“My birth name was Osiris. I was born in Tucson, Arizona. My birth parents were drug addicts. I was adopted and my new parents brought me to Tennessee. They changed my name to Nathan but I use Osiris as my artist name. I grew up about twenty minutes north of Nashville. My dad was an assistant District Attorney for twenty-six years. He specialized in drug cases – which is one of the reasons I became an addict.

I didn’t have a hard life growing up. I had everything I wanted and needed. My parents are truly wonderful people and they did their very best raising me.

But I think that…where I came from originally and my free-sprit, rebellious nature…I was kind of a bad kid. I caused them many sleepless nights. I was just a dummy. I think a lot of it was like…you know, a lot of people whose parents are drug addicts don’t want to be that way. They see it growing up and they’re like, hell no, I don’t want that. So, they break the cycle, you know? They don’t ever want to be that. They didn’t want to be their parents.

Well, I didn’t want to be my parents either. It was high school when I started doing drugs. Weed, ecstasy, amphetamines….I got kicked out my junior year. I was fighting a lot of emotions and spiraled downward. I was increasing my use of drugs, alcohol kicked in and….you know, I was trying to run away from “normality”. I never wanted to be normal. To this day I’m different. I’m just a strange guy. But I was trying to be someone that I wasn’t because I was confused. I didn’t know who I was or who I wanted to be so I just came to be the life of the party.

I became a real criminal. Man, the stuff I’ve done…I should be in prison…I’ve never killed anybody but I’ve done almost everything else. I got kids addicted. I sold myself to pay for drugs. Stolen things. Overdosed more times than I can count.  Just some awful horrendous shit. It’s easier to talk about now but…man, it isn’t easy. I shouldn’t be alive or free right now. But I am.

So, this one day, I was in Venice Beach, California. I was at the lowest point in my life, the addiction had me. It totally had me. Meth, opioids, Xanax and a ridiculous amount of alcohol. I woke up in this alley and there I was about to hook up with a prostitute. I didn’t know how I got there. I stopped and pushed her off of me and it was at that moment something literally spoke to me…God talked to me and it was instant clarity. You see, for me, paying for sex is just…its just something I swore I would never do. It just…that wasn’t my values. And here I was, so out of it, that I was about to compromise one of the few strict morals that I had.

God said ‘right now you have a choice. Stop what you’re doing and go north. You’ll do wonderful things with your life but you have to leave now. The alternative? You will be dead within a month.’

It wasn’t a drug induced vision. This was different. I went sober. It was brutal. The cravings. It zapped my spirit. But I went north to San Francisco and started hanging out with the hippies. I was homeless and there were drugs all around me but I stayed clear. I had loving and supportive people around me. They helped me get through it. Then I went up to northern California. I worked at a farm. I worked outside. It was hard. I became a vegan. I quit cigarettes. I was hacking a lung. I was sweating out chemicals. I stank. I was having a psychic meltdown….but at the same time I was feeling whole again and I hadn’t felt that since I was a kid.

My parents called me. I told them I wanted to come home. My dad came and picked me up from Arkansas. I had some jail time to serve so I did that. But I needed something to fill my time and keep me out of trouble. I bought a guitar and taught myself to play. That turned into…you got to understand that music saved my life. It kept me sane. In San Francisco I just dove into the music. Music gave me something to think about. To feel. It kept me from killing myself. The music rewired my brain to love instead of being selfish.

At one point I passed through New Mexico. I fell in love.

I’ve taught myself every instrument I can get my hands on. I make music. I DJ. I’m going to take all that and create an artistic collective with a focus on people in recovery. Once you’re out of a recovery program, you’re cut loose and there isn’t enough support. That’s when people slip back. I want to set up a music program – art in general – where people can come and learn music and art skills as a way to support their healing I want to capture that beauty, help them package their creative spirit and to thrive off it. Any way that people need to express themselves, I want to foster that.

It’s my life’s mission. I’m juggling around some names for it and I need to find funding but it’s happening. I invite anyone who is interested in joining me on this to get in touch so we can get this going.

We are creators. We are creators created by a creator who wants us to create beautiful things.”

-        August 2022