, they feel as though they don’t have any anthems inside of them and they need God to put a song in them. So it would be very cool if those songs could stir the same things in other people as they did with us.

Darren: My hope is to use the little musical gifts God’s given me, and give back to the church as best I can. Doing that record while in the midst of trying to raise a family, and run a business, at the same time is difficult. In-between the cracks of that we’d go into the studio and rush out, Sometimes God would bless it and give us these little gifts of songs.  Songs like “Talk to Me” and “Your Love Endures” were just so easy. Those were like the little gifts.

Jessie:  It was deeply affirming for God to give us those songs especially because we used to write all the time and then there was nothing. It was a big deal that songs were born in us, because we thought those days were gone. We didn’t have them in us. God has to put a song in your heart. It was miraculous.  Only God and the people that walked with us very closely and intimately would understand what a special thing those songs had become.

Darren: These songs were very redemptive for us. My hope is that they are positive and uplifting. Pointing people to God and seeing his goodness.

To check out music from the Darren & Jessie Clarke, and for more info on their ministry, visit http://www.darrenandjessieclarke.com/