Kristeen Young gets SALTy

Kristeen Young: I was 14 and was adopted, but only legally. It was a difficult house with many rules, no affection, and a board of education that only handed out punitive lessons. We lived at church. There were the Sunday mornings that only ended in going back Sunday evening, Missionettes on Wednesdays, and a myriad of any excuse to… go to church.

It was a confusing message: God is love, now let me push you through this glass side door window. But, you know this story. The thing is, back then, I liked church because it wasn’t that house.

Sometimes on Friday nights there was S.A.L.T. (Save a Life Today). S.A.L.T. was a Christian rock band whose core members were a young married couple. Thomas Reynolds played drums and his sensuous wife, Sandra Reynolds, sang and emoted. I was mesmerized. This was the closest thing to freedom I had ever seen. I wanted to sing like Sandra. I wanted to look like Sandra. I wanted to hold an audience in the still eye of a swirling tornado of heaven, hell, past, future, and my mere presence…..like Sandra.

I also wanted the guitar player, junior pastor, James Hartman, age 24. I poured my own heart(man) out in a private conversation with Sandra, “I’d do anything to go out with James.” “Forget it,” Sandra advised. “He won’t even call you until you’re 16. Still, I imagined our classic married life every night in my Snoopy diary and did whatever I could to get even one look from him on Sundays, Wednesdays, and the most definitely life saving S.A.L.T. Friday nights.

Kristeen Young gets SALTy: Kristeen Young’s new single “Your Mouth is Going to Get You in All Kinds of Trouble” s out now. Her new album The Beauty Shop is out June 17.