I'm J.J. Heller, and this is Instrumental, a show about the big and small moments that shape our lives.

In every episode, my guest and I start near the end of their story and work our way back to the beginning.

I hope our conversation reminds you that every second matters, because none of us knows which moment will be the one that changes everything.

Hey everybody. Welcome back. I'm JJ. And I'm Dave. Jayj's especially good-looking husband.

True, true. And our guest today is a singer and songwriter named Matt Hammett.

Yep, he's a friend of ours, and he was the lead singer in Sanctus Real for 20 years. That's a lot of years. He's been married to his lovely

wife, Sarah, for 18 years, and they have four children. After Matt left the band, he started speaking

and sharing his music at men's and marriage conferences across the U.S., often as part of

Kirk Cameron's Living Room Reset events.

And he just recently wrote a book called Lead Me, sharing a whole bunch of stories from his life.

And Lead Me is actually named after a big song that Sanctus Real had on the radio.

At the same time that your first song landed

on the radio, JJ? Yeah, it was back in 2010, and that was just a couple years before we toured on a bus

with Sanctus Real. That's right. So in my imagination, having a number one song on the radio

would mean that all of your problems go away.

But, as we will soon hear from Matt, that was not the case. So let's get this thing started.

All right. Act 3, Newfound Freedom. In 2015, after spending 20 years on the road with

St. Israel, Matt made the hard decision to leave the band he started. In 2015, after spending 20 years on the road with Sanctus Real,

Matt made the hard decision to leave the band he started as a teenager.

Ending such a full season of his life left him with a lot to process.

Matt picks up the story right after he stepped away from the band.

When I left the band, I wasn't sure what I was going to do.

...