This is a snippet of an interview where Lacey Mosely, the lead singer of Flyleaf (a very popular rock band) talks about her past and her battle with suicide. Since overcoming suicide, others listen to her band's music and say how much it helped them in their own fight. May Lacey's life, story and music give you hope!
(Interviewer's speech italicized).
*Note: Any opinions, statements, beliefs or words are her own. They are left alone for the sake of the authenticity of her account.
[Excerpt from the Atlantic City Weekly Interview]
Flyleaf has kind of filled in [a] role for today’s generation.
Kids write us and tell us, "Your music really helped me get through [some difficult] time," or "I didn’t commit suicide because all of a sudden Flyleaf came on the radio and it described my life so I felt like I could live," or something like that. It’s pretty amazing.
How does it make you feel that you touching so many kids so deeply?
I feel a lot of things, but one of the things is that I’m not by myself in some of the things that I feel. And if I went through something [and then sang about it] and it helped somebody, then it came around and it wasn’t for nothing.
I read somewhere that you said, “finding faith saved my life.” How so?
Well, as an atheist. I mean a pretty outspoken jerk atheist — I hated Christians — that’s what I mean by that.
From what age were you an atheist?
From like 10 to 16. When I was 10 I remember I stopped believing in God because I had a three-year-old cousin who was beaten to death by her step-father and I remember thinking, my mom always talked about God and stuff, and I remember thinking, how do you explain that? Where were you God? And from that time on, I think that was around the time I started getting depressed and first started doing drugs. And then I think I was around 16, everything culminated into crappiness, you know? I mean if you’re an atheist and life sucks it just feels like there’s not that much stopping you from saying, well, I don’t want to do life anymore, you know? So I planned to commit suicide and I think from the time I planned to commit suicide to that next morning — I don’t think I went to sleep that night — but I went through the next day and did some stuff that I had planned out. Like to go to school and see a couple people and then I left school and came home and my grandmother wasn’t supposed to be home, but she was home. And she was kind of freaking out on me because I had cut my hair off and she was like, “Something’s wrong with you.” She kind of knew something was wrong and she told me to go to church. And that was like the last place on earth I wanted to be because I hated Christians and I thought they were all naïve and hypocritical and fake and that everybody acted all happy all the time — I just hated them. So, she’s screaming at me to go to church and I didn’t want to go, but just to get her to shut up I went ahead and went.
Wow.
Yeah, I went in the back and tried to suffer through it until it was over. Then the preacher started talking about … well, he pretty much described my life in a series of stories he told about people he had worked with over the years and families he’d helped through different situations. And it was just pretty crazy that he said all these things that just described my life and the reason that I just hated life in general. And that I had a lot of hurt in me. And he stopped in the middle of the sermon and he was almost in tears. And I was in Mississippi at the time and I was very judgmental about people who had a country accent, which is kind of weird because I think that I have a country accent, a little bit, sometimes, especially when I get close to home. But I just thought they were all kind of dumb. You know, if they didn’t use good English or something? So I was kind of judging this man already just for being so southern, but when he started to almost cry it was just shocking to me because I thought old rednecks don’t cry or aren’t sentimental, but I just stared at him and was like, why is he crying?
Right.
And he stopped and said, “There’s a suicidal spirit in this room.” And like all the hairs stood up on my arms and I was like, I gotta get out of here; this is kind of weird. And by now he’s crying and he says, “Please come up and let us pray for you because God loves you and He has a plan for your life.” And I was like I gotta get out of here. So I didn’t go up to the front because, aside from the fact that I knew some of the kids that were there, [some] who I had picked fights with because they were Christians or picked arguments or whatever — there was no way I was going to stand up in front of all those people and say “That’s me,” you know? So when the service was dismissed I pretty much ran to the door to get out of there and a deacon stopped me and he held my arm — as I was running he kind of grabbed my arm to stop — and I looked at him and I guess he had been crying too. The whole service was really emotional; I think a lot of people were [crying]. But he was like, “The Lord wants me to speak to you and He wants you to know that even though [you’ve never known your father] He can be a better father to you than any other father could ever be. And I was like, so what is the coincidence? Look at me, I’m in a Pantera shirt and my hair’s purple and of course he probably guessed that I didn’t have a dad or something, I don’t know, but I still didn’t believe. I was like, this is just a coincidence. But then he just said, “God knows all the pain in your heart and Jesus died to take that away and will you let me pray for you?” And so it was kind of out of desperation. I was like, well, I had tried everything else, and I’m going to die tomorrow, I might as well let you do your prayer or whatever. So he started praying for me and literally it felt like God had just shown up and wrapped his arms around me. [And I was surprised] that God cared enough about me to say that He loved me anyway even though I’d hated Him or at least the idea of Him. And I hated Him in a lot of ways like by hating people. And that He loves me anyway. He showed me that I was unloving, but that He loved me anyway. And that was the Grace that I had never heard of before in any other conversation that I had had with any Christians. I never heard of Grace like that, or forgiveness. And I remember feeling love for the first time in my life. And I remember going home and being real turned around. I was like, “Is there a God,” you know? And “What does that mean?” I was like, if there is a God then I have to think about all of this. And I remember waking up the next day and going, “OK, God, if you’re real, then why did you wake me up today because I wasn’t supposed to? And what do you want me to do with this life and why is it that important to you?” And ever since then I’ve been trying to figure out what that is.
Well, it seems that with the popularity of Flyleaf that at least part of it has been to share your experiences and help others in similar situations either cope with or prevent their own, and to bring music into people’s minds, and there’s a lot to be proud of I would think.
Yeah. There were a lot of things that came out of me not dyin.’ But Flyleaf is one of those things I guess, and it has done a lot of amazing things. It could have come from someone else, I mean it didn’t have to be me, but it’s pretty awesome that I got — and that was part of it too. We weren’t trying to do anything huge, we just wanted to say, “Whatever you want to do God, do it.” And I didn’t really think he’d want me — I mean music is great, you know? And I love music, but it’s not my favorite thing. I kinda like, I like taking care of kids and teaching kids stuff.
Have you ever done any kind of work like that?
Yeah, actually. Before the band started full time I had a home daycare. I worked at an elementary school for a little bit, but I hated the politics. So I started the daycare. And that was my favorite thing. I worked as a waitress one time and I realized that my favorite time working at the restaurant was when the kids would come in. I would just laugh and talk with them.
Do you want to have kids of your own someday?
Yeah, I’d love too. You know, as much as you can plan that. I guess we’d like to have kids soon, but we’ll see. You never know what’s going to happen.
To read the full interview, go here:
Full Interview with Flyleaf's Lacey Mosley | Features | Arts & Entertainment | Atlantic City Weekly
Lacey Mosely (Lead Singer of Flyleaf) over came suicide...
Your Privacy Choices
