Tori Kelly – From “Dear No One” to “I Was Made for Loving You”

“How did you two meet?” I get this question often and it’s actually one of my favorite stories to tell, so I thought it was finally time to write about it. Hang with me 🙂

“Dear No One”, was my anthem from Tori Kelly’s “Forward” EP and she was just weeks away from releasing her first album. I was excited to hear what she would share about her upcoming album during an interview. Being the fangirl that I am, I posted the interview to my Facebook page.

“She missed an opportunity.” He commented on my post.

“Are you sure about that?” I replied.

I didn’t pay any mind to his response, if he did respond because I was more interested in who had the nerve to say anything about what Tori did or didn’t say; of course I had to find out. Scrolling through his Facebook page I saw that we had mutual friends. Then I remembered I added this guy because we had mutual friends and he was playing/holding a guitar in his profile pic, but the picture didn’t show his face. Naturally I wanted to see what he looked like, so I went through his pictures. “Ehh, he’s alright.” “Ooo he’s cute in this one.” I couldn’t make up my mind if he was cute or not, so I moved on to his “about me” section and saw a link for an album he had recorded. I wasn’t thoroughly impressed by his vocals, but I liked a few of his tracks and he played percussion, which sparked my interest a bit more.

A couple of weeks go by and I had my plan to start recording my EP, but I was still searching for a percussionist. I remembered the guy, who had something to say about what my homegirl Tori said (that sounded exactly like you know I’d say it too lol) and I reached out to him.

“Hey, I saw that you have an album you recorded a while back. Do you play percussion by any chance?”

He responded sooner than I expected, “Yes, I do. And I play guitar as well.”

“Would you be interested in potentially playing for my EP I’m working on?”

“Yea! I actually just bought a guitar and could come over now if you want.”

I was not expecting to have a complete stranger come to my home; especially having to go to work the next morning, but I thought, “Here goes nothing.”

“Ok, but I am not dressed to impress.” I was home and cozy wearing sweats.

“That’s ok. Send me your address and I’ll head over.”

45min later, Zachary Javier Gomez showed up at my condo, got out of his car, shook my hand as he introduced himself and in that very moment I KNEW. And when you KNOW you KNOW. We spent the next 4hrs talking, playing guitar and singing like we’d known each other our whole lives.

After that night, he kept coming back and we kept playing guitar and singing together. It was one week after us meeting that Tori’s debut album released and I played the album for him. He picked up on, “I Was Made for Loving you” feat. Ed Sheeran, I harmonised with him as he played guitar and 3 months later we sang that very song at our wedding for our families and friends.

A month after our wedding, as a wedding gift to Zachary, I bought us tickets to see Tori in concert at Emo’s in Austin, making that our very first concert together.

We’ve since gone to another concert of Tori’s and even named our baby girl of the bunch Victoria-Lyric after her. I said all that to say, Tori Kelly is the reason Zachary and I are married and she will always hold a special place in our hearts. Her voice, artistry and love for Jesus has brought so much joy to many people; especially me.