Viral Singer Leaves Music Industry to Start Ministry
By Movieguide® Contributor
Oliver Anthony went viral last year for his hit song, “Rich Men North of Richmond” — a song that resonated with listeners as it decried government overreach.
Now, a year later, Anthony has decided to leave the traditional music industry behind to start a traveling ministry.
“I’ve decided that moving forward, I don’t need a Nashville management company. I don’t even need to exist within the space of music. So, I’m looking at switching my whole business over to a traveling ministry,” he revealed in a YouTube video.
“I have this vision for this thing that I’m calling the Real Revival Project, and it’s basically going to start as a grassroots music festival, but hopefully it grows into something that can literally change our landscape and our culture and the way we live,” he explained.
READ MORE: OLIVER ANTHONY SHARES GOSPEL ON JOE ROGAN’S PODCAST
“Anthony said he’s doing his first ‘thrown together’ show on Saturday, but he wants to create something that exists ‘parallel to Nashville that circumvents the monopolies of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, and it goes into towns that haven’t had music in them in a long time,'” Fox News reported.
Billboard noted that while Anthony plans to continue to release music, those songs would be part of his The Rural Revival Project “which would ‘be set up legally as a ministry,’ he noted, and would aid in revitalizing farming and other rural communities.”
He wants to turn abandoned farms into places that can minister to “People who have just gotten out of rehab, with PTSD, and people who are depressed and suicidal.” They can “come here and reconnect with nature and learn to exist outside of a system that has just kind of been placed on us as a generation,” his website explains.
“This voice from God that keeps putting this vision in my head of a way to make a real impact in this world, to make a real change, to help light a fire that no one really can extinguish in my lifetime or after,” the singer said of his desire to start something new.
Anthony doesn’t think he’s anyone special.
“I’m just somebody who thinks the whole way we live is…backward and so stupid, and it serves nobody but the people at the top of the hierarchy that we no longer really need to serve,” he said.
“I just want to help bridge the gap between millions of people who all believe in the greater vision of us all just getting back to living a normal life,” Anthony added.
