Interviewed by: Undergroundshow

Mark: About three years.

Aaron: Cool, so at the moment you're on your first tour around the country?

Mark: Yeah. We've been on a few southeastern tours I guess you could say, but this is our first U.S. tour persay.

Aaron: How would you describe your music? I was listening to it, and I just didn't know how to describe it.

Jason: Um, I don't know (laughs). We've started to call it progressive rock. I guess kinda just be funny. We don't know what it is...

Mark: We just try to write intense music that's just worshipful to us, and hopefully worshipful to other people.

Aaron: Rad. How do you find being in a Christian band and touring? Do you play mostly clubs and stuff or do you play churches and stuff? How do you work that?

Mark: It seems like in the south we play a lot of churches, and things like that, but on this tour, we've played more coffee shops, and all ages venues, and things like that.

Aaron: What sort of bands have you toured with?

Mark: We've toured with saGoh 24/7, they're from Florida and they're on Rescue Records, and we've toured with Luti-Kriss, whose from Atlanta, Georgia, and they're on Solid State Records.

Brandon: We're touring right now with a band called The Whisper Campaign, and they're from El Paso, Texas.

Aaron: They were pretty cool too, I liked their set. Okay, so you're just about to release another CD, what's that going to be called?

Jason: "I Fought Against Myself and Tore Myself to Pieces" (laughter)

Mark: I never say the second part, I usually just say "I Fought Against Myself"

Aaron: That's a cool name, that's a pretty cool name.

Mark: It came from a St. Augustine quote.

Aaron: That was a good answer to a question I didn't ask.

(everyone laughs at Aaron)

Aaron: No I meant a question I should've asked...

Mark: Yeah!

Aaron: So where do you plan to go from here?

Mark: We're playing a few more shows in California, and then possibly a show in Washington, and some shows in...

Jason: Montana! (laughter)

Mark: Montana, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota, and all those fun states.

Aaron: And you're from Nashville, the centre of a lot of music...country music, Christian music, all that. Do you find you get, I don't know, looked down upon, or looked over because you're from Nashville?

Jason: Yes, very much so...

Brandon: It's just like...music is everywhere, and it's just so, like, stereotypical, and so it's just...everyone is a musician, and it's just, you're just worn out, you know, and there's just so much music going on, so everyone's just like, "Oh, it's just another band". No one goes to shows in Nashville, just because there's music everywhere, and it's just worn into the ground.

Aaron: Yeah, that kinda sucks...So what are some of the bands you guys listen to? I'll go one at a time, and just list a couple that you're listening to at the moment or something...

Mark: This is hard, cause I listen to way too much music...

Aaron: I do the same...

Mark: Umm...I like Mineral a lot, and Radiohead, and Converge (laughs)...

Aaron: How do you like Radiohead's new album? I've gotta ask.

Mark: It came out yesterday, and I had to go out and buy the expensive version that's a hardback book. I know I'm going to end up loving it, but right now I don't think I like it as much as Kid A.

Aaron: Oh really, I got the pre-release a while ago, and I actually really liked it. I don't know if I liked more than Kid A or not...anyway...what're some of your bands (Jason)?

Jason: Umm...I like a band called Waterdeep a whole lot right now, but I don't know what else. Waterdeep's my favorite band right now.

Aaron: Cool, Brandon?

Brandon: Right now I listen to a lot of Bjork, and there's a band called Pinback that I like a whole lot, Radiohead definately.

Aaron: So you listen to quite different music than you play then?

Mark: Yeah.

Aaron: That's quite rad, it's always good. What influences your music?

Mark: I guess everything we listen to kind of influences it. We just get together and pray a whole lot, and just ask God to give us a song, and just, the three of us working together, it kinda comes out. So I don't know if there's any like definite influences, but we all have our individual influences, but no one band, like, sticks out in our minds, or at least mine.

Aaron: It's always cool when a band prays together, because it's so...it's good, especially when it's like the focus and stuff, because, like, whether or not you're preaching at every show or whatever, like the way you guys did it was really cool, just sort of saying, like, just come talk to us or whatever...I lost what I was saying, but whatever...it is a good focus, so that you're not pushing down someone, but its still there, and they can chose to go for it or not. It's cool that you give them that option. I don't know...I just rambled on...What's the main message of all your songs and stuff?

Mark: Well, our new songs, on "I Fought Against Myself"...I don't know if we really intended this, but there's sort of a consistent theme of forgiveness, about how you can screw up a lot and you can always come back, and at the end of the day, no matter what you've done, God still loves you, and there's still love and grace for everybody, no matter what your sins are, and umm...I don't know, God's actually spoken to me a lot throught the lyrics that we've written, and it sounds cliched to say this but God writes all of our songs. Like, when we first started out as a band, I think we tried to write music that would be good, or whatever, and we just ended up realizing that if we were really going to be a ministry, and if we wanted this to be, you know, annointed, we needed to give it over to God, and let Him write all of our songs, and we just try to do that, and sometimes we go a couple months and won't have anything come out, and then sometimes we might write two songs in one practice or something. But we just...it's our belief that God reveals our songs to us, like, in His perfect timing.

Aaron: Rad, that's cool...Now you're the drummer, and you also sing, that's something I haven't actually seen live before. I've heard about it before and stuff...

Mark: I haven't seen it before either! (laughter)

Aaron: How do you find that? Is it pretty hard?

Mark: Umm...It gets hard sometimes. The main thing that's hard is, I guess, like, I'm somewhat active as a drummer, and it gets me out of breath and it's hard to hold my pitch sometimes, but it's funny, cause like, sometimes I'll just be sittine there, and I'll be like, I play drums and I'm the singer in this band, and I wear a goofy looking headset mike like I'm Garth Brooks or something, and I've never seen a band that did that, and if I did, I'd probably make fun of them. (laughter)

Aaron: You're stick got so close to breaking, I couldn't believe it didn't, does that happen quite a lot?

Mark: Yeah, umm, like the first show on this tour I broke five sticks. I'm really inconsistent in like breaking sticks, but I'm hoping these'll hold on for a while, cause I only have four pairs left, and we're on tour till August, so...

Aaron: Okay, now and you Brandon, the bassist, and I've forgotten your name, sorry man, Jason, the guitarist, you played most of the set with your back to the audience, you want to explain that at all?

Brandon: Yeah, sure. For us, I think it's safe to say for all of us, that music is something that's sacred and a gift from God, and you know, we just, to the best of our abilities, we just want to give that gift back to God, and it's just a way for us to just be more intimate with God and as that exchange goes on, it helps us to focus on why we're there and what we're doing and not so much performance, but just an act of worship to God, and just like, giving Him complete control and glory for what He's given us. So it's not really a perfromance for us, it's just a time of worship.

Aaron: That cool, that's very cool.

Mark: It's really encouraging to be this far from home and to meet fellow Christians that actually care about more than a show or entertainment and it means a lot to us that you care about our ministry as well as our music, cause that's why we're here, you know.

Aaron: Okay, so any last words for New Zealand, are we ever going to see you over there?

Jason: Hopefully, maybe one day, I don't know...

Aaron: It costs a lot, but it would be cool...

Brandon: I mean you know, that just in God's timing and His will you know, if that's what He wants then it'll happen, you know, nothing's too big for God. I mean we'd love to, we'd love to go overseas, but it's just whatever, one day at a time, one step...

Aaron: Hopefully…

Aaron: How’re you going man?

Mark: I’m good

Aaron: It seems like it’s been a very busy year for you guys…

Mark: Yeah, we’ve been pretty busy.

Aaron: Have you been touring quite a bit, or just through summer?

Mark: Well, I just graduated from college. We were all in college this past year and we were playing shows out of town every weekend and we’ve been on tour for a month, and we’ll be on tour for another month and a half or something like that.

Aaron: And then, you just signed with Floodgate Records. It seems like a pretty cool deal, it seems like Tim Taber (label head) is a good guy and everything…

Mark: Yeah, he’s definitely a man of God.

Aaron: That’s really cool. So are you going to begin recording after the tour, or when do you start?

Mark: Yeah, I think our tour ends August 23rd, and we’re just going to go home. We need to write a few more songs. We’ve got some started that we haven’t finished, so we’ll probably take a few weeks to finish some songs and then probably end of September, beginning of October, we’ll be going into the studio.

Aaron: Rad. We’re definitely looking forward to that, and the good thing about that is that with Floodgate Records we’ll actually be able to get it in New Zealand so now people can actually buy your albums.

Mark: Yeah, it’ll be the same for America.

Aaron: Oh yeah, of course. So you’ve been touring with Noise Ratchet, have you been with them for a little bit already?

Mark: I think we’ve been out with them for about three weeks before Cornerstone, something like that, two or three weeks.

Aaron: Now the song we play most off “I Fought Against Myself” would be “Destroying Transduction”. What’s that song about?

Mark: “Destroying Transduction” is about how I guess sometimes we have bad days or whatever and we take things out on people we care about, like just being a jerk to your mom or your room mate or talking about your friends behind his back or something like that, and the idea behind “Destroying Transduction” is if I can’t quit talking about people then I should cut my tongue off and transduction is just in any of your sensory organs, like, the neurons that transmit energy into your senses. That’s what transducers are, and so if you cut your tongue off you’re in essence destroying a transducer.

Aaron: So, yeah, it seems like Floodgate are a real ministry orientated label and you guys as a band are. How do you find touring and playing music and bringing ministry into it? Does it work all right? Do you actually get good chances to minister?

Mark: I think we definitely do. We don’t put any restrictions on what our ministry is. We just try to let God use us however we need to be used. It’s usually different from night to night because some nights we might be playing to mostly a youth group and we might just need to encourage them, and then some nights we might be playing in a bar where it’s more witnessing opportunities, just trying to share the gospel with people and usually it’s sort of a little of both. It’s always an opportunity to try to lead people in worship and just try to proclaim Christ before people and it usually sets up a lot of opportunities for us to be able to talk to people after the show and talk with people that we stay with and things like that. So I think it’s definitely effective.

Aaron: So what are some other big things that have been going on for you guys?

Mark: I don’t know. I just graduated from college and the other guys have decided to take off for a while, so we’re going to be doing this full time. That’s pretty big because we’ve never, I guess, relied on this for our being, you know, so we’re having to put a lot of faith in God and that He’s going to take care of us, and we know that He will. So that’s kind of big and scary for us, but we’re excited about it. We’re going to be touring a lot more probably.

Aaron: That is a huge step. What did you study in college?

Mark: I majored in psychology and minored in english and religious studies.

Aaron: How did you find that? College in general…

Mark: I liked college a lot actually, and I didn’t think I was going to. I didn’t even want to go to college that much, but I’m really glad that I did. I think a thirst for knowledge awakened in me at some point along the way and I took it really seriously and worked really hard. I’m proud that I stuck it out and got a degree. I liked it a lot.

Aaron: So do you think you’re going to try and take Cool Hand Luke as far as it’ll go and, like, go full time permanently as a band, or in a while revert back to your college degree and get another job?

Mark: Well, I don’t think any of us have a goal of doing this for like our lives or anything like that, but for right now we see that God is using this so we’re going to pursue this for as long as God is using it, and, you know, we’ve signed a record deal, so we’ll probably be doing this for the next two or three years or so, and I eventually plan on going to seminary and pursuing foreign missions, but it looks like for the next little bit here.

Aaron: Thanks heaps for talking with us again Mark.

Mark: You’re welcome.

                                                                                                                                                  ~undergroundshow