{"id":22821,"date":"2015-01-13T11:50:36","date_gmt":"2015-01-13T16:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=22821"},"modified":"2015-01-19T09:01:02","modified_gmt":"2015-01-19T14:01:02","slug":"konrad-wert-a-k-a-possessed-by-paul-james-draws-spotlight-from-billboard-charts-npr-and-ny-times-before-returning-yet-again-to-emu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/konrad-wert-a-k-a-possessed-by-paul-james-draws-spotlight-from-billboard-charts-npr-and-ny-times-before-returning-yet-again-to-emu\/","title":{"rendered":"Konrad Wert, a.k.a. Possessed by Paul James, draws spotlight from Billboard charts, NPR and NY Times before returning (yet again) to EMU"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was 1994 when Konrad Wert \u201901 arrived at Eastern Mennonite University\u00a0for the first time, and he didn\u2019t stay long. Iffy about college from the start, he left after his freshman year for a voluntary service term in Washington D.C. Once that ended, he returned to EMU, stayed a bit, then departed again to volunteer in California.<\/p>\n

A yo-yo pattern was developing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just didn\u2019t feel like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, so I would drop out,\u201d says Wert, who went on to spend time in South Texas and Central America during subsequent dropouts from college.<\/p>\n

But Wert couldn\u2019t quite shake EMU altogether. A 1996 cross-cultural<\/a> to Ghana blew his eyes wide open. He made some close friends, got involved in peace and justice activism on campus, and was inspired by a handful of professors who raised provocative, poignant questions about what it meant to be Mennonite (he was raised in a Mennonite family and congregation in Florida).<\/p>\n

By 2001, Wert had cobbled together enough credits to graduate with a liberal arts degree<\/a> and a slew of minors, including one in music<\/a>. As a freshman, he\u2019d considered studying viola performance. By his super-super-super senior year, he was playing genre-bending shows around campus and Harrisonburg with The Red Wagon Band, alongside classmates Trent Wagler \u201802, Jaime Miller \u201801, and Nick Hurst \u201901.\"Wert_Konrad_Courtesy_web1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fittingly, music will bring Wert back to campus once more on Saturday, Jan. 17, for an 8 p.m. concert at EMU\u2019s MainStage Theater<\/a>. He performs manic, foot-stomping folk, country and Americana music as a one-man band under the name Possessed by Paul James<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The wanderlust that kept interrupting Wert\u2019s college studies didn\u2019t end with college. After graduation, he and his wife, Jenny, moved to New Mexico, then Texas. They lived in Maine for a time, then in Colorado, then back to Texas when their first son was born, to be closer to family. During that nomadic phase, Wert had mainly worked in the nonprofit world. After returning to Texas, he became a teacher \u2013 a career direction in which he\u2019d always felt pulled. He is now a special education teacher at Curington Elementary School in Boerne, Texas.<\/p>\n

Wert has been playing as Possessed by Paul James since 2006. He\u2019d played a few dozen shows a year and thought it would always just be a side project. But then, to his surprise, his most recent album \u2013 There Will Be Nights When I\u2019m Lonely<\/a> \u2013 made a run on the Americana\/Bluegrass Billboard charts (peaking at #12 in November of 2013). The following spring, Wert was featured on NPR<\/a>, and at the end of 2014, a New York Times critic included a Possessed by Paul James show on a list of 2014\u2019s ten best concerts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were kind of dumbstruck with what the attention has been this past year,\u201d says Wert. (It wasn\u2019t the first time attention has been paid, though; Wert was featured in a 2008 documentary, The Folk Singer,<\/em> by Slowboat Films, and a previous album, Feed the Family, won an Independent Music Award in 2011 for Best Alt Country Album.)<\/p>\n

Wert\u2019s friends from EMU who have followed his music are less surprised by the critical praise.<\/p>\n

\u201cKonrad is pure energy, pure heart,\u201d says former bandmate Trent Wagler, who now fronts the widely acclaimed Americana band, The Steel Wheels<\/a>. \u201cI have never been around a more passionate performer or artist. He is an inspiring, creative force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professor Ted Grimsrud<\/a> recalls Wert\u2019s large impact on EMU \u201cwith his energy, commitment to peace, and outsized personality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe plays with a joyful, soulful intensity. His stage name, Possessed by Paul James, indicates something of his out-of-left-field sensibility. Konrad does his music his way, following his own muse. It’s exciting to see him meet with success.\u201d<\/p>\n

As that musical success grows, Wert finds himself confronted with decisions about the future. He loves teaching, even though he gets \u201creal rowdy\u201d about the unrealistic demands placed on teachers and public schools across the country, and the growing gap between what\u2019s needed in schools and the resources allocated to them \u2013 topics that find their way into much of his songwriting.<\/p>\n

(Wert has also been recognized for his work in the classroom, having recently been named Teacher of the Year at his school.)<\/p>\n

He and his wife have two sons now, ages 4 and 6, and the family loves to travel. Every summer they load up the van and wander. The recent success of Possessed by Paul James has them wondering whether they could wander more full-time from show to show, visiting schools along the way to perform, talk, listen and stay engaged.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you leave [education], you kind of give up on the process of changing it,\u201d Wert says. \u201cAnd if you stay in it, you internalize it, and it can make the quality of life pretty hard.\u2026 It\u2019s hard to find a balance where you\u2019re passionate and positive day after day after day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe Wert\u2019s unexpected recent musical success will offer a shot at that sort of balance, though there are lots of \u201cifs\u201d to figure out. Wert and family are looking at Winnebagos, thinking about their next adventure. Wert plays a show in Washington D.C. on Friday evening. Then it\u2019s back once more to EMU on Saturday and quickly away again for class on Monday. The future is uncertain, exciting, but for now there are still lessons to plan and progress reports to write.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was 1994 when Konrad Wert \u201901 arrived at Eastern Mennonite University\u00a0for the first time, and he didn\u2019t stay long. Iffy about college from the start, he left after his ... read more about Konrad Wert, a.k.a. Possessed by Paul James, draws spotlight from Billboard charts, NPR and NY Times before returning (yet again) to EMU<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":22828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[266,7931,5583,14184,14715,5597,5183],"tags":[15843,8739,11902,6333],"feature":[],"class_list":["post-22821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-arts","category-campus-community","category-campus-guests","category-campus-life","category-liberal-arts","category-music","tag-jaime-miller","tag-ted-grimsrud","tag-the-steel-wheels","tag-trent-wagler"],"yoast_head":"\nKonrad Wert, a.k.a. 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