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Ep. 161 – Kundalini Spirit or Spirit-Filled Convulsions w/ Chris Oberholtzer of Tan & Handsome
424 Plays10 months ago
This week we’re joined by vocalist Chris Oberholtzer of Tan & Handsome, a band that we absolutely love! We discuss some of the strange performances we saw as kids in church, Christian rock bootcamp, his time in YWAM (Youth With A Mission), and the twists and turns of being in the music industry. Tan & Handsome is great, and their new single “Snake Church” is right up our alley! Follow them on Instagram and Youtube (@tanandhandsome), X (@tanandhandsome_), and check out their self-titled EP wherever you listen to music!
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Transcript
Introduction and Dramatic Play Discussion
00:00:00
Speaker
There's this play that came through called Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames. I think it was a touring thing because like a couple of years ago, I just like looked it up again to just like see how crazy it was. But it was basically just like. It would be a play of of stories of people who died in either, you know, accepted God or not. So in the end, they either go up to, you know, heaven with Jesus or they go down to the side of the stage where the devil and all his demons come out just like
00:00:29
Speaker
all dressed up and you know, they're, they're, you know, demon gear, taking them, dragging them and taking them down to the fire. They're like fighting and stuff to like, yeah, it was crazy. I mean, I remember seeing that as a kid, you know, every single time that just be right back up at the altar, like, I got to, I got to make sure I don't die in a car accident, right? No kidding.
Bird Hunting and Fossil Adventures
00:01:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of Growing Up Christian. I'm Casey. And I'm Sam. And so today April and I went out bird hunting. We were largely unsuccessful. We were completely unsuccessful. Did you forget your little whistle? No, I did bring the whistle. No. So there was that. That was going for me. But we did find a whole bunch of fossils, which was cool.
00:01:35
Speaker
as you do. Okay, so I was at a show last night and I ran into our old friend in college dorm mate. I've known him since high school, but he was on our dorm together, our buddy Tito. I run into Tito at shows mostly. But he was asking me about you. He asked how you were doing. And we ended up just talking about how
00:02:04
Speaker
I was talking about when I came to visit you and it's just like you are it's like you're funny in that like I don't I would never visit any friend and we would just every night go walk in the back in your in their backyard and like look for shit it's like and it's fun it was like oh that's something I wouldn't normally do but we were just laughing about it because it's like you just go in your backyard you look for fossils you find some cool ones it's like we went fossil hunting when I was visiting you and
00:02:34
Speaker
over a year later, you're just like, well, we couldn't find any birds to shoot. So we just dug up some fossils, like the same shit still. I love it. You're just like moonlighting is a paleontologist.
Hunting in the Flint Hills
00:02:50
Speaker
It's definitely like we so they have like these walk in hunting areas, which are private owned land. But ranchers and farmers will like
00:03:01
Speaker
lease it out to the state so people can come in and hunt. Okay. And there's all sorts of rules and stuff for it and everything, but you're basically like walking through people's farm land and stuff. So this is in the Flint Hills, like rolling grasslands as far as the eye can see. And there's tons of cattle in there. So you were like, not someone's cow. Not yet.
00:03:28
Speaker
That's a conversation that we've had several times though, like better not go that way. There's a lot of cows, but there was a dead cow, like up on the hill and it's laying on its side, of course, and it's been dead a while. It's skeletal remains, but they're still like, they're not totally bleached and
00:03:52
Speaker
you know, sun cleaned yet. Are other cows around it like just kind of surrounding the corpse going about their business or is this like did this one stray from the path? Not this one, but they they don't care. Do dead deer like deer will just walk up and like eat grass out from under them like they don't care. They have no feeling about like a member of the community being gone. They're just like the Snorlax of the animal community.
00:04:23
Speaker
We definitely like walked up and looked at this like giant cow skeleton and you know, it's got like a, the skull is huge. It's like, you know, two foot long and I don't know, it's just enormous, but it was like still pretty grisly. And we sat there staring at it for like three minutes before I was finally like,
00:04:45
Speaker
We can't take it. It's too gross. I was waiting. I was wondering if you were like, I actually thought it was going to go the other direction. I thought you'd be like, you know what? We should, we should cut its hat off here and drag that bad boy home. We definitely looked at it like we could, could we strap it to the roof? No, no, we'll find it. It'll be here next year. Go back, get a tarp and a shovel, a spade, a spaded shovel specifically, sever the vertebrae.
00:05:15
Speaker
That is the other problem is you got to somehow get it disconnected from the rest of it.
Dark Humor and School Experiences
00:05:21
Speaker
That's an introduction to serial killing. So one of the, in my school, there's like a couple of kids that I'll, there's a, you develop like, well, of course everyone knows my sense of humor, but you have to figure out like when you work in a, in certain environments, you kind of suss out and decide who are like safe people to make dark jokes with, right? You don't want to just like lay it on thick too early.
00:05:48
Speaker
Uh, but it turns out a lot of people in schools are like all about just making really fucked up jokes about the shit that you deal with because there's a lot of weird shit and they just kinda, I dunno, everyone's just trying to figure out how to like manage their emotions around it. So gallows humor around all the like bruised and battered children.
00:06:07
Speaker
yeah I mean for real that's kind of how it goes but there are a couple of kids where I'm like I think the best way I can describe it is like like when you the you know the magic eyes where you like put your nose up to the paper and you slowly move it away from your face and you see like a 3d image pop out
00:06:23
Speaker
like there's a couple of kids that walk through life like they're permanently looking at magic eyes. They just like look like they're looking through everything and you're like like and there's one kid in particular where I've made the joke several times where it's like he
00:06:40
Speaker
if there's a kid I've met or at least one kid in the school who will go on to be a serial killer it's it's this kid because he just he'll just he's the kind of kid who'll just be seemingly fine and then he'll just like turn around look a kid in the eyes grin and then just like spit point blank into their face and then smile at them again
00:07:04
Speaker
So a demon yes, and it'll just smile like hey like this is how you make friends, right and I'm like it starts there and it's the kind of you go He's the kind of kid who just like ends up on the news Or in an interview and they're like so like why did you do it? Like why did you kill this person? It's like I just wanted to see what the inside of a body looked like
00:07:28
Speaker
It would just be that it would be like just a motionless like I just wanted to see what it I don't know I wanted to see what it looked like when you looked Down someone's neck hole without the head there Like it felt like on my penis. I mean I don't yeah, I don't what's you know it's just a thought I had I wanted to see I want to
00:07:49
Speaker
see what it felt like to have my hands inside of a person's stomach. That's weird, yeah. And all that to say, I would like to keep a kid like that away from finding dead animals in the woods like you. I think if he grew up in your area, it'd be more concerning because he'd get a little bit more practice. He'd just find dead shit in the woods and realize too early that he liked it too much.
00:08:14
Speaker
uh and that first severed vertebrae he'd be like well that was cool i'd like to know what that's like uh to do before they're dead maybe that feels different and makes me feel good luckily i don't have the self-confidence to like enjoy approaching strangers no matter how horny it would make me to chop them up
00:08:37
Speaker
That's the only thing stopping you is like, ah, my social anxieties gained the way of my mass murdering.
Flint Hills Travel and Living Conditions
00:08:46
Speaker
I guess I'll just be unfulfilled. Yeah. So, uh, we were driving through the Flint Hills and there's, there's like some really just grungy little towns out there that have, they're basically dead. Like there's people living there, but.
00:09:07
Speaker
Barely, you know, and then there's like some nicer ones, their local jobs. Is there like a factory? Not really. There's a few little businesses in each town and stuff, but there's not much. They probably commute to.
00:09:22
Speaker
one of the two bigger towns that's like 30, 40 miles away in either direction. Then there's some nice houses, probably people that have some land and a farm or something like that. This is a question I was thinking about because I think that there's
00:09:44
Speaker
This says a lot about a person. So let's say you're, you win the lottery, you suddenly come into a bunch of money, right? And you decide like, I'm going to build a house and you can kind of put it like wherever you want. Okay. So if you were surveying like a landscape, making decisions about where you wanted your home to be.
00:10:09
Speaker
Some people build their house on top of the precipice, at the top of the hill, you know. Is this going to be a little less about not building your house upon the sand? Is that where we're going? It could be. Building it on the rock. It could be not building your house in the floodplain, I guess. But some people build their house. I mean, that's the moral of it. Just don't have a basement if you're going to...
00:10:37
Speaker
do that. Yeah, even if you're just buying a house, pay for all the inspections. Don't shortcut that part of the process, friends. And just don't buy houses on stilts. That's just obviously a bad way to go. There's a lot of them. It's beautiful. Your backyard is the ocean.
00:10:58
Speaker
Uh, but probably a terrible idea. I would never, when I see houses on stilts near the ocean, I just am blown away that anybody thinks that that will pan out in the future. Like when you go long haul, I go, I w like, I buy a house and I'm like, I want
00:11:16
Speaker
I want to pay off my mortgage and retire someday. And when you see a house on stilts, you go, that's obviously not in your future. That's going to get washed away at some point. Yeah. Hurricane Stevie or something like that.
00:11:35
Speaker
But okay, so do you build your house like at the top of the hill overlooking everything or do you build it down maybe kind of like secluded down in the trees between the hills? I mean, it just seems obvious to go top of the hill. I feel like I'd go top of the hill.
00:11:57
Speaker
I'm thinking avalanches mudslides. How big a hill we talking about like I just think about this I didn't have natural disasters. Yeah, I'm thinking of a house between two like mountains or they just like cute little hills. I need let's get some more information. Where are you going with this? I just wanted to see if you were like the kind of person who wanted to like look down on your your subordinates.
00:12:22
Speaker
Oh yeah I mean of course I would build all of like the slave quarters down the hill I would do of course but out of out of plain sight yeah I mean and I not a plain sight yes out of sight no because you got to make sure that they're not escaping so you need to be able to see it you know and that's of course just if I had a lot of money and
00:12:47
Speaker
I don't, so I'd like to think that I'm still a good person as long as that option isn't available to me.
00:12:53
Speaker
I could see indentured servitude making a comeback at some point in this country.
Dark Humor on Society and Employment
00:12:58
Speaker
Like that's how you make your way through college in like 10 years. If you brought that back, I think like every Gen Z kid would just sign up immediately because they, I mean, essentially like, you know, the way that we were with like $50,000 a year in student loans and having no concept of what we were doing, they would just sign up. They'd do it. They'd sign up for indentured servitude so fast that
00:13:22
Speaker
they would have they just wouldn't they would even like no of course it's a good deal it's room and board. I get food. And what I just work for them after maybe be career specific right you have basically intern for a decade and then you would just clean slate. Start fresh.
00:13:42
Speaker
Yeah, and then every four years you're guaranteed like a three day cruise in the Bahamas where you can drink all the like bottom shelf rum you want because you got to have something to look forward to. Yeah. Honestly, that would be.
00:13:58
Speaker
I think that's where people really miss the mark on owning other people in the yester years. They didn't understand human motivation well enough to manipulate it for their own wealth and gain like they do now, like Amazon.
00:14:17
Speaker
well I guess they don't otherwise Amazon employees wouldn't piss and bottle if like if you were an Amazon employee and everything was the same but they go every year we're just it's kind of like Olympic Village style right you just stay in this place
00:14:32
Speaker
for like, oh, a straight week. All meals catered. Amazing chefs. Just like bowls full of condoms. You know, I think I'm thinking like like a Hitler youth camp. I'm thinking Amazon might be like.
00:14:52
Speaker
Turned the switch the narrative a bit, you know You want to be fully-staffed Amazon you need to like rethink these like employee residences and and you want to be somewhere between a Bavarian Hitler Youth camp and Ladies skiing movie
00:15:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's just like one week a year of like debauchery like I mean It's like fountain like booze fountains little bubblers right where you just can like slurp up some some whiskey like everywhere I think it you just if they had that one week of full-blown debauchery to look forward to and then they would like and then what you you get the added bonus of them like Sobering up and being so filled with shame for all the fucked up shit that they did that they never thought they could do
00:15:46
Speaker
that they're just going to like keep their head down and take care of business. And it'll take about like 26 weeks before they like don't hate themselves anymore. And they forget kind of like that, the, that it washes away. And then you start thinking about how fun it might be again. If you do it different next time, of course, but you know, it'd be fun. You know, it'd be fun to like hang out with these people again in like this environment.
00:16:15
Speaker
I think Amazon has a lot of opportunity to make their employees like complain less about having to piss in bottles, you know? And what's it cost them? Just one week of... I mean, it's expensive, but in the long run, when you think of how much it costs to train employees these days, man, I don't know. Jeff Bezos can give me a call. I get some ideas. Dude, we were at... Sorry, I was at this works thing about a month ago.
00:16:44
Speaker
And we had a meeting because we have like little subgroups where, you know, it's like a smaller group of people meet and they talk about like industry stuff and training and best practices and things like that. And like, you know, it's like anything like that. Like there's, there's 25% of it in there that's useful. And they were doing like this little.
00:17:11
Speaker
you know, uh, group think session where they're like, what, let's talk about, you know, what we might cover in future meetings and stuff. And then like, you know, there's 40 people in this room and like four of them do all the talking, of course. And they're just floating like ideas. Like some of them are just so bad. Like, and at one point one of the guys goes, he goes, well, you know,
Generational Differences in Workplace
00:17:38
Speaker
I'm trying to hire people and I don't know what to do with these millennials and millennials, millennials start us into that. He goes, you know, I'd like to hear what you guys are doing to hire people and how you're, how you're communicating with these millennials. And then one of the guys goes, well, you know,
00:17:55
Speaker
you know, maybe that's a topic we could talk about that we could bring in an expert on like, you know, communicating with millennials. And we could let them kind of give us an hour or two hours, you know, their their thoughts on the thing. And I was like sitting there just shaking like, I will kill myself if I have to sit through this meeting.
00:18:17
Speaker
You're like, or- I'm not sitting through this. Or you could ask one. Right here, I'm sitting here. You could ask one. You don't have to have a whole workshop. Just ask something. They go, what do we do? I don't know how to talk to them. We should hire an expert instead of just like literally asking. What's the problem right now?
00:18:40
Speaker
Why do they tell you makes them unhappy about working there? And then they tell you and they go, no, that can't be it. Like, it's like it can't be that they want to make more money.
00:18:51
Speaker
They're like, the problem is nobody wants to work. The problem is nobody wants to work these days. Nobody. Yeah. No, nobody wants to do the worst job of all time for the least amount of money possible. I already did all the Google stuff. I got rid of all the office chairs and brought in like medicine balls. Yeah, that's how we all sit. Just like or just pay me. Just pay us. I got a standing desk in a second monitor. What else do you want?
00:19:21
Speaker
Jeremiah be so triggered right now well guys well guys hold up hold up that was my Jeremiah impression I think I think that my Batman impression might be better but you got some compliments on that I did it's pretty good pretty off the rails I don't
00:19:50
Speaker
It was fun. But I maybe a little more of a heads up next time so I could not have to get into character on the fly, you know. See, if I give you a heads up about certain things, though, then I have to listen to you. Listen to the app about it for a week. That's true. That's fair. We definitely need to do another. I'm going to pick a shorter one with maybe
00:20:15
Speaker
half as many characters. Yeah, a lot of characters would be good. You know, it was fun until we had to like get into Shepard one and two. And then it started like a whole new scene. That was awfully written. I mean, it was so bad.
00:20:35
Speaker
We have talked about doing like a weekly Sunday school stream and maybe having puppets and flannelgrams. Flannelgrams? Flannelgraphs. Yeah. We really want to figure out how to get like a Sunday morning, like a church thing going.
00:20:56
Speaker
A little, real quick, just like a little bit of Sunday school, a little bit of flannel graph, maybe, yeah, like Casey said, some puppet ministry stuff. Just a little satirical approach to the worst aspects of church. And definitely, definitely use bolo ties. I think we'll go for that vibe. That Midwest church. Cowboy church. Yeah. I know a guy who pastors one of those. Perfect.
00:21:26
Speaker
Yeah, we get some ideas. We'll see what happens. It's tough to make things happen. God, this is when it'd be nice to live close. We keep talking to bands that no one lives near each other and they can just send each other their music from across the country and work it out.
Creative Project Challenges
00:21:45
Speaker
And it's cool that they can do that. I just still feel pretty old school in the way that it would be so much easier to accomplish the things that we would like to do if we were within, uh, you know, a quick drive from one another, but it would be fun. Uh, last news item before we go to, uh, before we go to our guest. Mm-hmm.
00:22:09
Speaker
So I know you saw it, but in case any of the listeners didn't see it, there was a story this week about a, uh, uh, this is a Navy reserve pilot instructor from Mississippi.
Religious Tensions and Political Hypocrisy
00:22:25
Speaker
And he engaged in what he called Christian civil disobedience when he traveled to Des Moines, Iowa. And.
00:22:35
Speaker
knocked down and beheaded a bathomet statue in the, uh, where'd he drive from? How far from Mississippi it says he's from. My geography is pretty bad. That's a drive to Iowa is that's gotta be 12 to 18 hours. Maybe. Okay. See, let's see. Jackson, Mississippi to Des Moines.
00:23:05
Speaker
Oh, it's not quite that far. It's 12 hours. That's what I said! I'm not as dumb as I thought. That's nice. You nailed it. Yeah, perfect. What a goober, dude. What a fucking... He's a nerd. He's a dork. To be that passionate about a statue that's not even in your area. You're just picking battles. How much shit could he...
00:23:35
Speaker
that would he have a problem within his own area? He has to drive that far to knock over a statue in a community that's not his. You're just a dork. I think he's getting what he wants. He's like doing the news channel tours and yeah, I mean, this was all about attention. I think I read that he had run for
00:23:59
Speaker
He had run for some sort of government seat at some point and failed. His name is Michael Cassidy. Oh, nice. Yeah, he's he's just running all over the place doing every every public meeting possible. I didn't see whether he got arrested or anything on it, but I don't think so because I mean, he's literally like on Fox News and CNN and stuff talking about what he did. But did they just like Christians don't get
00:24:28
Speaker
what the satanic temple is always doing and they really don't want to get it.
00:24:35
Speaker
No, they don't. It's literally like telling them Santa Claus isn't real to be like, you know, that the satanic temple is like a political group that's trying to make a statement about the separation of church and state like they don't believe in Satan. They're not worshiping Satan. They're literally doing this to show you how absurd like your being by demanding things, you know, that that cater to your religion, like it's just a reflection.
00:25:01
Speaker
They demand doing on the grounds of their religious beliefs is what they do. And it's just like the, yeah, they're just taking a page out of their book and rolling with it. And this guy is clearly as going for like the George Santo Santos route of like, how absurd can I be to get the attention I need to win enough of the public opinion in order to like, get what I want?
00:25:24
Speaker
it's like which congratulations to George Santos by the way for being what the fourth third I don't know senator just like be kicked out like they're just like you're not senator anymore and his response just like spilling the beans yeah his response to it
00:25:45
Speaker
His response to it was so fun. Everything about him is honestly perfect. It took longer for him to lose his job than it should have. Yeah. But all around just one of the most incredible fun story like he's to get where he got as like a gay man with the beliefs that he has.
00:26:05
Speaker
Which is none. No real conviction of over anything. He- I love that. I love him. I hate him. But man, I fucking- I love- I love how much of- Like, how much it exposed how horseshit everything really is. It's just a dog and pony show. And we actually owe him a debt of gratitude for what he- for-
00:26:31
Speaker
for him showing us how fucking bullshit our political system actually is. So thank you, George. We appreciate you. And I'd love to have you on the podcast someday.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah, it was clear long before he got into office like he won in spite of like people knowing that he had lied about all this stuff like live like not even like some people mislead or misrepresent or embellish punch up their resume, but he made the whole fucking thing up everything. Yeah, and and
00:27:08
Speaker
And for him to take office in the middle of all that and have it be so obvious that this guy is not who he says he is. If you're a senator or a congressman or whatever, and you lean over to him and you're like, hey, you want to be in our insider trading telegram group?
00:27:25
Speaker
Like, you deserve to be outed. Like, God, at least if you're gonna cheat, like, be smarter about it, they'll bring that guy in on things. We won, everyone fell like, fuck. Then they have to, like, lie through their teeth like, congratulations. Like, everyone knew it was bad for them to have a total goofball walk in and shake the place up a bit.
00:27:54
Speaker
I got what a what a true American story right there. That is. That's what this those are the ideals of this country was founded on that anyone could become anything. I love it. It's beautiful. Amen. Really looking forward to CPAC next year, headlined by Michael Cassidy and the sword that he used to cut off Baffomet's head and a lady who saw Jesus's face on a Pringle
00:28:24
Speaker
and Kyle Rittenhouse. Yeah. It's going to be fun. Looking forward to it. Sponsored by 511Tech. Blackwater Coffee. What is it? Blackwater. Also sponsored by Blackwater.
00:28:42
Speaker
Alright, our guest. Our guest this week is Chris Oberholtzer.
Music Guest Introduction: Chris Oberholtzer
00:28:48
Speaker
He's in a band that I fucking love called Tan and Handsome. And Tan and Handsome's been doing some cool shit. They're a pretty new band. They have on Spotify just this year they put out their first album. A quick little jam. Six tracks, 22 minutes.
00:29:10
Speaker
Spotify recognizes an EP, but as a well, I guess that conversation doesn't come out yet, but
00:29:16
Speaker
We recently talked to someone that gave us the business on how Spotify recognizes album singles and EPs. It was pretty interesting. You'll hear that one coming up eventually. But either way, they got one album out and they also put another single this year called Snake Church with some really fun art of some church people doing some snake handling. Absolutely love his band. That's why I really wanted to have Chris on and they're doing some cool shit. They just played
00:29:46
Speaker
The show with Johnny Booth, great hardcore band. Another band that we've been, we've talked about at length. It's come up. They've come up a number of times. They just played a show with Darkest Hour and they got one coming up. Actually, I guess we're recording this Sunday night, 12, 17. And as we speak, they're playing with the, the callous Dow boys and another band that's been
00:30:11
Speaker
making their waves. So they're doing some cool shit. I can't wait till they like really hit the road. They're fantastic. The hope is to before jumping into an interview to cut in a little bit of their music here. So you get an idea for the sound of it. But I absolutely love it. We had an awesome conversation with Chris. He's a great guy.
00:30:31
Speaker
So check out their check them out on Instagram, Tannen handsome and check out their website. They have cool merch. I think a lot of it's still up on the website. I got one of their shirts. It rips off the Miller Lite of the Miller High Life logo. And it says Tannen handsome and it looks great. I love it. And I'll probably post a picture on the Instagram soon. If you like to show, give us a rating and do that on Apple or on Spotify, preferably wherever, though, wherever they give you the option to rate.
00:31:01
Speaker
rated. We are putting episodes up on YouTube now, if you want to see the video version. There was like some confusion a month or two ago where like we switched platforms and then they're like, you can upload your video here. And so I thought that was a cool idea, but then I realized like everybody has to now download like a two gig file in order to listen to the show.
00:31:31
Speaker
It's on YouTube now. Some of them don't have video. It's just what it is, but I'm doing my best to get them up there. Join our Discord. I say it every time, but the Discord's awesome and there's a lot of cool people there and it's a good place to tell us about, you know, what you're most worried your mom's going to ask you at Christmas.
00:31:59
Speaker
Which, you know, maybe it's, when are you planning on having kids? Maybe it's, are you gay? Maybe it's, you know, what do you know about the cloud ships? And, you know, the second return of Christ in the form of an alien.
00:32:22
Speaker
Maybe it's one of those things. Tell us in the discord. You can join that by following the link tree in our, in our Instagram bio. And yeah, enjoy our conversation with Chris Oberholtzer.
00:33:08
Speaker
Everybody we are back with our guest Chris Oberholtzer from the incredible Tannen handsome, which is Chris. Thanks for joining us, man. Yeah. Thanks y'all. This'll be fun. Yeah, definitely excited to talk to you. I, um, uh, I was introduced to you through our mutual friend, uh, Jesse, also friend and podcast. He, uh, sent me you guys as music and from the second I turned it on, I fucking loved it and was like, I would like to talk to this guy.
00:33:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. Thanks, man. No, yeah, I was wondering how you guys came across it because you like message us was like, hey, love the EP.
Metalcore Evolution and Personal Stories
00:33:41
Speaker
And then it was because you and Jesse are friends. And it was like, that's how it happened.
00:33:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, dude, it's it dude. It's so sick. I honestly was like trying to think of like a good way to even describe it. It's just I Don't know man. I it's I feel like everyone just does genre bendy at this point when it comes to me people just kind of doing their own shit like I feel like coming up and like the metalcore world it was just like Like that was that was my jam metalcore. So you're just like yeah
00:34:07
Speaker
even though they riffed different, like Metalcore had a pretty, it was a tried and true formula, you know? You just- Oh yeah, absolutely. It was this pop, like it was like a typical pop formula, you'd, you know, verse, chorus, verse, chord, bridge kind of shit. And now it's just like, I feel like every band I come across now is just people doing something, well, I shouldn't say everyone, but a lot of the ones that I'm finding myself gravitating towards is just like people just doing their own shit and having fun with it and not really sticking to a meta at this point.
00:34:37
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, yeah, it's a thing with like metalcore too. That's even like a broad term these days because it's like goes anywhere from like as they like dying to like converge. People would say it was like a metalcore band. Yeah. Yeah. The genres make no sense to me. I can't track them. I don't know what the lines are around any of them. No, they don't. We just talked. It might come out by the time this one does, but we talked to like from a second story window is back. I don't know if you were into them.
00:35:06
Speaker
they like even they're like kind of branded into the metalcore genre and it was just like i wouldn't have like thrown them necessarily into that or you would have put all your caveats right it's just like yeah that was also it was funny uh in the myspace days i remember every every local metal they're all metalcore bands but they were like they would just try to like throw in as many different
00:35:29
Speaker
variations of that as they could, just to make it sound like they're really progressive of some sort. It's like, metal, core, prog, metal, tech, metal, death metal. You're like, you're not everything. You're 17. And you're, yeah, your band is bad. Which, you know, that's a rite of passage. You gotta go through that first, uh,
00:35:50
Speaker
the first bad band. Oh, I had plenty of that. Yeah, let's we'll get into that. Let's talk bad bands and we'll we'll shift into that when we I'm guessing you probably started maybe doing the band thing in high school like most of us. But tell us a little bit about yourself, man. Where did you what what area of the country did you grow up in? Unless you shifted around a lot. But let's get into it. Harrisonburg, Virginia. OK, so like two hours from Lynchburg. There you go.
00:36:19
Speaker
Yeah. So basically born and raised there, grew up around like all the counties and kind of stuck here. Um, the only time I lived somewhere different was I lived in Colorado cause I did YWAM. Oh yeah. So I did that and then was in Columbia for a couple months with that. So yeah. Any demons when you were in YWAM? Oh, for sure. Oh, fuck yeah. No, actually, but I did have like one, uh,
00:36:48
Speaker
none of the exorcism stuff I really saw at YWAM but I did at home to like one of my friends there was like an exorcism that like happened where he was like at my house and we cast a demon out of him it was kind of wild you think about it sometimes it was still kind of scary and kind of convincing in a way but like
00:37:09
Speaker
But also, I mean, the guy was epileptic too. So it's like, you know, when we were like 17, there was like, you know, affirms having some episode. And of course, we just assumed it was a demon.
00:37:27
Speaker
Yeah. It is funny to think about how like throughout history, that's probably mostly what people considered evil spirits or just people would like medical, unresolved medical issues. No one was dealing with epilepsy back in the day. They're just like, oh, you did something weird. And like the solution was either to cast a demon or to throw you into a lake with rocks.
00:37:53
Speaker
Just waking up from a seizure with like a group of people around you screaming and hitting you with things Waterboarding you with like urinal drippings Did you grow up in like a real Like charismatic church or something like that. Well sort of so it's basically
00:38:20
Speaker
Yeah, I grew up in like a charismatic kind of evangelical one all up until high school. Then I went to a midnight high school, so we went to a midnight church because I think mainly because that church was going to pay the whole tuition to the midnight high school. So we switched over that throughout high school and then kind of after that, my parents like went back to like more of just the non-denominational ones.
00:38:43
Speaker
and weren't really in the Mennonite community as much anymore. And then I went to YOM, so, you know. And then also I was homeschooled. So all of it's a recipe for like some fucking weirdo. Dude, Mennonites are, I mean, I guess I can't speak from personal experience, but I've, you know, the thing that stuck out to me for Mennonites was when I found out like,
00:39:03
Speaker
You know, you didn't have to prove, if you were part of a Mennonite congregation or whatever, you didn't have to prove that you were like a conscientious objector if there's a draft. Like Mennonites are pretty chill on the whole like, yeah, violence thing. And I remember being like, that's kind of cool. It's nice to know there are some Christians that don't just love violence. Yeah, no, I mean, that's like the biggest staple of like the Mennonite church, it sounds like. So it's like, no, there's definitely some really good stuff that comes from there.
00:39:28
Speaker
From that entire community. Okay, so early church years were in a charismatic environment. What did that look like? That's what I'm always curious about because you hear about speaking in tongues and stuff, but I guess when I think about it, I don't really know where that fits into the church service. Yeah, it would just be during the worship service when someone comes up to
00:39:56
Speaker
do a prophecy or something, they'd take a break and the music's still going a little bit and people would be speaking in tongues in the crowd, or somebody would go up and speak in tongues to the mic in the middle of the worship service and somebody else would feel the spirit and go translate it for everybody. Was it in the bulletin? Was there 15 minutes set aside for that? Yeah. Well, actually, there was the prophecy
00:40:22
Speaker
section of the service. Wow, I like that. Which was before the sermon and everything. So it'd be kind of just like...
00:40:31
Speaker
free reign, raise your hand, get the mic. If you went over the 15 minutes and then hopefully somebody can translate it for you. If you went over that 15 minutes, the rest of that prophecy didn't come true. Only the thing. I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you're over your time. That's just not going to happen now, do you? I mean, yeah, it feels like it would have like a compulsory sort of feel to it almost sometimes like it's like you go to a show and
00:40:58
Speaker
the band is clearly playing their last song. The older you get, the more you sit there and go, are we going to have to do this whole rigmarole with the freaking- The encore. The encore. One more song. They walk off stage, but they're still holding their instruments.
Performance Etiquette and Charisma
00:41:16
Speaker
The lights are still off. We know what's happening. I imagine the speaking of time does that. It doesn't happen. Then it doesn't happen and the band's like,
00:41:29
Speaker
Overplayed our hand a little bit and now we're gonna be sad. Yeah But then sometimes they'll do it anyway when not enough people are like Like she has the encore like I saw that, you know remember that being the Great Commission. Yeah Corbin
00:41:44
Speaker
they did that one time when we were playing a festival with them in one of my old bands just like there's like five people in the front row nobody else like chanting for one more song it's at a festival and they're not the last band playing but then they just came out and played another song anyway that should just be against the rules for festivals absolutely you can't try to solicit an encore you have 20 minutes do a tight 20 and get the fuck off the stage it's
00:42:08
Speaker
Absolutely, dude. I mean I was just at a show the other night And I was like so I thought there was two openers the band I wanted to see I thought was playing third because there was another band who was doing their farewell show and I'm like
00:42:23
Speaker
Cool. I mean, I might be out of there by 10 30. That'd be sick. No, there was a surprise opener. You know, they added the extra band on and then the band I wanted to see, I got in and you see that their, their band, you see their drum kit up that the opening band is using. It's got their logo on it and you go, ah, fuck, they're closing. If they're, if everyone's using their kit, they're closing. Yeah. Yeah. And I was just like, I didn't get home till, you know,
00:42:50
Speaker
12 30 it just sucks yeah like it really does the openers are like they're doing the whole like big act thing right and i think what what i love they play for like 45 minutes also they definitely play longer than you would expect for being an opener and they're just like introducing the band members and doing that like yeah like big intro i'm like nobody know like you guys are lucky to be here don't make this such a big thing
00:43:16
Speaker
Yeah, just play your play a tight set and get off and you might, you know, walk away with some fans. I just walked away being annoyed. And then like the bands who had been badly who have done the whole circuit. It's just like they literally like just they did their set like the best is like
00:43:31
Speaker
you play a song you say hey what's up this is who we are maybe you do too and then you do that and then you go towards the end you go hey we got two songs left this is who we are this is the merch over there and then you roll into it like you don't need this it's like the tighter you keep it the more I love it now and it's so different when I was younger we were like tell me your story tell me everything I wanted it's like I was the person who
00:43:54
Speaker
Uh, they just wanted to hear, you know, just themselves validated through the bands that they loved, but it's, you just wanted to keep it tight now. Keep it tight. Yeah. Yeah. Keep it tight. Roll through your set. Make it 20 minutes. You don't need to talk that much. I like that because I hate talking on stage. We finally just got like samples. So I just don't like have to talk like once. Nice. Cause I just like run out of things. I was like, so yeah.
00:44:18
Speaker
It's like people, there's a nice change. There's a feeling that some people have or they want like a front man to also be like, like inspirational to them or something like that. Charismatic preacher. Yes. To some degree. That's what I think some people do want. They want them to, especially when they really connect to the music and shit, which is great. I mean, you as an artist, you want people to connect to your music, but anyway, keep it tight. Yeah. When's the last time you heard somebody like actually preach on stage?
00:44:48
Speaker
Oh, I think for me, it was like, uh, I think it was for today. It would have to be the last living one. They did a lot. We saw them go off at like a crappy music festival because like some kid punched another kid or pushed him or something. It was like one of those, uh, preambles to a fight that's never going to happen between junior hires. And it's like.
00:45:14
Speaker
Hey, we want to take this opportunity to say that we promote peace and we love everybody. And this is for Jesus. Yeah. It must have been, I mean, it wasn't, I don't think I've heard a band preach from stations. I was in a going to a show in Lynchburg. So that would have been pretty, that would have been like cross point or something. Yeah, dude. Yeah. Some cross point shows. Yeah. Well, I played once at cross point.
00:45:40
Speaker
And I think it was like a plea for purging's last show. Like, oh, what? Oh, nice. It was called Blood of the Martyrs. Oh, fuck, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's not that show. That's so awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I was there. I was playing. Well, that was my that was my last show with that band, actually. It was like so right after I graduated high school, what I did is I went and like, instead of going to Liberty University, I joined that band. OK. And then I toured with them for like a year.
00:46:21
Speaker
Did you ever do living word? Was it they had a house on the church grounds and it was like this small ass house and a plea for purging played there a couple of times. I don't know if any bands you played and ever went through. It was really fun. Like you would feel the floor like bouncing, like just. Yeah.
00:46:31
Speaker
And then, but yeah, that was my last show with them. But yeah, so I was, yeah, I was around Lynchburg and stuff like that.
00:46:40
Speaker
They had people would go like that. I knew a kid who had like go under and like reinforce it with like stack and cinder blocks under there. So the floor gave in. Well, people were just jumping around and shit. It was such a cool place. Yeah. Wait, wait. Was it was that in Lynchburg? Was that like more in between that and like Richmond? I might be thinking it was in Lynchburg. It was like one of the roads there. But yeah. Yeah.
00:47:04
Speaker
That's so wild, dude. I love that. I'd play them. That's a name I probably like I hadn't thought about in so long. Blood of the Martyr. Yeah. Yeah. This is wild. All right. Hold on. This is a young guy, Casey. Yeah, go for it. Curious, like, so.
00:47:22
Speaker
Man, I'm stuck on the tongues thing. We'll go back to it. During your prophecy segment at church, did the same people tend to get up most of the time? Oh, absolutely. Did you just kind of sigh of despair when you saw the same guy get up and start walking towards the mic? I mean, I was kind of like, whatever. At the time, I don't know if I was...
00:47:52
Speaker
Maybe I might have been getting excited, honestly. It's like, oh, this one's going to have something good to say. This guy, but I was always hoping. Yeah, but. Yeah, I don't know. It was just like, yeah, there'd be that session. And sometimes it would be like something where I don't know if this was because the passages didn't have a sermon prepared.
00:48:14
Speaker
But they were like, I just remember specifically three Sundays in a row where he just like puts that time and that worship time on and on and on. It was like, I just feel the spirit coming. We're just going to do one more song. And it was just, you know, an hour long service of just like worship music and like prophesying and speaking. And then, you know, no sermon at all. It's like I'm like, yeah. Yeah.
00:48:39
Speaker
He was like up too late at night. Or he's like, this worked last Sunday. I can just pull this off again for the next two Sundays. He could go an entire week without actually doing any work at all. Yeah. Just at home trying to impregnate his wife for the 18th time.
00:49:01
Speaker
They're like in a night plan. He's on the mission to get those Irish twins. Yeah. I can't decide if I would have liked that when I was a kid or if I would have hated it. I think it probably depends on how old I was. Like Junior Jaime would have really hated it, but probably wouldn't have loved the sermon party either. Yeah. I mean, I kind of remember being stoked in like elementary school, being like,
00:49:27
Speaker
some more guitars. Yeah. The tung thing is just magical at that point. You're just like, I mean, at that, if you're a kid, you just buy, you'll, you know, what I should say, if you're a kid, you'll buy anything. Cause obviously a lot of adults still buy into that. I mean, people buy into, you know, crystals and healing stones too. So it's not just a Christian people that buy into some stuff that I think is hokey as fuck. So well, yeah, for sure.
00:49:53
Speaker
I know. Maybe we have some Reiki healers that listen to the podcast, but I think what you do might also not be real. If you're removing toxins from my body by getting your energy near mine or whatever, I don't know. I know nothing about Reiki. I'm going to move on, but I will dump on constantly chiropractors. I can't go too many episodes without taking a shit on chiropractors.
00:50:25
Speaker
Anyway, I get paid to just dump on chiropractors by Big Pharma. It's our first deal. That's our first big contract is Big Pharma.
00:50:40
Speaker
Yeah, the the tongue thing though was there was a magical component to it I'd ever when I didn't grow up in that world I was always made I felt uneasy about it there I was kind of given the impression that like you had to be careful with that stuff because sometimes demons were infiltrating churches and Yeah No, yeah, yeah, they would have that too. It's like certain things were like fine
00:51:08
Speaker
But then there'd be like, I don't know. Do you remember that whole thing about like the Kundalini spirit? No, it was like, it was like basically talking about how there was this like ancient spirit that it basically acts out in the same way of people like shaking on the floor and everything like that. So like, so yeah, even in some of those like charismatic churches and stuff like that, they were still fearful about like,
00:51:33
Speaker
some of those like demonic things coming in so yeah it was kind of weird balance on what i don't how'd you know the spirit wasn't a wolf in sheep's clothing yeah exactly yeah exactly nation was it the translation was the person like how would you know for certain it's like it's like they only like like tongues and stuff they felt like was written in the bible but what so basically like
00:52:00
Speaker
They would believe things in tongues and stuff like that because it was in the scripture and everything, but then when it got into the – I guess you would call it the drunk and the Holy Spirit thing where people were just flopping around going insane. That they just thought was too similar to –
00:52:14
Speaker
things that were happening in like some other different country that was a result of this spirit that was called the Kundalini spirit. I'm pretty sure that's what it was called. If I remember it right, I haven't really thought about this thing in like 10 years, but it's going back to me. I remember it being that it looks too similar to things going on in those other countries.
00:52:39
Speaker
Makes me feel like there might be some racist subtext going on. Yeah, absolutely. I'm yeah. Pretty sure that is definitely a thing going on there. They might have not known it, but they were definitely, you know, being pretty racist. Yeah, I've never heard of that spirit. I'm definitely going to be looking that one up. Yeah. Do you get any good demon stories? You remember any any like stories from the pulpit about demons that really freaked you out as a kid? Um.
00:53:08
Speaker
man i don't know i mean there definitely were some there's none that like stick out to me besides the one that like i was a part of that i was talking about earlier um but some things that did really scare me it wasn't like demon stories but there was always this uh
00:53:27
Speaker
There was this play that came through called Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames. I think it was a touring thing because like a couple of years ago I just like looked it up again to just like see how crazy it was but it was basically just like
00:53:41
Speaker
It would be a play of stories of people who died in either, you know, accepted God or not. So in the end, they either go up to, you know, heaven with Jesus, or they go down to the side of the stage where the devil and all his demons come out, just like all dressed up and, you know, they're, they're, you know, demon gear, taking them, just dragging them and taking them down to the fire. They're like fighting and stuff to like, yeah.
00:54:07
Speaker
It was crazy. I mean, I remember seeing that as a kid, you know, every single time that just be right back up at the altar, like, I gotta, I gotta make sure I don't die in a car accident, right? No kidding, dude. No, it's crazy because in it too, there would be stories of like, there was one where like a kid and his dad died in a car wreck. And like right before the dad was like talking to his kid.
00:54:29
Speaker
about how he didn't really need to go to church and stuff like that. That's like mom's thing or whatever. And then they die and they get separated at the gates. So like the kid just sees his dad get dragged to hell. But then, you know, Jesus comes down and comforts him and is like, no, it's fine. You're coming to heaven with me. Yeah. It's like, no, no, it's fine. Let me. It's crazy. Your dad's over there. But look, it's honestly, as soon as you get over here, it's going to be so good. You forget all about your dumb dead dad.
00:54:59
Speaker
Yeah, he was wrong. That's built into that. That's him. That's coded in. He was pretty cool. So fucking dumb on earth. He couldn't realize that I was real. You know, I just. Like an angry, angry, like bitter dad talking crap on your like stepdad just all the time. Jesus is like.
00:55:25
Speaker
He's like, yeah, aren't you glad to be here instead of with your stupid dad? What a failure. Dude, I remember, uh, cause there was, there was, there was like a couple of things, like, uh, there was those traveling acts that would come through like that.
00:55:44
Speaker
You know, but then there was also like recurring plays and skits that churches did, you know, back in the day. I was thinking about this. That's a classic dude. The classics never die. There was one that somebody in our church did and my dad was in it. It was like a two person thing.
00:56:07
Speaker
Which is funny because my dad never really did any of that kind of stuff, but for some reason he ended up getting drug into this deal. But it was like... Like two person thing as in two, your dad was like the bottom half of a horse costume. Is it like that kind of two person thing? Yeah, pretty much. He was, he stood beside the manger in the scene.
00:56:28
Speaker
We thought of you. Yeah. Yeah. Was he the bottom or the top? You're the guy in the back who bends a 90 degree angle and wraps his arms around the waist of the man in front. My dad didn't talk in this one. He was supposed to be like representing Jesus in this like skit. And the other person was just supposed to be like talking through their.
00:56:59
Speaker
If I remember correctly, they were talking to him as if they were praying, right? And explaining that like, you know, asking him for this and asking him for that and stuff. And then like, they're supposed to be leaving and going about their day. And Jesus is like, following them out the door.
00:57:19
Speaker
And they keep explaining to him why they need him to stay here and not come with them because they're leaving Jesus at home. He's just got Sundays. It's like an air bud with the kids trying to get rid of the dog. So it just goes on and on. And then finally, the person starts to get agitated and stuff in the play. And then they like...
00:57:43
Speaker
my dad's standing there and he's just silent the whole time and he keeps walking behind him. And then off to suddenly they're like, I told you to stay here and they like pick up his hands and mock nail them wall. And somebody was behind the stage with like another microphone. So they made like a good like effect for the hammer. And we were just like, Oh,
00:58:08
Speaker
Wow, that's powerful. Where'd it go? I need to know where it went after that. That's awesome. No, it was just fade to black. That was the trail of Christ moment. Like you killed Jesus kind of thing. Yeah, you nailed him to the cross so that he wouldn't follow you to the pawn shop to sell your grandma's TV for- That is a pretty dope message. Like telling children that they're responsible for the death of Christ.
00:58:35
Speaker
that's pretty cool don't get everything yeah badass dude like what better way to make them just go numb to dark things than to just be like you actually are responsible for nailing christ's arms to the cross you're four yeah
00:58:52
Speaker
And you're like, oh shit. And then you're like, why doesn't my kid care about the well-being of others later on? He's like, I already killed one motherfucker. Do it again. I'll get them all. Oh, man. He's over there just nailing kids to playground equipment. He has hammered on you. He felt so good when I did it to Jesus, I just had to keep going. It's like making a million. The first one's the hardest. Yeah.
00:59:21
Speaker
Then your money makes your money. Oh God. Do you guys remember like any traveling musical groups coming through? Like those weird church tours? I don't know if I really remember a lot of this. I see. No, we didn't get much music. I was seeing the cool shit. Yeah. I remember skillet and cutlets.
00:59:48
Speaker
There was just like occasionally it wasn't a lie. It was probably like twice a year. Like without warning, no, you know, advanced notice, there would just be somebody that would show up on a Sunday night and it's like, Oh, this is, you know, Terry Williams and he's, he's doing special music for the service tonight. And it would just be like some guy that you've never heard of singing to a backtrack for like the entire Sunday night service.
01:00:18
Speaker
And usually it was pretty bad, but like there was one guy I remember and he was kind of like a country western sort of dude. So he had like some twangy songs, you know, and had some actual like background music behind some of his songs. And there was like this miserable prick.
01:00:37
Speaker
that was like he did his spine was like a question mark he just like hobbled around all stooped over and just like the minute he saw anyone smiling he would go ruin it like that was just who he was mr pius his name was ted and uh i remember this guy was singing like this country song and it had like steel guitar in it or something in the backtrack and yeah he he got up in the middle of the song like in the middle of the service and he goes
01:01:05
Speaker
This sounds like it came from the jungles of Africa. And then watch out. Holy shit.
01:01:16
Speaker
Nobody liked him, but he was there every time the doors were open. There is no like, yeah. And what's wild is like no one would say anything about that. They just that in that environment, people can say crazy shit like that and they just like let it go. Everyone rolls their eyes or they're like, oh, God, that was weird.
01:01:36
Speaker
but they're never gonna be like, hey man, listen. It was just weird. Yeah, overstepped. And no one gets accused of overstepping in church unless it's like because you lived with your significant other before you got married. Then people will walk all over your ass. Or you got divorced or something. Yeah, God forbid. It's the extremist slant. Whoever's the most extreme in the room sets the pace for the entire group. Yeah. And no one ever calls them out on anything.
01:02:06
Speaker
Yeah, because then it just has to be whoever you are. Like, well, if that guy can do that, then I can be myself. No problem. Yeah. All right, Chris, you said you're a homeschooled. Are you a homeschooled your whole life? What was the what's the homeschool situation? Men in high school for some of it. Yeah. So up in basically up until high school. So it was. Yeah. So like kindergarten stuff started going to public school, got pulled out of it like halfway through first grade. All right. All of that through.
01:02:36
Speaker
Then I went to like a like private Christian school in eighth grade. So that's when I started like going back to school again. And then I went to the Mennonite high school. Okay. So I don't know if that counts or not. What was the eighth grade year like? If you only did a year there, was it, was it bad or was there some reason that you didn't stay there? Well, they didn't have a high school.
01:03:02
Speaker
Oh, okay. So you just call it like the last year of it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Isn't that hilarious? It's like we're a Christian school up through eighth grade and then we'll throw you to the wolves. Like they don't- Yeah, yeah. The formative years will just- Building up soldiers, baby. Yeah, send them all out to the world. Or it's like the height of human arrogance. Like we are so absolutely certain that we've instilled
01:03:22
Speaker
the love of christ and these people through eighth by eighth grade that we know they're going to be soldiers for christ in high school and their public high school. How could they possibly change their mind? I mean do you see none of that new information is going to do anything? Yeah somebody has to organize see you at the poll.
01:03:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what my kid's for. That's it. We need people. They need him. Upon graduation, eighth grade graduation, they'd be like, you guys are ambassadors now. Ambassadors for Christ.
01:04:00
Speaker
Yeah. That's the message I got. Well, hey, the minute I had it through high school, that's why I could go to a high school school. So, yeah. The minute I weren't like, we'll stop at an eighth grade. They're like, yeah. Did you like that? Did you want to go to public school or were you just kind of fine with whatever you were doing? Well, I just wanted to go to school after being like homeschooled for a while. Yeah. I wanted to go to high school so bad. And I was like really like,
01:04:27
Speaker
I was a good kid. I wasn't doing anything that my parents didn't want me to do. I wasn't fucking drinking, smoking. I was doing none of that. And yeah, I was like so bummed I couldn't go to high school because I started like I didn't really have a lot of friends. I didn't have any friends outside of church until I was 17. Yeah. And I met these other just started to meet some people that I thought were really cool. And I was like, it would be nice to go to school for like my junior senior year. And I was like,
01:04:53
Speaker
So on the straight and narrow dude, I mean, but even when I went to my freshman year of college at community college, I'm like, I was like that annoying. I was probably annoying to some people. I guess I had friends and people like me, but it was like, I was the Christian guy. I was the guy that needed people to know he was a Christian. Um, and it was like, I was just that.
01:05:13
Speaker
that into it. And it that it bothered me so fucking much that my parents just wouldn't wouldn't that they that they because the the irony, right? They were just afraid of what would happen if they like released me in the world too early, but like that they couldn't actually see me as the person who did truly care about this and like stuck with it and applied those values to my life on a regular basis.
01:05:44
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, yeah, with that question was like, I definitely wanted to go to school and I actually ended up choosing like the private one. Oh, yeah. Mainly because mainly because most of my friends were like going there. But also, I remember the specific day that I did it, I was going to I was so I was going to go to the public school.
01:06:07
Speaker
And then I was at their summer football practices, and they pushed me so hard that I threw up. And I was like, never mind. I don't want to play football. I want to go hang out with my friends at the private school. That is what I wanted to do. So part of it was me being just lazy. Like, I don't want to work that hard. Yeah. Did the man at school have a football team? No, no. Yeah. What sports did you have? Oh, OK. Soccer. Soccer was the big one.
01:06:37
Speaker
There's basketball. I did like tracking across the country. I didn't do any of the cool ones. But yeah, but the thing there was like, there was also like, there was like a touring choir. So basically, like, the bells, the bell choir, do you guys have some of that? But uh,
01:07:00
Speaker
I don't know if you know this about Mennonites, but they like really pride themselves in their harmonies. So it was like, you know. I didn't. That whole like high school was like really. It was like one of the things that you really wanted to do if you went there was like being the touring choir. So we did some of that and they would like take you to Europe and shit. It was like, whoa. Yeah, it's dope. So it's weird because it would be like a crossover of like the sports kids and the music kids because they all wanted to be like in that thing.
01:07:27
Speaker
Yeah, they did something right. They're getting everyone to one. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Not anywhere else. They're like, no, not at all. I liked choir. We did a lot of that kind of stuff when I was in school. I feel like I didn't like it in junior high, but in high school, I thought it was pretty fun. Yeah. It all depends on who you sat next to, though. Oh, yeah, for sure. Like the pretty girl versus just that old kid that you didn't really like that much. Oh, yeah. The person was just funny or not, you know?
01:07:56
Speaker
Yeah, see, the funny. I didn't have any outside social interactions. I did basketball up until like, fuck, eighth grade, maybe. No, no, it couldn't have even been that I did. I remember doing a town league when I first I'm trying to think I must have been 13 or so when I first moved from. I moved a couple hours away from where I grew up, and I remembered like I always did like town leagues and shit, and I remember doing basketball.
01:08:26
Speaker
No, I was crazy. I didn't. We had those just homeschooled. That's crazy. No, we had homeschool co-ops and shit. Did you do a homeschool co-op? Yeah. Yeah, we had that. You kind of have to. I don't think I know homeschool kids, Christian homeschool kids that don't do that. Yeah. But yeah, there was I didn't realize until later that I could have just joined at least in my state. I guess it varies from place to place on what the rules are. But where I live, you could just
01:08:56
Speaker
whatever your local school was, you could you could try out for that team. Yeah, it's because nobody high school was making it onto the normal. No, I wouldn't have either. I loved playing basketball and I really wanted to do it and I liked it. But then, like, everyone just got better. This is yeah, everyone got better and I didn't. So I was like, I'm not doing this anymore. But then that's fine. But then, yeah, you end up in homeschool co-ops and you're like,
01:09:22
Speaker
I remember our homeschool co-op tried to do things that you couldn't necessarily get at home too good. They had a Spanish class there, and it was a woman who spoke Spanish that would teach it and stuff. And you're like, that was fine. That made sense to me. I was okay with that. Science class in homeschool co-op was
01:09:41
Speaker
doing quote unquote science experiments. And then you had to like write about it and do your like, it was trying to do like lab shit. And I was like this, uh, I'm sorry. It just doesn't have the same authenticity when you do it in the church kitchen. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Just quick back to the like football thing where you could like play at a team. It's funny because I was, I was talking to one of my coworkers and she was talking about how
01:10:13
Speaker
She played in middle school and stuff, but then somewhere it got banned in certain counties or something across the US where you couldn't do that. You couldn't be somebody playing a sport in a high school team if you were homeschooled in the area or something like that, or you had to live there for a super long time.
01:10:38
Speaker
What changed it was something called the Tim Tebow, huh? That makes sense. Kids were moving and stuff? Yeah. So they were trying to get like, yeah. And then I think there was something called the Tim Tebow law, which I'm pretty sure is what was reversing it since he was a homeschool kid and just wanted like kids to be able to like play sports at the like high schools and everything. That's so funny. Like I just heard about that the other day.
01:11:03
Speaker
Tim Tebowlock, he was like the big Christian, like that's like the big Christian football player. Of course he was nice to me. Yeah, exactly. It's funny that makes sense because like in my town right now, they're building a new high school and they're going to have a great gym and that team got really good. It was like my local high school's team was awful. Like their basketball team sucked for years and years. And in the past few years, they got like really good. So kids who school choiced out were like, oh, we want to go back.
01:11:30
Speaker
in order to go back, it was like a big process. Like get to like get a letter signed by your, your school saying it was okay to play basketball for your, like the school you're going to. And they couldn't get that letter because it was like the best kids were like, why don't we go back? I get the politics of that, which is also funny. Cause it's like,
01:11:48
Speaker
it's high school football. And if there's one or two families who are willing to like upend everything they're doing to move to like, let them play another team, like, what are we doing? What are we doing? Over the gusto. If they love it that much. They're willing to buy a new house in a new area just so their kid can play on a team that's not as bad as the one they're on. Like just
01:12:11
Speaker
Are we really making a huge deal out of that? I don't know. Cause I had some parent who's like mad at that new guy is going to overshadow their kids. So they're going to miss out on a scholarship that they were never actually going to get in the first place. Yeah. I feel like high school, like sports is probably the biggest deterrent to having kids for me. Like I thought of having to go sit through games. Sounds awful.
01:12:38
Speaker
It wasn't bad. When my foster son was doing high school basketball, it was legitimately fun to watch his games. High school's fine, but everything before that would suck.
01:12:50
Speaker
Oh yeah, yeah. Like my son did basketball last year. Just tripped it all over the place. It's more like a basketball clinic. There's a hundred kids just dribbling and hitting themselves in the face with the ball. And you're like, well, I don't want to watch your kids suck at basketball. It's fine when it's your own, but I don't want to watch 99 other children be awful. Yeah. My kid's not even getting the ball. Come on. What's going on here?
01:13:15
Speaker
Yeah, there's one kid that just hogs the ball the whole time. Yeah, but he just he just walks. He runs with it. And then he gets tackled by the one kid that mostly plays football. Yeah. So were you a Christian Rock kid? Oh, for sure. Yes. Absolutely. Let's get this. Yeah. Actually, this is the game. This is the funny thing, because
01:13:42
Speaker
I was listening to one of your podcasts the other day because I was like, I should listen to more of these. But I was like. Who's the comedian? Like Jeremy Elder. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's the thing where you were like given his like walkouts of like Christian rock songs, like what would be his like.
01:14:01
Speaker
Oh, God, like walk out or something like that. Yeah. And I was listening to that. It was funny. And then the next day I was like at my local bar and like one of the only other dudes like around that really like gets it like like what it was like growing up at that time was like sitting there.
01:14:18
Speaker
And immediately we were just like talking about shit and he brought up like Big House by Audio Adrenaline. I was talking about EMX, PX and Steven Curtis Chapman. I was like, I just listened to this podcast last night. Or did you just listen to the same thing as me? These are all the songs they talked about. The hits, man. It was with my roommate, too. Like that's who was bringing up like Steven Curtis Chapman and stuff. But yeah. So which ones were you into?
01:14:47
Speaker
So first band I ever saw, well actually first thing I ever saw was Michael W. Smith. But first first like band that I saw that I wanted to go see was Pillar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that was right after I asked I'm pretty sure I asked my parents for like a rock CD at one point.
01:15:08
Speaker
but they got me like plus one with that boy band faith faith plus one that was all the girls liked what was that that's what the South Park episode was was faith plus one what I know one was an actual because it was an actual action board yeah Christian boy band
01:15:26
Speaker
The girls in my school really liked them in like middle school. Yeah. So there was that and I was like, also these songs are kind of rock. But then like I heard like pillar on the radio and they were like playing at some festival and I was like, that's what I want. So yeah, the Gateway Band was definitely like pillar for it was like my first favorite band. Finally got a CD from them like the next Christmas. And then of course, I was just into all those bands like fucking pillar and cut listen, skill it.
01:15:57
Speaker
Like those names are like they're all like in that same world pillar skillet Atlas and they all just all There's something about the way that those three names sound where I Yeah Like I don't it's hard to explain with skillet Cutlass like skillet is just goofy and skillet why skillet cutlass makes me think of cutlet which makes me think of yeah cooking them in a skillet and
01:16:27
Speaker
I just, and then, I don't know, the double L's and pillar just throw me, I don't know. All those together just feel the same. Maybe it's just the double letters in each word. Yeah. There's something like, they're so similar and they're all doors to me. That was the era though. That was like stained and, you know, mud vein and it was like kind of, cause Christian music is always a couple of years behind too. Yeah, like derivative. Yeah.
01:16:52
Speaker
When we were in, it was like early 2000s and they were just hitting like 1997 new metal. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Killer. Dude, pillar was, pillar was a big one back in the day though. Like I got fireproof and I listened to it like over and over and over. Actually very funny story about pillar also when I was in high school. I don't know if you ever heard about this. There was this thing called camp electric. It was like.
01:17:22
Speaker
It was, it was like a week long camp where you could like, okay, go and you sign up and you get like taught by like your favorite, like Christian artists. They would have like classes. Oh, that's awesome. I mean, yeah, it was sick, but uh, so like, but every once in a while, one of the artists would like have people like come play with them. So I was in this class and like.
01:17:45
Speaker
The guitarist from Pillar was teaching the class, like the dude with the long dreads and stuff. Oh, you went? Yeah, I went. Yeah, I went to this. Oh, man. So it's in there and he was going to pick out people to play on stage. Then he picked out like five of us, but it was one of them. So I got to go play fireproof with Pillar on the stage.
Youthful Dreams and Musical Journey
01:18:03
Speaker
So me as a sophomore at high school was just like, thank you, God. There is a God like coolness.
01:18:11
Speaker
Yeah. Dude, that's so funny. And now you look at it. Yeah. Now you look back on it. I'm just like, it's just Biller, man. And there's five other people up there that amps like aren't even plugged in. They're like little like hip ones that they're like, just like miking. It's like, yeah, you can't even hear us play, but I'm just like, yeah.
01:18:31
Speaker
Go and ham. Was that your first man? I should do this for real all the time in front of people. Yeah. I was like, it's going to happen. Yeah. I'm going to be a rock star. Yeah. Uh, dude, your, do you remember anything else from that camp? Like was, did any part of it stick out or do you remember any of the other artists that were there? Um, there was a singer of thousand foot crutch. He was there.
01:19:01
Speaker
Oh, cool. Oh, no kidding. That guy actually like kind of he did a lot. I think he's still around. He has like a label or something. Yeah. And he had like he had that like FM static was his other band and stuff, too. Yeah. Yeah. He was there. Like the bassist of Pillar was there. There was like probably some people from Cutlass. I can't really remember that much anymore, but yeah.
01:19:24
Speaker
It was overshadowed by playing fireproof. Life changing moment, dude. How many people were there? How many people would you do it in front of? I mean, I guess it would have been like. Probably like 500. Yeah, dude, that's sick. That is pretty awesome, actually. That's scary, like to think of like playing in front of anyone for anything and then to just be able to just get up and look out and see that and get a take. You're like, oh, yeah, I'm here for them. Yeah, do do do.
01:19:59
Speaker
One of the guitarists in Tannen Handsome was there with me. He got a video of it during the time, but I think the next year we were at Warp Tour and the camera he had it on got trampled while he was watching Under Earth. Or it might have not been Under Earth, or maybe there were some other videos that he had of them on there.
01:20:20
Speaker
or he lost the camera, something happened to the footage. How sick would it be if you still had that? Because that could make it his way into a tan, handsome music video and beat. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Just a little, yeah, a little taste. God, that's so, I honestly love that for you. I love that idea more than anything. I just, and hand picking five kids to do it. That's sick. Yeah. I mean, that made those kids, I mean, you're talking about it now, man. That made,
01:20:49
Speaker
a huge difference in kids' lives. I'm pretty sure it was the only five kids that tried out to do it. I don't think it was like, I don't think anybody learned one, but yeah. He just has 30 people out there just all doing it together. Or worse off, imagine if like six tried. They just like left one off. You can't do it. You air guitar'd worse than the rest of them, so you're out, dude.
01:21:19
Speaker
did what? Oh, go ahead, Sam. When you were in high school, like your it sounds like you had a pretty, pretty decent level of buy in for like Christianity. You weren't one of those kids that was like, had your questions or like, what were where were you at? Were you like, maybe, maybe not? Or were you just kind of like all in on it? I was pretty all in on it.
01:21:42
Speaker
for a while. Definitely all through high school. Of course I went to YWAM and stuff after that. But that was when I went to YWAM was when I was in the questioning phase. Interesting. Was that a choice you made to help you
01:22:02
Speaker
Some people when they get that questioning phase, they're scared about it because they watched all those people get dragged to hell on, you know, church theater. Yeah, that's right. Were you like, was that your way of trying to buy in more to commit to something like that? Or were you hoping it would like convince you of something? What was your thought on like, joining YWAM in your questioning phase? Well, in a way, because like, so I guess even when I had like,
01:22:29
Speaker
like just graduated and like started playing music and stuff. It was kind of like questions were already happening, but it was like, you know, I was having like a fun time digging through them. You know, it wasn't like. You know, I was just I was doing the thing and it's like it was more so like I was coming to these different understandings about how I could like. Be a Christian, but being like this part doesn't have to be. Yeah, maybe smoke, you know, do it after a show without going to hell. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was definitely doing that.
01:22:59
Speaker
And then, yeah, when I was at YOM, it was like in a questioning phase. And then, of course, was like. Like, I want to hang on to this thing, but I don't like all this shit, so I was just kind of like shaving off stuff. Yeah. And then like after I got out of YOM was honestly like when I was like. Kind of the most fulfilled with Christianity, not because of YOM, but because of everything I like had kind of left from it, I had like, I don't know, I felt like after that I had kind of developed
01:23:30
Speaker
like this idea of Christianity that I felt was like moral and good and like, I don't know. They made it your own. Like we, we grew up in this world where everyone's telling us what it needs to be and what it should be and how you, what it has to look like. And then you like take the, you think about it, you know, critically and you go, well, I really like these aspects of it. Um, and you walk away with something different.
01:23:56
Speaker
So I think that's. Yeah, it was definitely wild being in like such a hardcore environment like that while like having all that going on because it's like I was at the point of being like. I'll question it to the point of it like not being real, you know, like I'll give it up like all of that and then you're in this whole thing where everybody's just like so gung ho and there's so many like weird things going on and it's like yeah. Well, I really know a lot about why wham like.
01:24:26
Speaker
It's youth with a mission. Youth with a mission, yeah. What – so is it like a – I don't know. Explain what it is because I feel like – I'm sure it's like a campus ministry or something like that, right? Well, in a way like that. Basically, you go somewhere for something that's called a DTS, which is a discipleship training school. So that's where I went to Denver. You do that for five months.
01:24:55
Speaker
It's basically just like being taught, you know, you're like in a classroom. Every week is different. There's like a different teacher that comes in and teaches like a different subject for the week. And then so after like three months or so, you go on outreach. So you choose like which country you're going to go to, because of course it would be a different country. And then they send you out there. So I went to like Columbia. So yeah, that's basically what it is. It's like.
01:25:26
Speaker
I guess they would present it as like just like a school or like some sort of version of going to college. It's like a trade school for Bible programs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I always thought of it as just I knew a number of kids that joined it. So they have a they have a base like a home base in Hawaii or something. Some nice place. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone wishes they could go to the main one. Yeah. Yeah. Which is just funny because it's like
01:25:54
Speaker
You know, for me, I think at the time I took a missions trip to Jamaica and just enjoyed a, you know, a paid vacation to Jamaica. Yeah. Like, yeah. Why, why I'm in Hawaii, you'd be like, yeah, let me, uh, of course, this is fun. Of course. Yeah. But I've been to Kona. I will reconvert back to Christianity if I get to go live there. Yeah.
01:26:14
Speaker
It made me think of growing up in church and even in college and post-college being affiliated with churches that would support missionaries and stuff. It was a missionary that goes to this place. When I was at Liberty going to church out there, there was a family that decided to move to, honestly, I forget which country. Great family. I appreciated them. I thought they were good people doing
01:26:44
Speaker
good stuff. They weren't one of those families that were like, hey, let's just take everybody's money and just go live here and not have to work. We'll just go and hand out tracks and shit. They went and started a business in another country and they just wanted to assimilate into the best they could, learn the language.
01:27:02
Speaker
you know just that they were good people so i have no problem with the way they were doing it or what they were doing it wasn't like a colonial type adventure like some of the the mission stuff is but why when was yeah i always thought of why when like that but for kids it was like you join this thing they this
01:27:23
Speaker
teach you this stuff and then they send you out and then you come back and then they might send you out again like it's kind of just like a mission organization but like it's mostly it's mostly kids yeah most I mean and then leaders are probably over like their mid 20s but I feel like the majority of people doing the work like the I was a quote-unquote grunt work is like under 25
01:27:46
Speaker
What'd you do in Colombia? I mean, some of my leaders were even like 22. No way. It's still like, yeah. I mean, I was so much experience. Yeah, I was I was 19, you know, and they had just done the program a year before kind of. They were just there looking for a spouse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In Colombia, you know, did the kind of typical missionary work thing we would go out. I mean, we, you know, we would do a couple of things where, you know,
01:28:16
Speaker
maybe actually helped do like some labor on someone's like church or something like that or like
01:28:22
Speaker
But like a lot of it was just like doing the like the street plays and stuff, you know Yeah, and it's like yeah In Colombia, did you like did you get into some shit in Colombia? Like did you like go rogue and? Go out drinking or do anything like that was like a no like I I didn't I just I like really wanted to But I still I still stayed to like not breaking the rules When I was there there were a couple times like when I like
01:28:51
Speaker
came back home, because you're not supposed to drink or smoke or anything like that. And I'd be with my friends. It's like going to Liberty University, huh? Yeah. But when I was in Columbia, no, I actually didn't. I had my vape on me. That was before maybe it was cool, right? It was. It was, yeah. It was just like, but I wasn't allowed to smoke cigarettes, so it couldn't smell like them. So I just like, snuck this vape at least. But yeah, never really went rogue.
01:29:21
Speaker
Kind of kept it there. Bought some, you know, bought some alcohol I wanted to like bring back and cigarettes, but that was, you know, that was it. And I think I asked permission also. I think it was like, can I do this? They're like, sure. That's so funny. Looking back on it now. Yeah, you know, probably would have done it differently. What is like. So before that or afterwards, like, do you remember
01:29:51
Speaker
Was there an event or a person or something like that that happened that made you like start peeling apart the layers or eventually made you just say, I think I'm out? Man, it really doesn't seem like there was one moment. It just like, it just kept gradually happening. Maybe, I mean, maybe like somewhere in the time was a,
01:30:20
Speaker
when it would have been soon after YLAM and then like it was like when my band broke up like the first time it was like basically the same band i'm in now has been like a bunch of the same members so this is sort of the same band i'm in now but we we broke up like back in the day didn't know what to do was thinking about going to some other like mission school and stuff like that and i couldn't decide and was like trying so hard to have like
01:30:49
Speaker
Just cause I peeled back so many layers like theologically to where I felt like it was, you know, good and cool, but like the whole like, is it real? Can I have like a relationship with this God or whatever it is and stuff like that. And I was trying to make all these decisions to like go somewhere else, but you know, nothing was lining up with like how, like my heart fell. And then what other people like were saying I should do and stuff. And it just became this whole confusing mess where I was like,
01:31:19
Speaker
That's when I really started being like, do I need to like. Do this anymore? Do I have to like try to listen to God so much? Can I just like do my own thing? Because this is really frustrating. And it was kind of finally being like, this might all be bullshit, so I should just like. Kind of chill about it and like, yeah. Kind of just make the decisions on like what I want to do. Yeah, I don't know.
Faith Exploration and Belief Transition
01:31:45
Speaker
Yeah, that was kind of like the last layer like little chair on top pillar that fell because, of course, there are all the theology things of just like, yeah, I stopped believing in hell and stuff and like stuff like that. And, you know, was like gay affirming and all that, you know, everything seemed cool, but like the entire like, is this real? Just kind of stopped. I was like, I don't know.
01:32:08
Speaker
It's there's a part of it that stops feeling relevant whether it is or not when you've consigned to the fact that the things that you've always been told to care about as bad.
01:32:20
Speaker
no longer are to you. So like when your values shift and you're like, I mean, I think growing up, most of it was like, all right, you don't swear, you don't get drunk, you don't have sex. And then you just kind of subscribe to, I mean, for me, this isn't for everyone, but it was like you subscribe to Republican values.
01:32:42
Speaker
Yeah, it whatever that even means. I don't know. It's just very strange to like think of like, okay, so you shed that you shed that you should that I mean, you can still look there's plenty of people who maintain like a good spiritual life who maintain and consider have a good experience within Christianity who
01:33:02
Speaker
shift on all of those things and there's plenty of great Christian communities that Share those like progressive values. That's great. Yeah, but it's like when you spend so much of your time thinking that your values and your Christianity is dependent on you subscribing to certain ideas and then when those ideas shift and you don't it doesn't matter anymore to you you go like it's hard to maintain that it's hard to like yeah, let that still matter and even if you go yeah, it could still matter and I could choose to
01:33:32
Speaker
to invest in that and let that impact my life and have a community of believers. It's hard to get that back when it was all this and then that's gone. You're like, I'm doing all right. It's hard to find the same value in it when that's the world you come from. You sometimes need to be like,
01:34:01
Speaker
It is what it is. I'm doing just fine, I guess, without that. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm I'm not even against it anymore just because I know there are still like definitely quote unquote the progressive values or whatever that like kind of like some people still ascribe to faith. It's awesome. And it's like. There's sometimes I think about it's like, oh, maybe one day I would come back to it or something like that. But like there's also like
01:34:30
Speaker
Yeah, you know Yeah, because also it's like I don't I wouldn't say I'm one of those people that just like gave away my faith and became like a happier person because of it You know, it kind of sucked at the same time But it's like if I was going back to it It's like if if anybody like
01:34:52
Speaker
in the church I grew up in was hearing that I was coming back to Christianity or something like that, they still shouldn't get excited about it because I'd just be a heretic. It would still be not what they want me to believe. It'd almost be worse.
01:35:07
Speaker
We didn't sign in any doctrinal statements. Yeah. Which makes it like, I think that's what's fascinating is like, that's what I think makes, you know, the language and the labels all effectively useless because everything boils down to, well, what do you mean by that? Like if, Oh, are you going to be a Christian again? And then you go, well, what do you mean by that? And then they tell you, you're like, Oh no, I'm not that. And they're like, well, then you're not a Christian. You're like, well, then I'm not a Christian. I guess. Okay. Like that doesn't matter.
01:35:34
Speaker
Uh, but if someone else was like to the opposite extreme, you know, when you, like the world we came from, like, I don't see that as Christian. It's like, it's just, there's too many like, uh, cultural variations of it. It's like, it's not like, uh, at least so many, it's like what, what that word means. It's almost doesn't, it means so much that it almost means nothing anymore. So it's kinda, you'll,
01:36:01
Speaker
You'll kind of get that on like both sides of just like super evangelical and like, I don't know, like Reddit atheist or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you'll try to like this. It's like you can always tell when someone didn't like take Christianity that seriously that far. But they're like, oh, yeah, I grew up in the church. It was bad. But I, you know, yeah, I guess you were smarter than me in middle school and you got out of it or something like that. Yeah. You know, it's like, yeah, like funny. But then, like, you know, they'll still have like
01:36:30
Speaker
kind of the same arguments that you've heard your whole like, I don't know, deconstruction phase where it's just like, that one's boring, you know, it's like, or trying to describe to trying to describe to an evangelical and like a hardcore atheist, like, that the Bible doesn't have to be inerrant or something like that. Like for there to be value or like truth. Yeah, might be like,
01:36:58
Speaker
It's like, well, no, they'll both be like, no, you can't be a Christian and believe that. And it's like, well, you can, but. Yeah, there's like making up rules.
01:37:08
Speaker
that validate arguments that they have about stuff. Yeah. A bunch of gotcha bullshit. Gotcha. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. That's the gotcha theology. There could be a flying spaghetti monster. Yeah. Oh, my God. Let's be as pedantic as possible with the other people's perspectives and just shit on it. It's like, yeah, it's a little bit exhausting. Yeah.
01:37:33
Speaker
I do want to shift. I want to talk about your music. You've done a lot in the music world. I know you've gone on several tours with several bands doing different things. You graduate high school, you do YWIM, but you're doing music. It sounds like you found your way from pillar into the heavy music scene by the time you graduate high school.
01:38:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's a there's that big jump Let's close that guy a little bit real heavy band that you That you liked probably demon hunter. Yeah I think that's what I heard first and then got like I might then got super into under oath and then it was just like I don't know solid-state tooth and nailless was it from there and you know during that time it's just like I
01:38:24
Speaker
It was such a weird time during that time because just like all these Christian bands were fucking killing it. They were like the best bands in the game, you know? So good that it made people stop caring about being you being a Christian band. Yeah, exactly. So many people got over that because we got past it being like Striper, you know, you're not Striper Christian band anymore. You're just legitimately good. And whatever you're talking about is irrelevant because it's shadowed by how good your music is.
01:38:55
Speaker
Christian non-Christian bands were touring together all the time. And even when Christian bands were still preaching on stage, they were still going on tour with bands that weren't Christian. Both the guys wearing toms and the light love on her arms shirts. But then half those bands ended up not being Christian anymore, also. So it's like, yeah.
01:39:20
Speaker
It's almost like the good music does that for a moment metalcore and like that metal scene that having you see was one of the most inclusive areas you could find yourself in when it's just like, yeah. Oh, we're just we're here on merit alone. We're here because we have a good band and what we think or believe is irrelevant and we can all hang out in the same circle together based on this common interest. It was like, oh, that's kind of neat. It was.
01:39:49
Speaker
It felt cool that that fell by the wayside just because. Bands were good. Yeah, that's true. But so how did you start playing? Like, what got you into? Obviously, I accidentally somehow saw you play in Blood of the Martyrs at some point. But like, what was your your shift into into moving into to play music in that scene?
01:40:19
Speaker
So yeah, I would have been, I was in a pop punk band in high school, just play like, basically just trying to be Reliant K was this band. It was complete ripoff. And so yeah, did that. And then, yeah, after I graduated, basically the band that me and Logan, who does play in Tana Handsome,
01:40:43
Speaker
started. It was called Eight Days from December. It's just a it was it was basically under us like we were just trying to be under it. OK, we were playing a lot of shows. That sounds familiar. Did you guys hit the road with that band? Oh, yeah, we did. I that sounds really familiar. Yeah, it wasn't under. Yeah, we weren't that bad for that long, but it was. Yeah, we would have I mean, we would have played with with Jesse and them a decent amount. OK.
01:41:13
Speaker
When there was that's when they were doing service like servants. Yeah. OK. OK. So that might have been something. But yeah, so there was that band when we were playing in that band, met blood of the martyrs. They need a guitarist. I joined that band. I was only in that band for like a year. And then I wanted to go do this thing with Logan again. They taste from December band. So that's when we started like doing more stuff with that. And in between that was like why women everything, too. So it was just OK. Kind of spaced out like that.
01:41:43
Speaker
Um, yeah, so we had eight days and then we broke up eight days. Mainly because our drummer was going to Liberty. So he like wanted to go to college. So there was like less touring that we could do and stuff. Um, in that area.
Band Evolution and Music Scene Observations
01:42:02
Speaker
Uh, I feel like everyone in that scene knew each other at some level.
01:42:09
Speaker
In that area, he played in a band called Tigerfist, but that was like after, but it was with those dudes in Skies of Herbethany. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. The catatonic youth. Yes, yes, yes, yes, okay. Yeah, yeah. Because of Herbethany making it on a catatonic youth, that's all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, very funny, but... Oh my God, those dudes. Yeah, some of those guys are like hanging around stuff still.
01:42:34
Speaker
Do any of that play in bands that are like, did they all, any of them go on to actually like make no offense, but decent music? They actually, so they have a really cool band right now. It's called the handsome bandits. Um, which yeah, both of our bands have handsome in it now. So yeah, that's a bummer. Got to do something about that. That band's really cool though.
01:42:53
Speaker
I just I what he might be a decent guy. This is just a bad maybe with some bad experiences and people change to like our early our late teens early 20s in college when we think we're in I don't know the skies are about these guys felt like their band was gonna be the next August Burns read you got that vibe from them pretty hard. Yeah, your bassist treated a friend of mine like such shit that I've never been able to like not think of him as an asshole and I hope he's I hope he's recovered. I hope he's a
01:43:23
Speaker
recovering asshole and he's doing good now, but I'm pretty sure he's cool now. I haven't seen him in a while, but yeah. Yeah. Well, it's funny because he posted that I sent it to the drummer. He's like, no, it's awesome. He's like, yeah, hopefully. Yeah. Yeah. God, I love that. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, there was that. Yeah, that band broke up. We started a band called Bloom.
01:43:49
Speaker
which is basically all the same members again. Basically, we should have just kept the same thing going for forever. You guys just like making sounds on accounts. Yeah, no. Oh, no, it was always like, oh, we should just we want to do something different.
01:44:04
Speaker
There's that weird feeling of like, Oh, do we stick with longevity? Or like, if you do the longevity thing, are you, can you be in it too long where you lose all hope of getting noticed? And is there like something valuable about being fresh and doing something new? Like that's the game everyone was playing at that time. Uh, it's how to get noticed by the people you want to notice you or the labels you want to notice you. Yeah.
01:44:33
Speaker
Yeah, I know. I want to I would have probably gone with a longevity thing if I would have liked it. Honestly, doing something like fresh now because like Pan and Handsom hasn't been a band for like even a year yet. Yeah. Or we have. But like we released that EP at the beginning of January. And it's been sick to like have a weird fresh start on it at 30. So.
01:44:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty fun. I mean, that's different than stuff you have been putting out before too. Like there's not a lot of, not that you couldn't be the same band and put out something that radically shifts. We've all known bands who have made no shifts, but I mean, there is something, I mean, it's different than probably what you, it sounds like it was different than what you were doing before, so. Yeah, yeah, it definitely is. And it's like, yeah. Well, the, I mean, the newest like,
01:45:27
Speaker
part of this whole collection is like buddy who plays guitar right now and he's like he's mainly been the one writing so far we're all trying to get together and like do it more as you know but this was like kind of his thing that he was like starting asked me to join then asked Logan and Garrett the other people that were in my other bands to join too or I guess Garrett the drummer was actually playing with him first so but yeah then we all got together and kind of made this thing but yeah okay it was also this is something I was gonna say it was like funny when uh
01:45:58
Speaker
like back in the variation that was Bloom, that was after Eight Days, was like kind of coming back into that scene, not being a Christian anymore, you know? And not being a Christian band, but it's like somehow, even in this band, it feels like we're still somehow Christian adjacent just because of how much like past there is. But it was kind of like also being in that band and people would be like,
01:46:24
Speaker
Man, these dudes are all, they're fucking party. I was like, I was thinking, I was like, no, we were just touring with Christian bands. It's like, badass, that's the reputation, but we were just drinking some beers. We weren't doing anything crazy, you know? That's so good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, a decent amount of drinks, but you know, nothing insane. The reverse of that was funny too, because like,
01:46:51
Speaker
When we were a Christian van, we would tour with non-Christian vans, and we'd open the van and pull some beers out, and they're like, oh shit, y'all party? It's like, yeah, let's get after it.
01:47:04
Speaker
it's such a funny world man that is that that being like such a dividing line on like how people perceive you and what you're like it's like just because you throw back a few more beers than like another band like it's so silly it's yeah it's crazy like that feels like something i remember that conversation when we were in like
01:47:25
Speaker
You know, late teens, early twenties. It's so funny that that's that's still in the zeitgeist for the whole Christian non-Christian band thing. That's so wild. Yeah. Yeah, it was funny, though. It was also weird getting back into that scene after not being there and just like I just remember being at one festival. That was like a mainly Christian festival and being like, oh, I don't necessarily know how to talk to a lot of these people anymore.
01:47:55
Speaker
It's just like like coming back into it and like yeah kind of like of course I'd seen all the stuff but was kind of out of it and hadn't really had been at a point of not really talking about it that much for a while because like most of my friends had gotten out of it and we were like we were kind of past talking about it all the time like we used to but then like yeah going back to that festival and then like seeing people just like
01:48:21
Speaker
know just hands up like praying for the spirit to come down and it's like it's like they're just like begging to like have some experience just like everybody you know and you look at that from being out of it for a while and you're like that's fucking weird man like yeah it is something very strange finding your way like into those if I was literally just talking to somebody the other day about how like
01:48:53
Speaker
I remember the last time I was at an evangelical event, it was like my parents' church, it was like a Christmas Eve Eve kind of special thing that they did. And the idea was like, it's always like a Christmas Eve thing. Let's do this for us and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas. And that's great. No problem with that if that's what you want to do.
01:49:16
Speaker
I remember going and it was like, it wasn't Christmasy at all. It was like, they start with Genesis and end in Revelation, they do the whole story of everything based on their understanding of it and the whole Christ story and Jesus coming back. And I'm like, we had about four and a half minutes of Christmas in this thing. And the rest was just like a pitch to get people to become Christians when
01:49:43
Speaker
the only people who are here are people who are Christians and maybe one or two non-Christians that were invited by their family. They shifted it from this like, let's celebrate Christmas as a community who shares these values and wants to focus on this as the reason for the season and let's make it all about, let's make it about none of us because we're already saved and let's like
01:50:09
Speaker
Yeah, let's encourage you all to reach out to people to bring them so that way maybe they'll get sick. It's like it just became this thing about everything. It's like it becomes about everything but the thing it's supposed to be about. And I think I kind of hear the same thing with like the festival stuff and like, yeah, you know, everyone begging for it's like, it feels like it just misses the mark so much like it lost. It's all it's all lost the plot and lost sight of like,
01:50:33
Speaker
what it could be or should be or and it's just kind of circling the wagon at this point. It's exhausting to think about participating in that and always thinking about who else is involved or did I say the right thing or am I putting on the right front to be a good witness? You don't think of it as putting on a front, but it is. It's imaginary. It's anxiety inducing after a while.
01:51:03
Speaker
to participate in that. Yeah. You guys got some awesome... Sorry, go ahead. Oh, I was going to say, luckily at this point, I think I'm past... I think this band might be finally past the Christian adjacent band. Yeah. Sometimes it's like, oh, we're playing with the Christian band again. Here we go again. All right. Yeah, you have to think about that. Yeah. Oh, we're playing it. But you guys have some great shows coming up with some...
01:51:31
Speaker
Awesome non-Christian bands. So yeah, yeah. Uh, darkest hour, uh, now boys, um, what I'm excited. I hopefully you guys, uh, hit the new England area. Uh, that's the way we would love to. Um, Oh no, I think like February is the next time we're going to like, try to do like a little like run where we could like get somewhere like that. But yeah, we were at.
01:52:00
Speaker
Jesse was like also talking to me about like some contacts he might have up there that could like help us out. Oh, for sure. Yeah. The show that I was just talking about being at where it's like, you know, you want everyone to keep it tight. When we first got there, he was talking to this guy. He was the promoter for it. He did. He would do the shows for Jesse's band at the time when they were playing. And he seems to do shit a lot of places and put on some good shows. So.
01:52:28
Speaker
Uh, he's like a wicked nice dude. So I'm sure that that might be one of those connections. Cause he said that he hooked him up a good bet when they were playing that area. So yeah, it'd be sick. That's right.
Touring Excitement and Merchandise Success
01:52:40
Speaker
Good. I mean, dude, there's some great venues putting on some like good shows and has that have great turnout. So it'd be dope. Yeah. That'd be red. Love to come up there. I want to go everywhere. So yeah, that's what I love to do. But yeah. And you.
01:52:56
Speaker
Yeah, I can do it. That should be our city motto. Yeah, I can do it. Yeah, we get his gas cheap there. You guys got pecan logs? Pecan. Pecan. Come on, dude. Okay, I have to ask. All right, and this goes out to both of you here. Are you at your current
01:53:27
Speaker
because I feel like this could vary for people. Are you more, like deep down in your psyche past all the like, you know, angsty, mid-30s, whatever that we're all in, are you more afraid of God or of demons? Because I'm definitely more afraid of demons. I was thinking I'm probably still more afraid of demons at this point.
01:53:55
Speaker
I'm not like in my room like thinking about like Jesus coming back and me like, you know, not getting there anymore. But I can still be scared of demons, you know. I think my brain can talk me into the fact that a demon might be there.
01:54:19
Speaker
Like the other night I did one of those. All the time, honestly. I did one of those like half asleep things, you know, where you like almost fall asleep and then you wake up just like short of breath and not knowing where you are. Like sleep paralysis, because I get that all the time. That's probably why I'm scared of demons. Yeah. See, I don't know if that's something I've experienced with demons is like sleep paralysis. Mark Driscoll had a lot to say about that.
01:54:48
Speaker
Yeah, that they're actual demons, not just an actual condition. Yeah. He thinks that the pornography you've watched has invited demons to come in and sodomize you in your mid-sleep transition. Is that what it is? Oh shit, that's what did it. He thinks, Mark Driscoll thinks wet dreams are demons literally sucking the cum out of you.
01:55:23
Speaker
What is sleep paralysis like I mean is it because people describe it
01:55:30
Speaker
Yeah. And some people are like, oh, the hat man, the hat man shows up, you know. I don't know if that. I feel like I definitely saw the hat man or whatever when I was a kid. There was always like this like thing that would come behind my door. It was like walking a dog. Oh, but, uh, dude, it's like, I'm on, I'm on the, uh, wet in the bed tonight. Yeah. Basically you'll just like, I don't know.
01:56:01
Speaker
It'll either happen when I'm about to fall asleep or if I'm asleep and wake back up. It's just like, I don't know. You can't move. You can't speak or scream or yell out or anything like that. And you might see something scary. Do you feel like you can breathe? You're present in the room that you're in, though? Yeah. OK. Yeah. See, I feel like I've had that feeling, but it's been fully immersed in a dream.
01:56:28
Speaker
not like. Yeah. No, this is like you wake up and you're like it. You definitely feel like you're in the room that you're in. Casey, that was just that one time April handcuffed you the bed in your sleep. It's like after you begged her for a month. She she nearly killed me by like holding my nose, trying to get me to stop snoring. She's.
01:56:53
Speaker
What were those strips that your dad would put on his nose to open it up so that your mom could get like 30 minutes of sleep at night without him snoring? Is it breathe right? You guys are right. I don't remember that. I should probably get it now. It was like a kickstand for your nostrils.
01:57:11
Speaker
If I sleep on my back, I get woken up every 35 seconds by my wife being like, because I snore. If I sleep on my side, I don't. If I sleep on my back, I snore like a motherfucker. It's not fair because she snores as much as I do, but I can just sleep through it like a champion, like a strong individual. I'm just constantly woken up by the weaker of the two of us. It's not fair.
01:57:38
Speaker
You know, that's what, you know, that's what it's like to be married, right? You know, as a man, you're nice and strong about everything, you know? Yeah, I don't have a wife. I just have bandmates. So that's that's where our snoring conversations come in.
01:57:50
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, my God. I'm the strongest one, though. Yeah, of course. You're super strong. I can tell just by looking at you, you're super strong. You've been on the road a good bit, though, like you do. You go on. Was it March, right? You were like running, doing months for some bands on tour and shit like that. Oh, yeah. I'll normally do merch for Greyhaven. OK. I've done like a few tours with them. Oh, no. So, yeah, just always on that go cry, man.
01:58:19
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, those are really fun, especially because like, I mean, if I go on tour with my band, I make no money. I go on tour with them, I can actually make some money. I'm like an employee, I get it, you know, it's like, yeah. Who has the craziest merch sales that you've seen in person? Ooh. Ooh. Man, I don't know if I've actually seen someone's numbers. Like, just a general feeling, but because see, I went to, uh,
01:58:48
Speaker
Well, Sam and I both different shows, but went to Sleep Token recently. Uh, I bet that was crazy. Dude. Oh, my God. There are people who missed the show standing in line for merch for two hours. Yeah. So no. So I did a tour with with Grey Haven when they were on tour with Silent Planet. They definitely had like long lines that old. Yeah. Yeah. That was crazy. Of course. Like, yeah. Norma Jean.
01:59:18
Speaker
There was that too. So I know the guy who does merch for bad omens. Oh, really? I don't know any numbers. I just know that that's like insane. Well, just because they're like only a man. I mean, they're they're like a total merch band like they'll put up stuff and it's just like. You know, yeah, that's a funny cause. That's an interesting way to put a total merch band like there's.
01:59:41
Speaker
It's, um, it's like, uh, let's say, okay. Interesting example. Grateful dead, right? Like I, I work with someone who is wearing a grateful dead shirt today who had, who's never actually listened to grateful dead. She just had the shirt cause it matched her shoes and it looked like, and I'm like, that's a merch pain, right? How many people, the amount of people who own tons and tons of grateful dead merch, but you sell it at literally every store.
02:00:07
Speaker
Yeah, but to see that slip into like, you know, the like this industry of music where it's like, yeah, to be a merch band is it's such an interesting concept. I never thought of something like that. But they have it. I mean, they have it with like diehard fans, too. Like people just like. Are crazy about that band right now. They're just like blown up. So I love them and they buy what they sell.
02:00:31
Speaker
I think I can, honestly, unless I listened by accident, I think it's possible I've never actually heard Bad Omens and I don't know what a single song of theirs sounds like. I like Bad Omens. I don't know if you would. Your musical tastes make no sense to me. Yeah. Well, that's- There's very little rhyme or reason to them. No.
02:00:49
Speaker
That we don't need to get into this now, but I feel about Logan our one guitarist sometimes it'll just be like there's something that I'm sure he's gonna love but he just like fucking hates it I was like, there's no reason you like this like this you should Mine are reasonable Casey's the one that's got the we like he'll send me something from Darko or something from I don't know what tell me what are some of the things you've sent me that we have established that I'm I'm like, what are you doing, man? I
02:01:19
Speaker
sleep token no sleep token is that actually I said they wear masks and he's like but it's really catchy no sleep I mean I might I might be with him on this one
02:01:34
Speaker
I actually really like sleep token doesn't make sense for my musical taste sleep token does not make sense for my musical taste. But like, I'm trying to think if I went through music on Spotify, it would all make plenty of sense. We're talking currents, Johnny Booth, dance, Gavin dance, like, these are just normal things that, uh,
02:01:58
Speaker
Like that, that all makes sense. You know, um, maybe there's some pop punk in there, like you're like Belmont, uh, and four years strong. Like, but that makes sense. You go through the, you said like the top five and here we go. And, um, as another one that I've been listening to lately, like their new album is great.
02:02:21
Speaker
all in the same lane. This is all same lane kind of stuff. If, I feel like if you said like the top five bands you've been listening to, Casey, they would all be, you would be the one that- Conway Twitty. What you're accusing me of being right now. Maybe so, maybe so. But yeah, Bad Omens is good.
02:02:49
Speaker
Maybe I'll check that out. Wow. Yeah, they sell merch. They're good. It's been great having you, man. Thanks for coming on. You too, guys. This is fun, man. Everyone needs to go. Yeah, you do that. Where can people find you? Tell everyone where they can check out your shit.
02:03:13
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, all the streaming platforms, Spotify, Apple Music, everything like that. You guys are sure, by the way, I had to tell you that that Miller Lite, the Miller High Life shirt you guys did. Oh, yeah. Love that. That shirt fucking rules. Yeah, I have a few. I could I could send one to you if you want. Oh, yeah. I'll buy it. I'll be a respectable person and respect the grind. I'll buy it. But if I'll I'll message you after this and that'd be sick. I love that. Yeah, that'd be right. But yeah.
02:03:40
Speaker
We just put out a new single, like a month or so ago. So that's out there now too. Yeah. But yeah, that's about it. Hell yeah. It fucking rules. I think we've established their audience. This is, we talk a lot about variations of heavy music. And Tan and Handsome is fucking fantastic, you guys. I feel like you guys got some big things on the horizon, so. Hope so. Yeah.
02:04:08
Speaker
Yeah, we're, yeah, we're, we're writing stuff now too. Um, want to get some more stuff out, but yeah. Nice. It's definitely been fun for the, a little under a year that we've been doing it so far. So. Yeah. Looking forward to whatever you guys got next. Yeah. Check out Tan and Handsome and we will see you next time.