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 PREVIEW Honk If You Love Jesus dc Talk is leading the charge to make Christian rock credible. BY CARYN B. BROOKS cbrooks@wweek.com |
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dc Talk with Jennifer Knapp and The W's Rose Garden Arena, 231-8000 7:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 20 $18.50-$29 When Kevin Max was growing up in Grand Rapids, Mich., he was struck by rock 'n' roll. Like many passionate music fans, he remembers the first rock song that completely kicked his ass: Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust." This little walk down memory lane would be just a mundane meander without taking into account one thing: Max is now a member of one of the leading bands in the growing Christian-rock movement. His group, dc Talk (the initials stand for "decent Christian"), just released its sixth record, Supernatural, which hit the Billboard 200 chart at No. 4, nestled all comfy between Kiss and Marilyn Manson. Max, who spoke with Willamette Week from a tour stop in Oklahoma, says that knowing what he now knows about Queen lead fruit Freddie Mercury might have tempered his perspective of the song, but at the time he was in the dark. Like many high schoolers of the '80s, Max was into the Smiths, and he once won a lip-sync contest dressed as a member of Duran Duran. But the more he got into Jesus, the more he became aware of his conflicts with secular music. So he turned the other cheek. "When I first started listening to Christian rock music, I thought, well, they're all right," Max says. "But there was nothing that really stood out to me, slapped me over the head and said: 'This is cool.' So I thought I might as well start making my own brand and making it as good as possible." Watching the music-video shows on Christian television (in Portland, you can catch them on the Trinity Broadcast Network) can be a puzzling experience for those who believe that rock 'n' roll belongs to the sinners. Christian rock certainly had its time in the sun during the '60s and '70s with such genre-busting gems as Jesus Christ Superstar and "Spirit in the Sky" by the improbably named one-hit wonder Norman Greenbaum. But mostly it's been nothing you'd want to lip sync to during your high-school talent show. That has changed. Check out the latest ingénues on the Christian-rock scene and you're likely to experience an odd postmod déjà vu. For every emerging sub-genre popping up on MTV, there's a designer imposter Christian group nicking its style. Like the Cherry Poppin' Daddies? Then you'll love Corvallis' own swing kids, the W's. Enjoy the growing-pain refrains of Ben Lee? Mopey-eyed Quayle is just for you. Are you a Pearl Jam man? Check out Jars of Clay. If you're a heathen, watching one of these video shows is an emotional experience. At first you'll find yourself infuriated by the swiping of your music and your culture. Then you'll start envisioning the nefarious sub-plot behind it all. You'll be sure that Jerry Falwell is paying alt-rock wunderkind Butch Vig beaucoup bucks to mass produce bandlets with just the right look and sound, making Christianity cool and creating a huge army for Jesus. You'll sense that this musical revolution is just one blow in the larger fight for the right to represent the status quo in this country, and you'll be right. The thoughtful among you, however, will step back and question yourselves and your culture. If it's OK for Marilyn Manson to name his record Antichrist Superstar, why isn't it OK for Christians to fight back? If we're going to laud James Brown for turning his Sunday-school singing lessons into "Sex Machine," we'd better be ready for someone to swipe Michael Stipe's croon. This is America, and everything's up for grabs. If we're going to twist those little fish symbols and put them on our cars as homage to Darwin, we'd better believe that the payback is bigger fish with bigger teeth. The teeth this time around are pretty sharp. dc Talk's best record, 1995's Jesus Freak, has some serious chops. The title tune is a powerful "Smells Like Teen Spirit"-like anthem about coming out of the closet as a Christian and reclaiming phrases formerly used as harpoons. Supernatural, the band's latest release, toys with the New-Age movement and ties all those woo-woo powers to Jesus, not crystals. With its power chords, harmonic choruses and peppy punk cha-chas, it has all the right ingredients to givethe listener the gumption to fight for his right to Jesus. The Supernatural tour boasts a DJ, two guitarists, a bassist, a keyboardist, a drummer, a video wall, 60 moving lights and a satellite stage to back up the three singers. Max, a boyish 32 years old, is still a fan of secular music. While exceedingly polite, he is not a naive altar boy immune to the basic facts of real life and the world of show biz. He peppers conversation with tidbits such as, "I'm in total hotel hell," and "when I was at the Lenny Kravitz show...." Max would very much like the band to start touring with secular artists. "I want to open up for Hole. That's where I'm at," he says. "As a person I know I can go out and do a [secular] rock 'n' roll tour and not be drawn into all the excesses because I have a firm foundation of what I believe in." A tour with Hole seems unlikely. dc Talk is known to perform a cover
of Nirvana's "All Apologies" in which Kurt Cobain's lyric "everyone
is gay" is changed to "Jesus is the way." When he's asked if he realizes
many people would consider that sacrilege, Max's reply seems to sum
up the underlying current in today's Christian rock music. "You can
take bricks and make a Satanic church, or you can make a church for
Christ," he says. "The brick itself is not evil, it's what you do with
that brick.... We're not trying to slam Kurt Cobain for writing his
lyric; we're trying to take what we thought was a well-written song
but make it into our own version. A lot of people cover songs and change
them around."
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