If you're a sinner, then get along to Oh My God! It's The Church at The Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth

He’s on a mission to save all of us miserable sinners through Oh My God! It’s The Church – a 10-piece band which preaches the – ahem – message in a way quite like no other.

With songs like Armageddon On It, Kiss My Apocalips, Sexy Jesus Will 4give U, and Higher The Hair (next line: “the closer to God”), along with his righteous backing singers, The Hail Marys, this preacher will get you somewhere in the ballpark of divine absolution.

Speaking in a curious southern drawl and claiming to hail from Birmingham, Alabama, The Right Rev’d says from the off: “I spent $50 on the internet to get that title, and I appreciate it if I'm called it.”

As a young man in America, he soon realised that he could bring his message across the Atlantic to save our souls.

“I grew up in church and sometimes it's kind of boring, but I noticed a little gap in the market because America is the land of capitalism, so you got to make a quick buck.

“And I thought to myself, hey, a little bit of razzmatazz, a little bit of showmanship, maybe we can make some money out of this mother.

"I had some friends who lived over in the Unified Kingdom – you love a little American razzmatazz, a little bit of Las Vegas shine on there, so I came over and the rest is history…

"There was nothing like what we do, and there still isn't, I guess.”

And he’s keen to impress that their gigs, sorry, services, are open to all.

"Our church is kind of over religion, you know what I mean? Everybody's welcome, really. It's not really like a religious thing. It's more of a communi-tah,” that final syllable is emphasised like that, “for everybody. No matter who you are, where you come from, what you look like, you can always come and have fun with us.

"It takes all the best bits of church – the singing, the dancing...

"We just like to party and have a good time, and hopefully there's a nice message and a way to bring everybody together, which, hell, in this world we live in, I think it needs that. We open our doors to everybody so it's not a traditional church, if you will.”

Anyone who has caught a OMG!ITC sermon already – like at Victorious Festival in 2023 – will know that a regular highlight of their shows is the song Where Did You Get Those Shoes?

"For some unbeknown reason, One time when we were playing it, I asked the audience, my congregation, as we call them, to put one shoe in the air if they're having a good time, and literally everybody did it.

"So now every time we play that tune, people just start putting their shoes up in the air. It's crazy.

"We've had people come to our shows now with shoes on sticks and inflatable kicks and throwing sandals around. “People even bring a spare shoe in their in their handbag so they don't have to take one off.They can come with the five-inch sexy stripper heels and dance around, but then they've got an easy-access shoe for that moment.

“But I appreciate it all the more, I think especially in the in the Unified,” yes, unified, “Kingdom with your inclement climate, when it is in a festival field when it's all muddy and crazy, I appreciate the fact that people get their socks out and take their shoe off and stumble around. They probably regret it later, but at the time it's really good.”

But it’s all really about redemption and saving our souls – The Right Rev’d is doing this for us miserable sinners.

“I love sinners because I always say: ‘If you don't sin, then Jesus died for nothing. And that's sad.’

"So I encourage people to sin before, during and after our church services, but hopefully, you know, we give people the opportuni-tah to celebrate the goodness. There's a lot of bad stuff going on in the world, so we we we kind of celebrate the beauty and the positivi-tah in our services.”

There is of course, also confession.

“As part of the show, we have a section, like a confession. We give people the opportuni-tah to come up on the stage, or I go into the audience, and we get them to tell us one of the worst things they've ever done, to release the anvil of guilt on their shoulders, right?

"It's a safe space, you can say whatever you want. No one will judge you. Well, we do judge them afterwards because that's what we do. But it's a kind of safe space…

"I can't think of any off the top of my head that are suitable for a family publication, but we've had some good ones.”

A voice off-camera – we’re talking on Zoom – suddenly shouts: “What about the chutney?”

"Aw, yes!” says The Right Rev’d. “we play some weird-ass places in this band, my friend – and we played this gig called The Pig's Nose. And it is in De-vahn, in the middle of nowhere.” It really is – I checked the map. “As we drove in on the tour bus, we drove past this quintessential British fete, this summer fair right in the village. There's streamers and stuff going on and little tablecloths and it all looks nice.

"Anyway, we went to the gig, and I got to the confession section and I was like: ‘Has anyone got anything that they want to confess?’

“And it's all local people. God knows where they all came from, because there's 350 people in the middle of nowhere. This lady, this middle-aged lady, very sweet, looked like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, she came up on the stage and said: ‘I've got something I want to say. I need to make a confession’.

"So she stood in front of this crowd of all her friends and family and local people and said that she'd entered the local chutney-making competition at the village fete.

“I was like, ‘That's very wholesome’. But she said she had burned the chutney, so she had some Aldi grocery store chutney in her house. She put that in a jar and then entered it – and won.

"This was the same day. So she said this, and it sounds quite innocent, but the place went wild, people were shouting: ‘Burn her!” We had to escort her out the side door because she caused such a ruckus.

"Don't mess with the village fete. I was scared for her life. But yeah, that's a little snippet of the kind of weird stuff you get at our show.”

The only time the good reverend and his associates have graced our city was the aforementioned festival appearance, so they’re looking forward to saving some more souls here.

"I'm really excited about the Ports-Mouth,” pronounced as two words, like a proper American, “gig because I've only been there once in my life and it was playing at Victorious Festival two years ago, and it was great fun.

"We played in between two drum and bass DJs, so it was quite a handbrake turn of genre, but people loved it.

So we're coming back this time. It's our first ever tour show in the town. And it's almost sold out, which is wild. Who knew the people of Ports-Mouth needed saving?”

Given your love of sinners, who’s the biggest sinner among them?

The Right Rev’d pauses to think. “The keys player, Morgan The Organ. He's annoying. He is always pulling pranks and annoying everyone just by being himself, really.

" And who else? I mean, when you say sinner, my bass player is also quite annoying because all of his equipment always breaks. Whether that's sinning in your eyes or not, it definitely is sinning in my eyes.

“People look out for like a puff of smoke from his bass amp during the gig, and that's not pyrotechnics. That's just him being useless.”

But he’s saved the biggest sinner for last: “Sister Mary Lou. She is one of the the triumvirate of gospel singers in the band, The Hail Marys, they're called.

“Sister Mary Lou, she's always getting up to mischief. You can't go to a festival without losing Sister Mary Lou. She always disappears off into the night after a show, and then she comes back and she's just got these injuries and she's covered in twigs… You're like: ‘What have you been doing?!’

“Then you hear about all the chaos she's been causing over the next couple of days.

“So Sister Mary Lou is probably the naughtiest amongst us.”

Only a handful of tickets remain for Oh My God! It’s The Church, supported by Flaccid Haus, at The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea on Thursday, February 20. They are £18 from wedgewood-rooms.co.uk.