Who Are You, Matt Hunt?
The truth is, and I’ve been keeping it a secret, I am a spring roll and nacho addict. I like to say, “What the f**k.” And I’m a Jesus music historian. Basically, I am just a regular normal guy.
You grew up in the Midwest. You probably had bands you listened to. Do you remember what bands or artists you started out listening to growing up?
It was kind of weird growing up in the Midwest. I wasn’t where any of the bands were. I was completely exempt of any type of Christian music scene anywhere. I grew up fairly poor. So my parents had no interest in paying for me to go anywhere that there was good music. I literally had to depend on my friends going to Christian bookstores out of town, bringing back good Christian music, and sharing it with me. That was my experience. Then when I was in 6th grade, I came across a CCM magazine that my Christian bookstore ordered as sort of like a free sample for me. I loved it so I started subscribing to it. And out of the classifieds, I started seeing ads for White Throne and Heaven’s Metal magazines. This was about 1983 or 1984 when I started getting those magazines.
Did you first start listening to secular music, or did you get right into Christian music?
I grew up in an Assemblies of God congregation. They told me that I was burning in a lake of fire if I listened to secular music at all.
So you must be going to burn then because you have secular music in your collection now.
Well, I do now. But back then, I didn’t. Occasionally at the church, we had contemporary groups like The Living Light, The Sharretts, Phil Enloe…We did actually have a cool artist show up named Randy Cutlip who was in Three Dog Night for a brief time. To this day, it’s one of my favorite albums ever. Nobody knows about it but it’s amazing.
Do you remember what your first concert was?
My very first concert was in Burlington, Iowa, and it was White Heart, and they were touring off their self-titled album. They came back the next year and toured off Vital Signs. I was blown away by how good that was. My first Christian album was The Imperials Stand By The Power. After that, I found a vinyl copy of Petra’s Not Of This World. And then a guy at my school who went out of town a lot started introducing me to bands like Daniel Band, Joe English Band, Servant, David & The Giants, stuff like that. From there, I ended up finding bands like Bloodgood, Barren Cross, and Messiah Prophet.
What inspired you to do a Christian record label? How did that all begin?
I enjoyed the search for collectible stuff. I always had the desire to increase my own personal collection with rare and hard to find things. When I came across stuff that I already had, I realized there was a market for it. So in 1994 I started a mail order company called Rugged Cross Connections. I saw people like Rad Rockers, Claude Crain, John Brzykcy, people like that, selling stuff through the mail. I thought it would be fun to do that because I could find a lot of stuff that I wanted and finance my own collectible habit. I did Rugged Cross Connections until 1998. By that time I was a pastor in a church and didn’t have time to do direct orders. I started a record label because I knew there was collectible stuff out there and there was nobody really doing any kind of reissues. The very first reissue I did as Magdalene Records was Charizma’s Rock The World, a Swedish metal band. It’s really good and is far out of print. After that, we did both of the Philadelphia releases, and got connected to M8 Distribution. We put out Recon, Daniel Band, X-Sinner, Titanic, and a bunch of good stuff.
How long did you work in conjunction with M8 Distribution?
Until we stopped getting any money. I had to do my own thing in 2002. Then I released Titanic’s Maiden Voyage and The Angry Einsteins by X-Sinner. I broke ties with M8 for a number of reasons, and became Retroactive Records with the help of Rad Rockers.
You’ve gone to Cornerstone Festival for many years. You helped host the Day Of Metal. How did that originate?
The previous owners of Bombworks Records had done Day Of Metal, and I figured I’d continue that trend. Truthfully, it was poorly attended. It was a lot of work. There wasn’t a lot of benefits for doing it. It played to small crowds and was very disappointing. Compared to the other stages, we didn’t have really anybody showing up. Cornerstone wasn’t into metal as much as it was into hardcore, alternative, and punk.
Are there any stories you can share from putting on shows? Any band stories?
We brought in a band called Skies, which we ended up releasing an album by them. It was great because we were right on the main road at Cornerstone. By the end of their show, they put on such a good show that they probably had about 150 people in the tent. To this day Skies put out one of my favorite modern hard music albums. The other one is a band called Dark Lay Still. Fantastic extreme black metal! They somehow got their band together, had a terrible experience driving from California to Cornerstone. They finally made it, late, and played what I would consider the all-time best black metal show I’ve ever seen in my entire life! It was absolutely stunning! Literally, as soon as the show was over, they loaded their gear up, left for California, broke down on the road, had a terrible experience,…some of the band members went off to the military, and we never, ever heard from them again. I have no idea what’s happened to them.
(laughing) They are such a legend and they don’t even know it! I remember that show very well. My jaw was on the floor the whole time!
I don’t think there was more than 20 to 30 people there. It was a stunning show! It was flawless! Unbelievably good! The only other story I can think of is…I’ve been blessed to work with Michael Knott and support him in his musical endeavors and be a part of what he does. I am friends with Michael. Michael will call me at various times within a 24 hour period. It could be 2 o’clock in the afternoon, it could be 4 o’clock in the morning, it doesn’t matter…he will leave me these messages that sound something like, “Hey Mathew… Matthew…Matthew, I’m just calling because I need to do the Our Father with you. So do the Our Father with me: Our Father, who art in heaven…(says the entire Our Father prayer)… for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever, Amen.” And then he will hang up.
(laughing) Wow, that’s great! That’s classic!
Uh huh. He will totally do that. And another one, this last summer, I went to Louisville to go to a music festival and I got to hang out with Troy and Dale Thompson of Bride. Troy hosted a friend and myself at his house for dinner. It was just fantastic. It was such a privilege to sit down in Troy’s home with Dale and joke around, be a little bit goofy, and talk about life and music. I gotta say, there are some bands that I’ve worked with that are as genuine as you would ever imagine. Bride is one of those. Trytan and Larry Dean is also. The guys from Daniel Band are absolutely amazing…I know there is more than I’ve mentioned. I just want fans to know that the majority of these Christian artists that continue to be out there, they really are who they have presented themselves to be, and you should be proud of them.
And you’ve met up with Eric Clayton recently.
Oh yeah. That was amazing. I ended up in California for a church conference. It ended up being right around where Eric Clayton lives. So I gave him a call. I was like, “Hey Eric, I’m around.” He was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m going to be right where you are!” So we ended up meeting up at this restaurant, I think it was actually called Mark’s Big Boy. If you walked into the bathroom, people had etched all kinds of colorful words into the toilet seat and to every part of the bathroom that you can etch things in. You could tell it was that old of a place. I got to sit with Eric, his wife, and his two daughters. They had these amazing avocado omelettes, and it was so much fun to sit there and share that meal with them. When we were done, we stood outside of the restaurant and talked for like 20 minutes, and then we left. About a week later, Eric emailed me and said, “Hey, did you end up paying for the bill?” And I said, “No, I thought you did.” (chuckles) And he said, “Well, we kind of forgot about it, and we didn’t pay for it.” It wasn’t like we made a run for it. We stood outside the restaurant for like 20 minutes, and nobody said anything to us. So apparently, Mark’s Big Boy gave us a free meal that night. It was quite exquisite.
That’s pretty cool. Going back to record labels, you also have Bombworks Records. How did you obtain Bombworks?
I started Retroactive Records to do reissues and put out new albums by classic rock and metal artists. I have been doing that since 2002. I acquired Bombworks Records around 2008. I was close to my friends Rob Colwell and David Bixler. They were the visionaries that started a Christian music label that focused on black and death metal, and the more extreme side of metal. After a while, things did not work out financially for them and they transitioned into new areas in their life and were ready to get out of the scene. So they talked to me about it, we came to an agreement, and I took over the label for them. I was blessed to be able to work with bands like A Hill To Die Upon (their first album is my favorite black metal release ever), Holy Blood, My Silent Wake, Seventh Angel (which I consider to be one of the best extreme releases in Christian music of all time), and most recently, A Grave Declaration and Antestor, which kind of blow my mind in term of sales and popularity. Then around 2012 we launched Born Twice Records which focuses on reissuing out of print Jesus music albums from the ’70s and ’80s.
So you’ve got three genre type labels, all under your distribution company Brutal Planet.
That’s right. We do distribution world-wide. We got distribution in the mainstream market, and in the European market, and we also sell online with Amazon and eBay. We do digital distribution through CD Baby. We also have some distribution into the Family Christian stores as well. We also have record label sites for each label. Then we have partners around the world that sell Christian music. A high percentage of our stuff sells on Amazon.
Were there any albums that you thought would go like big time, sell like hot cakes, and did not sell that well?
I learned a few hard lessons that I did not learn very well just because I’m sort of stubborn and hard headed. If I love and cherish an album, sometimes I allow that to dictate whether I put it out or not. Michael Knott’s Dogfish Jones sold extremely poorly. There wasn’t much demand for it. The majority of the Born Twice Records reissues, aside from Daniel Amos which always sells extremely well, didn’t sell much. Some of those releases, I am absolutely as proud as I can possibly be about them…Bill Mason Band’s No Sham…Mike Johnson’s two albums that are early psychedelic Jesus music… The Exkursions, which is heavy fuzz psychedelic hard rock…Stronghold’s Fortress Rock that is very heavy, sludgy, Black Sabbath-like classic hard rock…none of them have sold particularly well. But they are all exceptional albums in their genre, and worthy of the attention of Jesus music, Christian rock, and hard rock enthusiasts world-wide. They are outstanding releases and I am very, very proud of them.
Those albums needed to be put out. They were released on vinyl, went out of print, and collectors scrambled around to find them. You actually provide people with an opportunity to hear these records 20 years later. They can now go in the hands of people who have not heard them before, as well as vitalize the collections of those who may have had them years ago, let go of their vinyl, and can now obtain them again.
It’s disappointing when they don’t sell well because we go to extreme measures to make sure we get a high quality release. I’m confident on every account that what you get from us, you will never in your life find a better audio copy of it. We have a guy who does all our re-mastering. I consider him the best in the world at what he does. Nobody’s going to take their re-mastering of what they put on their computer and do a better job of maintaining the integrity of the original music, and editing and re-mastering this music. We cater to that music enthusiast who wants the value of the original music, re-mastering it so it sounds the best it ever could.
Do you want to give kudos to who that is?
That’s Jonathan Walker, also known as Cliffy Huntington. Jonathan also goes by J. Powell Steinhaus, and he’s the best at what he does. He’s absolutely an amazing and invaluable part of our team.
Other than your record labels and distribution, what else do you do? What do you do in the week?
My full gig is being a pastor in a local United Church of Christ congregation. If you want to see what the UCC denomination stands for in general, go to UCC.org. Just realize that it is not your traditional, conservative denomination. They are really good about cutting to the chase about what they stand for, what they believe, and what they want to do in terms of being a witness for Jesus in this world. I’m a pastor at a small congregation. The other thing I get to do is teach an ethics class at a local liberal arts college. That takes up my Monday evenings.
Sounds like you keep plenty busy. And you have family as well.
Yep, I’ve got a daughter, 11, and a son, 16. I actually have a business called Boone’s Overstock that focuses on online sales on Amazon, which sells household products, health products, toys, music, everything like that. We have 4 full time employees.
That’s amazing. Now you’ve been a pastor for a number of years now. Have you developed a vision for the church?
One of the things I’ve noticed is the church has been around long enough and it’s become traditionalized. That can become a barrier to people that are trying to find Jesus or need to find Jesus or want an experience to love the presence of God. The vision I have really comes down to we got to stop being church the way we want to and we got to diligently pray and say, “God, what kind of church do you want us to be.” I really hope and believe that church that God wants us to be will be for people that don’t go to church. There are people that were Christians have been hurt or discouraged, and for some reason, fell away from the church. Also, is called to reach out to people that have not gone to church, do not know the bible, do not know about prayer, do not know about God, and don’t know what it is to be liberal or conservative. The church is called to put aside what we like and what we want about church, and ask, what does it take to create a place for people that do not know God, and to take that seriously, to look through those lenses to see what we can do to help people experience the love, grace, and mercy of God that’s out there.
It sounds like you’re not worried about how it’s been done before. Rather, it’s how Jesus is relevant for people today and how the church be there for those people. It will be an interesting journey. I hope your church identifies with that vision and goes forward. How have your beliefs in Christianity changed since you were a young Christian?
I grew up in a very conservative and fundamentalist congregation. They had a lot of affect on me. What they instilled in me was a love for Jesus and a love for the bible. But the way that it has changed is that I find a lot of those ways are not consistent and are not always helpful to people. In many ways we end up serving these traditions like we’re here to serve them rather than they are there to serve us. I have changed my views in that I do not worship the bible. I absolutely love and cherish the bible but I don’t worship it. I don’t pick out certain scriptures and pretend like they are the only ones that the bible talks about. When it talks about sexuality, when it talks about marriage, when it talks about other issues, I take all of it seriously and realize it actually says more than one thing about the same issue. If I said that to the people in the church that I grew up in, they would brand me as a heretic, and I’ve been called a heretic before. But I definitely believe if you take the bible seriously, you’ve got to admit that on multiple issues, the bible says more than one thing. The bible is not there to always be taken literally. It’s there to guide and direct us, and help us to understand the God that Jesus came to reveal to us. It’s also good for helping us understand how Christians and the people of God historically wrestled with ethics and spirituality of how to be faithful to God. I think that is a powerful thing for us to have, but that’s a much different way to approach it than what I grew up being taught.
Cool. Let’s go back to record labels. I have some names, and if anything comes to mind in terms of these bands, could you say a line or two. I’m going to start with Bombworks.
Antestor.
They have a lot of dedicated fans. They are outstanding musicians. Fans should know it is very, very challenging for them to put out the music they do. And fans should be grateful because it’s outstanding.
Holy Blood.
Holy Blood is from the Ukraine. We’ve done a descent job communicating but we’ve never actually talked on the phone with Fedor. I just sent him a MoneyGram from Walmart because they don’t have PayPal in the Ukraine. I helped provide funds so that he can finish the new album that he has coming out, called Day of Vengeance, that will see the light of day in 2014.
My Silent Wake.
I have a personal love for their music. Their fan base is not big as it is for Seventh Angel. It has been challenging to get the sales that I believe that band deserves. From an artistic standpoint, I think that metal band is hard to beat. We continue to put out their music and try to find ways to creatively promote it, and be patient for sales. I wish more people would take notice of this artistic doom metal giant out there called My Silent Wake.
Divulgence.
I have actually been listening to their cd a lot lately. The reason we wanted to sign them originally is because they had that Slayer sound, that South Of Heaven, Reign In Blood kind of fast paced metal sound, like that early Living Sacrifice sound. They were young kids, had a great look, a great sound, and put out one album with us. Truthfully, it’s got the progressive structures of Tourniquet. Some of the vocals have a bit of death metal vibe. It’s actually a full-on progressive thrash sound, sort of a Tourniquet-Living Sacrifice hybrid.
A Hill To Die Upon.
They have been with Bombworks from the very start when I took over the label. They put out their first album in the first year I had the label in 2009. We’ve sold more of their first album than any other release on the label. We’re nearing 3000 units of that. They are amazing human beings, amazing musicians, and we will put out their new most recent release in the next couple months. We are looking forward to releasing that to the public as well.
Let’s go to Retroactive Records.
Ultimatum.
Great band. I love Scott Walters. I hope that band can work through some of the gaps of band members to put out a new album.
Mainline Riders.
That’s Cliffy Huntington. Cliffy is a natural born rock star. It grieves me everyday that he’s not putting out new music. He’s got a family, a great life, and a good plan, and right now music is not a part of that. But maybe someday we’ll be lucky enough to have him come back and get some more classic hard rock and metal. Their second album is one of my all-time favorite hard rock albums. It sounds so much like AC-DC. It’s so good, it’s unbelievable. If you saw them at Cornerstone, you were absolutely blown away.
Bride.
I love working with Bride. They might be the most prolific artists I’ve ever worked with. They started out as a classic metal band, and every single album they come out with seems to get more and more creative. They’re never boring. You never know exactly what you’re going to get from their next one except that it’s going to be amazing.
Saint.
They’ve been a great addition to the label. We support Richard Lynch and the band 100 percent. We cherish every chance we get to help them out. If you like Judas Priest, you can’t get any better than these guys.
Rex Carroll.
Working with Rex is a privilege and an honor. He works hard, he loves Jesus. If he can play out and get a crowd of people, he will sell product because he’s that good! I’ve never seen anyone who can sell product like Rex Carroll, it’s unbelievable.
Messiah.
That was a guilty pleasure that we put out. If you like early Alice Cooper or early Kiss, this stuff is really high-quality live hard rock and metal. We were lucky to come across Charles Michael. We came across at a time when he needed us and we needed him. I’m really proud of those two albums we put out. I wish there was more because I’d like to be more financially helpful to him and his family.
Mass.
Loved working with Mass. They are the confident professionals. They communicate well. They are always respectful. They put out amazing music. They are great with their fans. They are supportive of the record label. You got some true winners to be proud of. They put out world class music with every single release.
Rivera Bomma.
They got the bass player Mike LePond from Symphony X. Their album actually took 4 to 5 years for them to record. We wanted them to come out with something earlier than that. But they couldn’t do it. So we ended up just being patient and supportive of them. They love Jesus and we think the world of them. It’s a great progressive power metal album, and it has some really great tracks on it.
Saviour Machine.
Eric has been amazing to us. Working with Saviour Machine is always a joy because Eric is creative, thoughtful, and he loves his fans. It’s funny because he lives at night and sleeps during the day. So I have to get up at 4 in the morning to talk him.
Grave Robber.
Grave Robber was one of the first newer bands we started to work with. Cliffy Huntington gave me a heads up. He was like, “Yeah, I gave your address to my buddy Shawn. He’s got a band.” I think they were called The Migraines. Cliffy was like, “They kind of got an ’80s vibe to them.” I said, “Alright. I’ll look forward to their package.” So I get the package, and sure enough, it had a generic, alternative, ’80s hard rock vibe to it. It wasn’t good at all. Just as an afterthought, Shawn put in, “I have a second band called Grave Robber, we recorded an album, and here it is.” And it just so happened that I had, for the first time in my life, I had been listening to Misfits. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is just like Misfits except they’re actually good musicians!” It was amazing! I was like, “I have no interest in The Migraines, but I absolutely love Grave Robber.” We ended up signing them and put out a couple albums. They became sort of a cult favorite at Cornerstone Festival. They decided to do their own thing, and that was cool. We support Shawn and the band 100 percent. But that was pretty special. We were glad to be a part of that as a label.
I want to touch on Born Twice Records.
The Exkursions & Mike Johnson.
Mike Johnson was the very first artist to team up with Compassion International. He was a contemporary of Randy Stonehill, of Larry Norman, of Randy Matthews. This was a guy that in the early ’70s went out there on college campuses, in coffeehouses, and on the street, taking the good news about Jesus and his love. Some of his songs are folky, it was acoustic guitar, and some of them he just rips out his electric guitar like Larry Norman and Randy Stonehill did. His music is every bit as good as Randy’s. We put out 200 hundred CDs. We had no choice but to reissue it from the best vinyl rips we possibly could and let Cliffy work his magic. Mike Johnson started out with The Exkursions, which was like hard rock psychedelic. His solo stuff had some of those psychedelic moments. When we talked to him, he had already had some strokes. We were able to work closely with him to get two of his albums re-mastered and reissued on CD. Those are probably going to be the only ones that ever see light of day in digital format because he died in the last year. We just feel honored and privileged that we were able to take pieces of this Christian music history and make them available.
Jimmy Hotz.
Jimmy is a true musician. He understands progressive, spacey music. He understands the recording process. We put out his album, Beyond The Crystal Sea, and re-mastered it. It has a couple bonus tracks. As far as spacey, ’70s progressive rock, it doesn’t get any better than that.
Bill Mason Band.
I can’t say enough good stuff about the Bill Mason Band. That was a 1979 release, early Christian punk in the vein of The Clash. Like The Clash, they had a really diverse sound but a very strong punk vibe. That Bill Mason Band album, it never gets old! They were a UK band, contemporaries with the Sex Pistols, The Clash, all those bands that were over there doing the early punk scene. Christian music was blessed to have Bill Mason Band doing that very thing. We were able, for the first time ever, to make it available in the US, and on CD. It’s really good stuff.
Children Of The Day.
It was interesting because Marsha came out a long time ago that she was gay but she didn’t renounce her faith. So here’s the conservative Christian music scene, and Marsha didn’t renounce her faith in Jesus or her ministry that she had to people who are gay. I licensed the albums from another record label and invited the other band members to participate in this reissue. You could tell that as a band, they were very torn with how to handle the complexities. The band members were hurt, some of them did not agree with things, and they are still conflicted. It was kind of an interesting band. I stayed neutral and said, “I love you all and invite you all to be a part of these special releases that are a part of Jesus music history.” I’m still very proud of those releases.
Amaziah.
Amaziah was funny because if you get the vinyl, it can be a very high dollar collectible. It’s kind of progressive, kind of psychedelic, kind of hard rock, it almost has a punk vibe to it in places. It was interesting to work with this UK band to the release of that album that originally came out, which Tunesmith reissued in the States. It wasn’t the best band in the world. If you take that Tunesmith release, the one guy’s wearing a leopard hippie vest and they look like goofy teenagers. It’s kind of hilarious. It was just too much fun putting that one out. The music is actually good.
Are there any albums from your labels you are looking forward to releasing?
We’re putting out some compilations called Heroes And Legends Of Christian Metal for Retroactive Records, Heroes And Legends Of Christian Extreme Metal for Bombworks, and Heroes And Legends Of Jesus Music for Born Twice. They’re going to be compilation CDs that focus on those genres. I’m excited about that because I’m hoping they will introduce people to some Jesus music, extreme metal, and hard rock artists.
You also have some Barnabas albums coming out as well.
Yep, we’re working with Nancyjo Mann to make that a reality. I was hoping to release them the first part of this year, but we have too many releases. We are coming out with Gideon’s Army, reissuing their two releases. We’re putting out Lifesavers Heaven High album that is available digitally but not in physical format, A Hill To Die Upon’s new one, Holy Blood’s new one, new Haven as well as reissues. There’s a lot of stuff on the board, so it will probably the later half of this year before the Barnabas releases come out. And also Rex Carroll Band’s new one, Whitecross’ 1987 album as a deluxe package, with an additional bonus track, a new guitar solo that Rex did just for this release. We technically sold out of that 1987 album.
What albums have you been enjoying lately?
I’m really into bands like The Black Keys, The Avett Brothers, Mumford & Sons…I love Patty Griffin, I think she’s amazing. I love the bluegrass of Steve Martin. I love classic bluegrass. Lately, I’ve been listening to Saint’s Revelation album and David Benson’s Premonition Of Doom, …and I just drove out of town and listened to the Now CD called That’s What I Call Classic Rock. I still love the black gospel of Andrea Crouch and Walter Hawkins.
Do you have any role models?
I remember specifically growing up, reading Harvest Rock Syndicate. The guy behind that was Brian Quincy Newcomb. I ended up being in the same denomination as him. I hope someday I get to meet him. Every time he posts something on Facebook, I always want to share it because it’s like, “Wow, that is really smart. That is perceptive.” It feels like everything he does, he nails it on the head of where it ought to be. Brian Quincy Newcomb very inspirational to me. And I try to stay connected to other Christians and stay accountable to other friends and confidants and other leaders that I live around.
So there you have it folks. Support Matt Hunt and the Bands. You will not regret it. Links to check out:
Born Twice Records (Jesus Music ’69-’89)
Retroactive Records (classic rock & metal)
Bombworks Records (extreme metal)
Interview by Doug Peterson, who lives in Vancouver, BC. Doug used to write for White Throne magazine, White Noise magazine, and is insisting Down The Line change it’s name to Down The White Line magazine. Before you get the wrong idea, Doug supports racial equality and no sheets were cut in the making of this interview.
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