I should start out by saying that I have never felt that Christian music is for people to be led to the Lord, I feel it’s for Christians to listen to and relate to, after all Christians are making the music. I feel a difference in the bands, I feel a truer passion in the lyrics and the players. The bands I am talking about are the ones covered in Down The Line Zine.
There is a lot of bad blood within the Christian market, mainly because Jesus Christ’s name was brought into the business. People not being given what they were promised and told because they are Christians they should accept that because of some lame “Biblical” reason they made up. The Bible is a manipulative tool we should look closer at. But the question I ask is, “If Jesus was out of that picture and the outcome was the same, the artist would have still felt screwed over and pissed off?” That is what I want to figure out, what was so bad with the old days. Is playing a 21 and up show with ten drunk frat boys that could care less about your band in attendance along with some sympathetic friends and a few of the core fans better than playing for 300 to 500 kids that want to see your band at a church or school? Are you selling more merch than the bar is making in drinks? More than likely you would have been screwed over in the secular market with thousands of other bands that fared far less successful than you. I always get such an ungrateful vibe from a lot of artists that in my opinion were pampered. Someone paid for your CD’s and cassettes to be made and, though it may have sucked, they had distribution. I was able to buy the albums. You could sell them at your shows and out of your car if you had the ambition. MC Hammer made a lot of money selling out of the back of his car before he got a deal. When you weren’t playing the good ol’ secular pay to play venues, you rocked some large crowds at churches and I was in attendance!
What I’ve gathered from the older artist from the Christian market is that they wanted the same recognition as the artist in the secular mainstream. Some of the newer bands have achieved that success, the older bands got left behind, and that killed a scene that meant a whole lot to me and others that were involved, THANKS! I can understand that and relate to it, I for a time left the Christian scene to get that recognition. It sucked, it’s been the same redundant bullsh*t 21 and up dive bar year after year and the only other option is not playing live. You can not convey compassion at a bar, no one gives a sh*t when they’re drunk! Sonny from P.O.D. said something to the likes of that. He looked out at thousands of fans and could see the same hurt on the faces he saw at the smaller shows from back in the day, only now he couldn’t
talk to them.
Basically if you didn’t want to be a Christian band you didn’t have to be, nobody forced you into it, you did it because there was mild success, you traveled, you were recognized for a time, made some great albums that changed lives and got your 15 minutes. Did you ever thank God for that? I thank him on a daily basis for the gift of music, and on paper I’m a bigger loser than most musicians in this zine, not everyone can do this, get out of the dark artist teen crap, be a man, kick some ass! I’ve played the pay to play, I’ve played Gilman St. in Berkley opening for Alkaline Trio and Dashboard Confessional (the clubs biggest crowd to date), and every dive bar the Bay Area could throw at me, and nothing compared to the old Christian shows I played. I wonder if hope is on the horizon, record labels are a thing of the past, the indie artist reigns, there are still church’s to rent out, maybe we can be Christian and forgive the past and move on. Also,
THERE’S NO CRYING IN ROCK AND ROLL!=)
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