Carlos Santana Sees Next Career as Minister

Recent interview reveals unexpected direction for classic rocker

Reuters Created: Oct 6, 2008 Last Updated: Oct 6, 2008

Rock and guitar legend Carlos Santana expressed in a recent interview his interests after retiring from the music business. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters)—Carlos Santana is on tour and has an album coming out, but in an interview with Rolling Stone posted online last Friday, the rocker said he sees himself one day heading up a church in Hawaii.

Santana also told the magazine about the pain of recently going through a divorce from his wife of 34 years, Deborah.

The 61-year-old rocker described in the interview how his faith has helped him get through low points in his life, and that he would like to start a church in Maui, Hawaii.

"I'm going to stop playing when I'm 67 and work on what I really want to do, which is to be a minister, like Little Richard," he said to Rolling Stone.

"I'm not sick of what I do, but I find that God gave me the gift of communication even without my guitar and with the ability to get people unstuck with certain sections of the Bible having to do with guilt, shame, judgment, and fear."

Santana started his Live Your Light tour on Sept. 6 in Auburn, Wash. The 23-date tour ends on Oct. 12 in Concord, Calif.

His two-disc album Multi-Dimensional Warrior, a compilation of Santana songs from his 40-year career, comes out on Oct. 14.