Henry David Thoreau observed “if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” That quote from Thoreau has little to do with my conversation with Jim Chaffin except that Chaffin exemplifies one who sought a particular direction and has succeeded in it. For those of you who cut your molars on the catalog of The Crucified and The Blamed will need no introduction. For the rest of you, have fun reading this.
You’ve been drumming for awhile. I can remember back in the 80s there was like four bands in the Christian scene originally that took things by storm: Deliverance, Vengeance, Believer, and The Crucified. Now, you guys put out two albums…and anyone will know The Crucified if they know anything about Christian heavy music. How do you take all that in? I mean, you did some touring…?
A little bit (of touring). At the time there wasn’t a mixture of Christian bands touring with mainstream bands. Clubs did not want a Christian band. Every once in a great while, we’d be able to get in. But to try to make a tour of that was next to impossible for a Christian band at that time. But to your original question, It’s kind of surreal, to be honest with you. I mean, I know who I am and I know my own life. It’s only when I come to something like this (Audiofeed Festival) that I realize that I was a part of something pretty cool. I have no bones about saying I’m proud of it. I’m really proud of it. Just knowing everybody from the scene…except for the guys from Believer, who were from the Philadelphia area. Everybody else was from Southern California. We were from Central California. We all knew each other. It was crazy. We knew we were doing something in our area. But we weren’t sure how much it was going to take off, until coming to Cornerstone. We came to Cornerstone in 1988, that was the first year we came out there.
Is that when things exploded?
Oh yeah, it was incredible. I mean, we had been handing out demo tapes, handwriting the name of our tape on there, sending those in the mail, and sending out flyers. There was no frickin’ internet. That’s what’s so weird. I tell my kids that, trying to explain that you did not have anything online because there was no online. Hardly anybody had a personal computer in ’88, y’know. But to do what we did without any online presence is pretty cool. Cornerstone Festival had a lot to do with it. We owe them a lot because they really helped expose the band to more people than just California.
Yeah. It was Cornerstone Magazine that showed me that there was more to my faith than my parents’ church…. hymnals and organ music… I thought there had to be more than this. I mean, why do we keep doing this?
Yeah, yeah (laughs). Do my parents even like this? (laughs) They probably don’t, but this is what we do, so…
Yeah. What have you learned from the years of being in bands? What do you take from that experience?
That is a really good question. Just in the last couple years… Back when I was doing bands, I was very, very, very strict with the guys I played with about how they acted, what they wore, because we were representing Christ. I was trying to be the “hardcore for the Lord.” So everything’s got to be picture-perfect, because (sarcasm) that’s what Christianity is, right? Picture-perfect people, ya know. I wouldn’t say I ruined a lot of relationships. But I did not allow for anything but a surface level relationship with a lot of those guys because I was such an ass, pardon the expression. They wouldn’t come to me if there was something going on in their life. They would never for sure tell me. I thought I was compassionate, and I thought I had mercy. But I did not have any of that. I was just like, “Dude, what are ya doing?!? You’re in the band. You got to follow the Lord…!” Maybe those things are true, but I had no compassion or mercy for them. That was a big lesson for me! Unfortunately, it took until I was almost fifty years old to really see. I’ve actually apologized to most of the guys I ever played with, that I was that way with. I’ve been able to re-establish a brotherhood with them. That’s probably the biggest thing I took out of it. It’s kind of weird because it’s not a musical thing. But it was a huge life lesson for me. I’m trying to pass that on to newer guys in newer bands, and trying not to judge the ones who are where I was. Man, that’s tough, dude. It’s so disgusting to me now and I hate it. So when I hear it and see it, I do the same thing (laughs). I get so self-righteous…It’s like, (speaking in third person) Dude, you’re in the same spot for that many years, and the Lord was patient with you. He still led you out, and he’ll lead these people out. They keep listening to God and he leads people out. I just got to relax, and remember that.
What kind of activities do you do? Obviously you do more than drumming.
A little bit. Not a lot anymore, to be honest with you. I love playing drums. I’ve been teaching now for the last year or so. That’s been awesome. I like hanging out, watching live bands. My wife and I have been trying to do more things together, now that the kids are almost out of the house. I’m trying to get to the mountains more often, take some hikes, enjoying the scenery and what God has out there. I love the city too, hanging out and trippin’ out on people. I love football. That’s like the only sport I love. When football season comes around, it’s like 24-7.
If you had to do everything over again, do you think you would have chosen drumming or would you have chosen something different?
I didn’t even really choose it. When I was a young kid, 11 or 12 years old, I was tapping out stuff all the time. My mom finally bought me a pair of drumsticks. I was stoked. Back then it was like Queen – News Of The World, Van Halen’s first album, AC/DC… I would sit there and tap to it. I fell in love with that. There was really nothing else that interested me. I can’t say what else I would do. If I could do something else, I’d probably play piano. It’s a beautiful instrument. I want to learn now. It’s so much more musical in notes and theory. When I hear something beautiful like that, man, I want to learn to re-create that. That would be so killer! It’s an amazing talent to be able to write something to lift somebody’s spirit. I’m taking some classes, so we’ll see.
Cool. Do you have any funny road stories?
I don’t have a lot of funny ones. There is probably more funny stories about me and stupid things I did that I don’t even remember (laughs). Unfortunately, I’m so jaded now, all I can remember is all the crappy things I did (laughs)… Actually, one time it was like three in the morning, we were in the middle of nowhere. We (The Crucified) were doing this small tour. We were getting out and being total goofballs. It’s actually on the compilation CD we did, that had a DVD with it. There’s some footage of it on there. It’s just us being stupid in towns where nobody knows who you are and you’re never going to see them again, and you’re just acting like an idiot. Those were good times.
What’s the latest project you’ve been on?
I’ve been working with Bryan Gray with The Satire. We’ve been recording tracks for that. Josh Lory has a punk rock project that I’ve been working on. I have a little studio in my house where I can record myself. Hopefully, we’re going to write some new Deliverance. We played at a metal festival in Mexico, and that went over real well. So we’re about to do some writing. I’ve played with Jimmy Brown a bunch of times, and done tours. But I’ve never written music with them, so I am excited about that.
I hear Jimmy Brown is a pretty animated guy.
Oh my gosh, you are never bored when you are around Jimmy. He’s full of life. I love that guy. He’s been a really good close friend for a long time. To have friends whom you can really pour your heart to is rare. I’ve been blessed to have quite a few people like that. Bryan Gray, Jimmy Brown, Mark Solomon, guys I can do that with and are fun to be around.
You know, we all know people who no longer believe what they used to believe. We all have friends who no longer have the faith they had. When you relate to people you know like that, how do you process that?
I think a lot of people like that have left the church because they were taught garbage. They had heavy burdens put on them. Or someone who they respected, maybe a bible teacher or a youth group leader, screwed them over. Or had an affair with their wife. And it’s like, I’m out of here. That’s one of the toughest things about being a Christian is. These are all our brothers and sisters. But not everyone is as far along on the same road. So people are way back there, and some are way forward and strong. Some are just figuring it out. Those who have fallen, I feel for them because I don’t feel they were given a good sense of the nature of God. They were fed doctrine, the stuff that was added on to keep people in line. There’s such a fine line with that. It’s pretty chaotic sometimes so the human tendency is to put some barriers up, a doctrine here or a law there, so we can keep everybody in line. Every church does that. You gotta be able to read through that.
A lot of times, that is all a person knows. Someone tells you that is how it has to be. So who are we to question it?
You don’t question it… You’re brand new in it. It’s like if you question it, you’re questioning God. Even if the leader does not say that, you get that sense. Because these are The Leaders, or these are The Pastors. And that’s just horrible. It’s wrong. It was never meant to be like that. The more I’ve understood the true nature of God, the more I’ve been able to weed through crap like that, and have pity on people who don’t get it. I really do think that they do not know who God is. And they’ve been fed a bunch of B.S. And it was easy for them to walk away. I don’t blame some of them. I mean, the way Jesus was, he always drilled the religious people. He told the Pharisees they were putting undue burdens on people’s backs.
He loved people who were broken. The broken knew who they were, and he knew what they were struggling with. They knew what their problems were and they wore it. It’s the people hiding behind a religious image…you don’t know who they are.
Exactly. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of that. I feel bad for these (religious) people too because they’re fooling themselves. Their faith in God is shallow as all get-out. Everything they can control, that’s what they know. And when crap falls apart for them, those are the ones who go way off on the deep end. Their whole world has been shattered. There’s people on both ends of that getting screwed. Then I also have friends who don’t go to church a lot or don’t go at all, but I still see the love of God in them.
What have you been listening to lately?
Uh, The Satire? (laughs) That’s funny because I’m not a huge music fan. I don’t listen to a lot of music. I have stuff I like. I listen to it for a month or two. I go to the gym a lot so I’m always listening to music there. I’m a talk radio guy. I’m the old man sitting on his porch listening to talk radio.
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At this point I finished my interview questions and turned the phone off. But I feel our conversation after the interview was even richer. Jim is the real deal. If you happen to catch him with The Blamed or any other band, go over and thank him for his years of service he has provided a solid backbone for.
The Satire project is still in limbo at this time.
The Deliverance crowdfunder album is still in the works and details can be found at on their IndieGogo page.
Jim drummed on Mike Knott’s upcoming album, Songs From The Feather River Highway.
And….The Blamed EP is slated for a summer 2017 release.
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