Nov/Dec 2002
Solid Rock?
By Bob LiparuloThey've tuned out the gospel music industry, can they keep the faith?
Recognition like this comes once in a lifetime, if at all. On January 23, 2002, rock-rap group P.O.D. (Payable on Death) received three nominations for the Gospel Music Association's (GMA) Dove Awards, including one in the highly coveted Artist of the Year category. Instead of the usual smiles and appreciative mumbling, P.O.D.--whose songs "Alive" and "Youth of the Nation" are huge mainstream hits--took a jab at the contemporary Christian music (CCM) industry.
Front man Sonny Sandoval said: "Thanks, but we really don't want to be part of it. We're not trying to be part of this little...secret society-type thing."
His words reflect a trend among musicians of faith to distance themselves from the Christian marketplace. Increasingly, these artists bypass Christian record companies to sign with secular labels. And once in the mainstream, they tend to stay safely away from what they apparently think of as religious white water.
Creed, the sweethearts du jour of the MTV crowd, have become the poster children for this movement. "I have never done an interview with any religious publications," said Creed's singer/songwriter Scott Stapp. (New Man can attest to his resolve on that issue.)
Despite infusing their songs with positive messages and avoiding the harsh language and themes that have pervaded rock, rap and hip-hop for at least two decades, these artists dodge the Christian moniker the way Kiss steered clear of good taste. On Creed's Web site (creednet.com), for example, Stapp states plainly, "We are not a Christian band."
Lifehouse, which scored a No. 1 hit on Billboard's rock tracks chart with their song "Hanging by a Moment," from its now-double-platinum debut release, No Name Face, has followed in Creed's footsteps. Lead singer Jason Wadea former youth worship leader, along with bandmate Sergio Andradetold UCLA's Daily Bruin Online: "We are not a Christian band, but I'm a Christian."
This evasiveness marks a clear departure from the "crossover" tactics of artists such as Amy Grant and Superchic[k], who bring their Christian messages to the masses from a pulpit firmly planted in religious soil. Toby McKeehan of dc Talk somewhat formalized the credo when he proclaimed: "If we cross over, we're taking the cross over!"
Most people think the worst about musicians who avoid being lumped into the "Christian box," says Mark Joseph, author of The Rock & Roll Rebellion (Broadman & Holman). He challenges the church to take another look:
"They [people in the church] assume it's about money, or that the artists simply don't want fingers wagging at them because their lyrics or their actions don't measure up to Christian standards. In most cases, that's not it."
Roaring Lambs
In 1993, author Bob Briner wrote Roaring Lambs (Zondervan), a book that took Christians to task for failing to influence the world at large. He encouraged Christians to plunge into the secular world, not to preach but to use our values to reshape the moral climate and culture in which we live.
Briner wrote: "We have created a phenomenal subculture with our own media, entertainment, educational system, and political hierarchy so that we have the sense that we are doing a lot. But what we've really done is create a ghetto that is easily dismissed by the rest of society."
The "roaring lambs" movement finally seems to be gaining momentum now, says Robin Parrish, senior editor of cmcentral.com (CM as in Christian music). "It's breaking through into the mass consciousness, and people aren't simply talking about it; they're doing it."
In other words, not all artists are content--or called--to preach to the choir.
Case in point: Máire (pronounced "Moya") Brennan, lead vocalist of the popular mainstream group Clannad. When Brennan came to Christ, she signed with Christian label Word Records for a solo album, but she wasn't interested in performing for believers.
"Where I'm led to be at the moment is in places that are not Christian," Brennan says. "On my last tour, I was singing in rock venues, in clubs and theaters. There are people out there who don't know His love. They might be searching like I was searching."
True or not, many artists believe the Christian music industry is uninterested in cutting-edge styles of music. "There are formulas that work," says one insider who wished to remain anonymous. "Stay in the box, and you'll get your label's support. Venture too far out, and you're gone."
Or you're never there in the first place. MC Hammer, who practically invented pop-rap when he immerged in 1988, and Hanson, the teenybopper trio of brothers, originally came knocking on Christian record companies' doors. Rejected there, both signed with mainstream labels and became megastars.
When Brennan cut her deal with Word, she insisted on recording the album away from Nashville, the beating heart of CCM, and on hiring her own staff. She explains: "I said, 'If you put great producers with me that produce Point of Grace, Jaci Velásquez and Cindy Morgan, I might end up sounding like [them]."
P.O.D. languished for a decade on a CCM label, slowly building a mostly non-Christian following by playing colleges and small venues. When they "went mainstream," their popularity, and sales, exploded.
Novelist Stephen Bransford helped organize an outreach concert featuring P.O.D. just before the group's big move into mainstream. "There were believers and unbelievers, mostly teens," he says. "Everybody got into the music, but it was the non-Christians who got it. I mean, they really understood what P.O.D. was doing. They were on the same wavelength."
After the Dove nominations, Sonny Sandoval sent this message through CCM magazine, which covers Christian music: "Man, why didn't you see it before? Why did you wait for the rest of the world to start embracing P.O.D.? [Others might say,] 'Ahhh! P.O.D., the sellouts!' Sell out to what? We never had your support in the first place!"
Blurred Lines
As Christians bring their faith into the mainstream, the distinction between CCM and secular music is blurring, like a pencil line rubbed too much.
"Eventually it will be gone altogether," predicts Cameron Strang, head of Relevant Media Group, which has published works on the spirituality of U2 and Bob Dylan. He adds, however: "There will always be a need for purely Christian music. Worship music engages my spirit; praise recharges me. I'm just not sure the more contemporary stuff, the rock and rap, belongs in that box."
The masses are listeningand scarfing up wholesome CDs like potato chips. CCM (which includes bands such as P.O.D. and the O Brother, Where Art Thou? sound track in its statistics because Christian retailers stock them) is now the hottest genre in the entire music industry, with $747 million in record sales in 2000. During the first half of 2002, while the record industry bemoaned a 9 percent decline in sales, CCM sales swelled 18 percent. As Newsweek reported, "For every 10 country-music albums sold, seven Christian CDs fly off the shelf."
Christians making music in the mainstream can thank CCM crossover artists such as Amy Grant, Sixpence None the Richer and Jars of Clay for showing a skeptical public that a believer's idea of a melody line is not the sound of a thumping Bible. Other accepted musicians of faithsuch as U2, RUN-D.M.C. and Vigilantes of Lovealso helped till the fields for the current harvest of Creeds and P.O.D.s.
"Bono [of U2] almost single-handedly made the religious rocker cool," opines Jay Swartzendruber, rock aficionado and manager of public relations for Gotee Records.
Strang thinks there's another element at play here: a backlash of sorts. "Dark heavy metal and violent rap was the sound track of school shootings and skyrocketing divorce rates and an often ugly youth culture," he says. "Society as a wholekids and adultsis ready for something better. It's time to change that tune."
Says Paul McCoy of 12 Stones (which toured with Creed this summer and garnered a radio hit with the post-grunge rock song "The Way I Feel," from its self-titled debut ): "Instead of thriving on negativity and the feeling that there is no way out, we aim to express through our music that one can stay strong and weather the onslaught of difficult times."
Sour Notes
As with any large group, variety abounds, and professing musicians of faith don't always fit the image we have of a believer: P.O.D.'s full-body tattoos, Bono's off-color vocabulary, pop diva and professed Christian Jessica Simpson's vampishness and risqué lyrics. In 1999, Salon.com noted that Lauryn Hill's "every utterance and song lyric proclaim her belief in God, [but] she has two out-of-wedlock children with her live-in boyfriend."
We have a tendency to expect perfection in believers who are elevated to celebrity status, Strang says, "but we should remember that they're trying to figure out what it means to follow Christ and what that looks like in their lives, just as we are."
In an interview with Chris Seay, pop culture expert and pastor of Ecclesia Church in Houston, Creed's Scott Stapp said: "I still have a lot of questions that I wish I had answers for. That's why I don't want to tell anyone that I'm Christian."
Seay points out that questions don't negate faith. "I don't want to speak for [Scott Stapp]," Seay explains, "but I've witnessed Scott's faith. He loves the Lord."
But does working in secular music relieve these artistsor any believerfrom the obligation of proclaiming the grace of Christ?
"That doesn't mean musicians are obliged to say they are a 'Christian band' simply because they are believers or that they need to stamp God's name on every song," Seay explains.
Musician Charlie Peacock agrees. In his book, At the Crossroads, he writes: "You can own a coffee house without justifying its existence by naming it a 'Christian' coffee house, while at the same time ministering to others in the name of Christ. Better that our colleagues and customers know us as Christians by our love and good deeds rather than by our letterhead."
This concept may be especially true for musicians.
"The Christian music industry has been almost too effective at defining itself," Swartzendruber says. "The term 'Christian musician' no longer means a musician who happens to be Christian. It connotes a type of music, a genre, in which Jesus Christ is praised or specifically addressed. When these artists say they are not 'Christian musicians,' they're not trying to deny their relationship with Christthey're saying, 'I don't make that kind of music.'"
But should they? Should musicians of faith make only music that specifically mentions Christ? "That's an old debate," Seay says. "Some say yes, but in my view as long as a song honors the things God cherishes, you can write it, perform it or listen to it."
The upshot is that positive messages have reached ears that may have never heard a sermon.
"My music is spiritually based," Jason Wade of Lifehouse told Rolling Stone magazine, "but we don't want to be labeled as a 'Christian band' because all of a sudden people's walls go up and they won't listen to your music and what you have to say."
Says Sonny Sandoval of P.O.D.: "In everything we do, I think there is a spirit of God that goes out. We don't have to read Scripture to make it known. God is going to touch who He plans to touch, whether it is one person in the audience or every single person. We have to lead with the faith that God is doing this, not us."
Stealth Christians?
Has this movement amounted to something other than mere record sales? Has it done any good? Altar calls are unheard of at secular concerts for obvious reasons, but fan newsgroups offer glimpses at the spiritual stirring the music inspires.
"I went to the concert for the music," wrote one person on The Warrior Forum, P.O.D.'s official fan bulletin board accessible through their Web site. "Now I want to know more about this faith of theirs. If it makes them feel as 'alive' as they say in the song, I'm interested."
Another fanwith the nickname I.M. Hookedwrote, "I know Jesus Christ because of P.O.D. Hallelujah!" Fan sites for other bands report similar messages.
These stealth-Christian musicians not only introduce people to the grace of God, but they're also helping to bend our culture back toward His light as well.
Just a few years ago, a visit to the average FM radio station gave you an earful of violence and despair, sex and sexism. Now, you're likely to hear about the importance of being a good parent, the stupidity of drug abuse and even unabashed praises to Jesus Christ.
"There is definitely a shift toward more wholesome lyrics in the general marketplace," Strang says. "It started with mainstream musicians who are also believers. Now others have picked up on it, too."
Take Linkin Park, whose Hybrid Theory was the best-selling album of 2001--and it contained no bad language. Zero. Says Mark Joseph, author of The Rock & Roll Rebellion: "As record executives realize that quality and hope sell more records than sex and violence, they'll start pushing their artists in that direction."
One exec seems to have come around already. Referring to P.O.D., Atlantic Records' Rick Sudakoff said: "It's like, 'Wow. They have what I want inside.' I find their music very inspirational, not in the old, hokey evangelical sense but in something I can relate to. If I can relate to it, and I'm 46, look at the possibilities."
P.O.D. may be helping to reduce the smut on the perennially smutty MTV, as well. Francis Lawrence, the director of the band's video for their God-honoring song "Alive," wanted to include "hard-core" sex scenes.
He told MTV: "I wanted...the guy [in the video] going surfing, hanging with friends and getting laid." P.O.D. nixed that last one. The video's popularity [it was up for Video of the Year at MTV's Video Music Awards] almost guarantees imitators.
"Superstar musicians wield incredible influence over their fans and the media," Swartzendruber says. "As more Christians enter the arena and rise in popularity, the balance of power will start leaning back toward a conservative perspective. The potential positive effect on our culture is staggering to consider."
Defying Labels
As fewer believers are sticking with safely labeled "Christian music," increasingly, voices worth hearing call from outside the walls of our little "ghetto," as Bob Briner called it.
But isn't finding such bands a fool's errand, considering they don't want to be found...or found out? Not necessarily.
Experts suggest checking with review sites and magazines such as Focus on the Family's Plugged In (family.org/pplace/pi), Crosswalk.com, CCM magazine (ccmmagazine.com) and Relevant magazine (relevantmagazine.com).
Still, knowing the heart of anyone, let alone an elusive artist-type, is no lay-up.
"We're forever puzzling over just where a musician stands," Strang says. "Bob Dylan has made enough overtly Christian statements for you to say, 'Yeah, that guy's a believer.' But he's kept an air of mystery about him, so I don't think anyone knows for sure. The bottom line has to be: Does the artistor a particular songjive with Scripture?"
In an interview with Robin Parrish for cmcentral.com, GMA president Frank Breeden concluded: "At the end of the day, people who are on the edge of suicide or depression or failure aren't giving up hope. Whether they hear P.O.D. sing 'Alive' or they hear Bill Gaither sing about heaven. There are all different kinds of ears out there that are looking for the same message in a language that they'll understand."
Bob Liparulo is a contributing editor for New Man magazine.
P.O.D. at Ozzfest: Courageous or foolish?
Billed as the second most-attended concert series in America, Ozzfest is the tour for heavy metal bands. Thanks to creator and headliner Ozzy Osbourne's satanic persona and the violent, obscenity-prone bands that perform, Ozzfest is considered the wildest, nastiest, most hellacious rock party around. (The tour's official poster depicts a huge demon leaping from the stage into the audience.)
Ozzfest audiences typically respond in kind, often brawling, toking up, and having sex. It's hard to tell if the "Keep Rock Evil" T-shirts are meant to be funny or a mission statement. Not a place you'd expect to hear Christians of faith crooning (albeit at the top of their lungs) messages of hope and divine love.
But during the summer of 2002, that's what P.O.D. was doing from the festival's main stage, alongside hard-core musicians Tommy Lee, Rob Zombie and Adema.
P.O.D. guitarist Marcos Curiel told the Hard Rock Cafe: "We're here to be an example--on-stage, off-stage. That's what we do. There's only so much you can sing about sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll or partying. That's why we wrote our party song ['Rock the Party (Off the Hook),' which includes the line, 'Spread His love is the master plan']. We can still party in a good way and still have a great time, but still rock the joint like anyone else."
"I understand they're trying to be a light in the darkness," says journalist Mark Olsen. "But I have to wonder if P.O.D.'s being there is an implied endorsement of what goes on. Are Christian kids going to say, 'P.O.D.'s Christian and look where they are. I can be there too?'"
Pastor Chris Seay thinks that's a stretch: "You can say P.O.D.'s on a rescue mission, though I don't know if that's how they'd see it. But if you're out on the ocean in a storm to rescue some overboard seamen, you're not telling your friends: 'Water's fine! Come on in!'"
If that's what P.O.D.'s doing, says John Fornof, a writer at Focus on the Family, "parents need a heads up. You don't want parents who recognized the group's faith encouraging their teens to attend a concert when it's part of something like Ozzfest."
Drummer Noah "Wuv" Bernardo wants to assure fans that the band's presence at such debauchery doesn't mean they've compromised their integrity.
"A lot of Christian kids have a hard time understanding how we can go out into the world and play our music and get along with all these bands," he says. "It's because of God. God has been so real in our lives that we are enabled to do that. There is no way any band is going to rub off on P.O.D. more than P.O.D. is going to rub off on another band."
PLUG IN!
P.O.D....payableondeath.com
Lifehouse...lifehousemusic.com
Creed...creednet.com
12 Stones...12stones.com
U2...U2.com
Gary Cherone/Tribe of Judah...tojonline.com
Máire Brennan...moyabrennan.com
Bob Dylan...bobdylan.com
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