Integrity Music signs worship artist Daniel Bashta

Integrity Music announces the signing of Georgia-based worship artist/songwriter Daniel Bashta to an exclusive recording and publishing contract with Bashta’s debut album slated to release in early 2011.

Bashta has been making music for as long as he can remember, starting as a child in New Orleans playing violin and drums and then as a teenager adding guitar and piano to his repertoire.

The son of missionaries, Bashta spent time in Mexico, Russia, China, The Netherlands, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica all before his late teens.

It was training that prepared him well for his position as Worship Pastor at RiverStone Church in Kennesaw, Georgia, and as an artist who unites worship, evangelism and social justice.

“Daniel is a unique and gifted worship leader with a heart for prophetic worship and a passion to use the arts to reach this generation,” says John Coleman, Senior Vice President/General Manager for Integrity Music. “Integrity shares his passion, and we are excited about partnering with him.”

"Integrity Music is full of radical dreamers... I am so humbled to be a part of such pioneers. Whatever your view point of them has been in the past, erase it. Get ready to encounter a new army. I can't wait to unleash these sounds to the world with my new family," Bashta said.

Though he had travelled the world on missions’ trips, it was a visit to Amsterdam in the Netherlands that profoundly changed his perspective on evangelism, forever affecting his work and music.

At only 17, Bashta moved to Amsterdam to be part of a church plant just outside the infamous Red Light District. While there, he experienced first-hand the power of building relationships and trust as catalysts for change and repentance versus an impersonal, “in your face” outreach so often used in evangelism.

“This new breed of missions forever wrecked my life,” he explains. “I had finally found a call and a cause that I could recklessly run with. I truly found the merciful God of the universe, who bleeds with such love for the outcasts of this world, that He would give His life. Then my question to answer was, ‘Why should I not give my life in endless return?’”

That question completely altered Bashta’s spiritual and musical directions. With his family, he moved to Colorado Springs and became a worship leader for New Life Church’s youth ministry. A couple of years later, he returned to Europe to attend International Bible Institute of London. While there, he became involved with Soul Survivor, the church from which Tim Hughes and Matt Redman have birthed so many of today’s modern worship songs.

After finishing school, Bashta returned to the US and joined the staff of Church of the Highlands, then a new church plant in Birmingham, Ala., which has become one of the fastest growing churches in America. It was at Highlands that Bashta met his wife Taylor and further developed the worship-evangelism vision as the couple led students on missions trips to Romania, Germany, Hong Kong and China.

Feeling that God was calling them in a new direction, Bashta resigned from Highlands in 2008 and formed the non-profit ministry GoMotion Worldwide. He also recorded an EP called My Worship in Motion. Since then, he has led worship in the US and internationally in addition to his role at RiverStone.

"The Sounds of Daniel Bashta is truly that... prophetic sounds that capture a movement of this generation, music that provokes you to worship, music that speaks life into dark places. We are excited to be servicing alongside Daniel," said Jay King, VP of A&R/Artist Development.