Sid: My guest Georgian Banov, some of you are familiar with him because in the early ‘70s he had a band called, Silver Wind and he wrote several songs that many of you sing today to your children, “Bullfrog and Butterflies” and “Music Machine.” Three and a half million copies probably more than that he won Grammy and Dove Awards and I would like to find out a bit about him, because actually I spoke at one of his conferences and he plays the violin. And when he plays the violin, there is a presence of God that is transmitted that no matter how bad circumstances are in your life, the joy of the Lord literally takes over. And Georgian you were born in a communist country in Bulgaria, you came from obviously atheistic background and you started the first, I’m told you started the first rock and roll band in Bulgaria.
Georgian: Yes, the first rock and roll band, me and three boys started it in 1965 was our début on national television; it’s still on u-tube you can get to see it.
Sid: Now, why did the government eventually shut you down?
Georgian: Well, because they realized that they made a mistake, because we were stirring young people by the thousands coming to our concerts and they are getting rowdy and clapping hands and even clapping hands a thousand people clapping hands in Bulgaria was a threatening thing. It was like scary, like whoa, what are they going to do next?
Sid: Okay, now how did you get out of Bulgaria to the United States?
Georgian: Well, after the communist shut us down, I just developed this desire to be free and it just took over me and I couldn’t shake it off and all I could do is think I have to get out of here and I have to go be free. And I escaped the iron curtain, it was a very dangerous thing, crazy and a lot of people lost their lives, but like I say, that passion for freedom over took me and I just escaped.
Sid: Now, of course in those days you didn’t have a lot of food so when you came to California in the early ‘70s you bump into the Jesus movement and you especially bumped into some people that gave you good food. You weren’t interested in the Lord; you were interested in the food.
Georgian: Of course, I didn’t believe there was a God, I was communist you know now but they kept feeding me and my belly kept drawing me to them. And my mind said there’s no God, but my stomach said oh, yes there is you get back in there and eat you know, and it was a funny way but it the Lord He used food to draw me to himself.
Sid: So after two months of this free food and they finally asked you to accept the Lord and you said a prayer, but you had this especially with your back ground of atheism and communism, you had this gnawing feeling on the inside, I’m still not sure about God. How did you get sure?
Georgian: I had just one thought came to my mind to say God did exist, so I said it. I said that one sentence and as soon as the sentence left; my breath left and I said that sentence out loud, I was alone on top of a mountain, everything changed around me, like even the acoustics around me. Kind of like someone came close to me and bigger and bigger, much bigger than me and got close to me and changed everything. I can feel this personal presence of something but I could not see it, but I could feel it. And I began to talk to, I said, “Who is this?” What am I feeling you know and it got thicker and thicker and then it was just like a lightning of faith went through me that God exists, that He’s around, He is there, I can’t see Him, but He’s around me.
Sid: Do you know what’s interesting? As you’re just talking about that experience I can feel the presence of God increasing. Can you?
Georgian: Yes, because He’s here and He’s always here and of course now I know who He is, I don’t need to see Him, I know who He is.
Sid: Okay, a few weeks later then you had your first vision and tell me about it.
Georgian: Yeah, actually the first night after this, by the way I fell on the ground when I felt that this is God, and I fell on the ground and I shook on the dirt on top of that mountain the entire day and it got dark and I shook because I felt His presence was on me and I said, “I’m sorry that I haven’t been knowing nothing about you coming to life for me. But here you are and I want to know you, I want to know everything about you.” And that was my only prayer through tears and shaking and violent shaking at that discovery. I mean I was twenty-five. Image all these years, never knowing anything about God. So I went down to the house where these young people were feeding me and stuff and they could tell as I walked in the door that something dramatic had happened and they began to worship the Lord, all of a sudden I saw a vision of two hands towards me, like to hug me. And I fell in those two hands you know and I fell in the arms of Jesus and I could not see Him, but I could see His arms and His hands particularly. And He put His arms around me, and I shook and cried on that floor for a long time. And then they kept saying that there’s more, there’s more you got to baptized with the Holy Ghost and I couldn’t understand what that was, but I kept asking. And then one day, I had like an amazing experience, first of all I heard a sound, like a surround sound like static, like soccer bowl fans let’s say, in my mind I could hear this thousands of fans cheering and cheering in ecstasy and all of a sudden, the air in front of me like, opened, like it was a veil of some sort. Then all of a sudden, I’m stepping into the throne room and it was a huge place and that the throne was at the middle of it and it was surrounded by millions of angels who were swirling, swirling and screaming in ecstasies of pleasure and joy to the point that they could hardly handle any more. I mean like it was like amazing and fire were going outside through their bodies, fire was coming out from the throne like lightning’s and then a fireball the size of like a grapefruit just aimed right at me, right from the throne of God right through them shot right into my chest. Boom and it hit me it was like heat went inside of my whole body, even physically, I began to overheat and then a second ball came in of fire and it was just; I didn’t expect that so I began to overheat so much I pulled out from that realm of Heaven, the Heavenly realm because I couldn’t sustain and I just started pulling out and now I’m in the room where I was and all of a sudden fire is everywhere, I can’t even run away, I just ran out of the room because the room was so hot you know. And it was a cool like a February in California.
Sid: Do you know what I’m thinking? You had a gift for music; I mean you started the first Rock and Roll band in Bulgaria, but what happens when your gift for music for violin gets anointed from Heaven, people experience supernatural joy, people have visitations, people see angels, I want you to hear Georgian play some of this violin from our new CD that we just put together of him, the best of everything that he’s ever done just for Messianic Vision collection.
Georgian worship music
