Steve Gleason, during a 15 year fight with ALS, releases inspiring music album

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Former NFL Player Steve Gleason Turns to Music with Empowering New Project During 15-Year Fight Against ALS

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New Orleans Saints legend Steve Gleason is sharing the power of music.

Two decades after the Saints played their first game back at the Superdome in 2006 following Hurricane Katrina, and 15 years after Gleason was diagnosed with ALS in 2011, he’s releasing a powerful new music project to mark the anniversary.

Gleason, 49, and a group of musicians announced REBIRTH, a 12-song project inspired by his football career and experience living with the incurable disease on Thursday, Oct. 1.

“Music became a way to access parts of myself that I have not lost to ALS,” Gleason tells PEOPLE. “I can’t play guitar anymore. I can’t sing. I can’t even speak with my own voice. But the urge to express myself has endured.”

The former NFL star says he was able to access “those parts of myself — the memories, the love, the isolation, the delight, the sorrow, the fear, the joy, the mystery,” through writing the songs for REBIRTH.

“I hope people hear REBIRTH and connect with those parts of themselves too,” Gleason says. “The parts that circumstance can’t take away. The parts that are still capable of creating, loving, becoming. To make full contact with Life. Because, you’re not dead, yet.”

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