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Chad Matheny

Chad Matheny

American singer-songwriter known professionally as Emperor X, based in Berlin since 2012

Jul 31, 2026

50:08
What is the church's name?
50:10
It was called new covenant ministries.
50:12
Um, it was, I think it was on, um, St. John's bluff road, uh, in Jacksonville, Florida.
50:18
It was right off a nine a they didn't build it yet, but it was, uh, it was, uh, it was on the, developing kind of at that point not really developed swampy uh suburbs of jacksonville and it was it was a school and radio station and church and observatory and uh and and missionary uh hub so they would fund a lot of like missionary people it was it was a regular church too uh but there was a whole community around it and and i've it was a big part of how i look at the world honestly like i I think again, like there's, there's a lot of nonsense and the church fell apart in a big scandal at one point, because I think that there was some kind of, someone was addicted to something and misappropriating church funds.
51:04
That's some things always happen.
51:05
The problem is, the problem is it was, the problem is it was a, it was a non-denominational church.
51:10
And that means there's no oversight, right? So they're just like, there's, he may have had a divinity degree, the pastor and his wife who ran the church together.

6 MINS LATER

57:38
humanism.
7:24
But give us, like, the briefest of, uh, explanations of that project, and then we'll get deeper into it later.
7:32
Um, I have been recording a lot of songs, uh, and also have a ton of friends in Ukraine 'cause I've been playing shows there for many years now, I guess it's accurate to say.
7:43
At the start of the, uh, at the start of the war, my wife and I were pretty active in refugee aid, and I'm pretty salty online in my, um, my fairly vocal support and advocacy for, for, uh, Ukraine winning.
7:57
Um, and this emo kid from Ukraine who liked my stuff invited me to come over, and obviously I'm gonna say yes to that.
8:06
Like, that's amazing.
8:07
Um, so he set up some shows in Sumy and Kharkiv and Odessa and Kyiv and Kremenchuk and Ternopil and, and a few other places I'm forgetting, I'm sure.
8:18
Khmelnytskyi, right? I forget.

18 MINS LATER

26:39
Mm-hmm.

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