Cornerstone

As you can probably tell from some of my earlier posts, the Cornerstone festival in Bushnell, Illinois plays an important role not only in our film but in Christian Rock as we know it.
Steve Tayor said it best when he said “you simply cannot understate the importance of the Cornerstone festival.”
By way of description Cornerstone is a festival that is held every year around the Fourth of July at a farm outside of Bushnell. The annual attendance is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 and there is usually around 300 bands that play the fest. It is run by a group called JPUSA (Jesus People USA) that are basically a commune of punks, hippies and otherwise from Chicago. What’s probably the coolest things about Cornerstone is that it is it’s own thing. There is nothing in the world like Cornerstone Festival. Here’s my summation of Cornerstone: hot, dusty (or muddy), smelly, and home to the most amazing performances and experiences on the planet.
The first time I went to Cornerstone was in 1997, and it was incredible. You simply have to experience it for yourself. The first year, I learned to always carry a flashlight, don’t camp out unless you have to, and that there is a bathroom in the back of the Wal-Mart that most people don’t know about (this won’t make any sense to anyone unless they’ve been to Cornerstone before). The shows that stand out to me from that first year are POD (of course), ZAO, Spoken, Saviour Machine, NIV, Sarah Jahn and the mighty Living Sacrifice. It was a good time. I remember that I took my Bible and just read it and went to shows. I lived on tenderloin sandwiches, elephant ears, and gyros.
Since that time I’ve been back several times and each year was an amazing experience. One year I got to see the Ragamuffin band on mainstage right after Rich Mullins died, as you can imagine it was really, really moving. Another time I got to see Mark Salamon do “Mindbender” with Living Sacrifice. Another time I got to see Danielson, when he played in the “tree suit.” There are so many great moments it would take days to go through them all.
Ash and I went to Cornerstone in 2006, and it was about the fifth time for me and the first time for Ash. It is important to note here that prior to this trip Ash had only been to festivals with Hanson, and he was part of their inner circle so the Krystal and catering flowed freely I’m sure. Cornerstone isn’t like that. We rented a golf cart, which was probably the best move we made but resulted in a battle on our last night at the fest but more on that later.
Lori was there and had set up a ton of interviews for us and they were all really good. It was just a fun time all around. Ash became fascinated with the generator shows that go on throughout the fest. For those who don’t know Cornerstone is a large grounds that has several official stages that are varying in size and distances from each other. What is cool about this is that in addition to the official stages, there are tons of smaller shows set up playing off of generators. While most are just a bare plot of ground with a band plugged into a generator, some are fairly elaborate having actual stage platforms with lights and everything. What is double cool about this is that JPUSA is totally cool with people doing it themselves and even encourages it. Virtually any band out there has the change to play at Cornerstone.
Ash was really into this and was always wanting to stop and check out the generator bands. He quickly learned that most of these bands were heavy, hardcore, screamo, punk or whatever and got into it. Again he was used to being with Hanson so hardcore was a new thing. He’s got this hilarious impression of hardcore guitars that goes something like “Kaw-Kaw, Kaw-Kaw” said in ominous Cookie Monster style voice. Trust me it’s funny when he does it.
There were tons of great interviews. Some of the high points were MXPX, Leigh Nash, POD, ZAO, Jon Davis, Demon Hunter and author John Thompson.
As I said before we had a golf cart so we could pretty much make it wherever we needed to go pretty quickly, it was nice. After we interviewed Underoath, Aaron Gillespie asked if we could give him a ride to the merch tent which is about a mile away. Of course we agreed and took off with Aaron on the back of the cart. It was pretty cool, we actually had some kids running along behind us and people were yelling at Aaron the whole way.
Probably the high point or low point of the fest however was as we were leaving the grounds on the final night. We were going to turn our golf cart in and take off to get rested for our long drive the next day. That morning I had went to the golf cart place, which was basically an RV at the entrance to the fest and made sure what time we needed to turn in our cart. I was assured that there would be someone there until well into the wee hours of the morning. I foolishly believed this and around 8 p.m. we went to the RV to turn in our cart. To our surprise there was no one there but a line of people waiting to turn in carts. People were knocking on the door of the RV and asking all around but no one knew where the guy was. The problem Ash and myself was facing was that we had rented a chain and padlock from the place with a $20 deposit that we needed to get back so that we would have gas money to get home the next day. So we waited and waited and waited. About 2 hours later a woman who had been waiting with us (and said that she was 80 years old) said she couldn’t take it and left. It is important to note that neither Ash nor myself was happy at this point. Then a kid comes running up and tells everyone (by this time there was probably 40 or 50 people waiting) that the cart guy was at the mainstage waiting to get POD’s autograph. The mainstage is at the opposite end of the grounds probably 3 miles away. Ash about blew a gasket. So we kept waiting. Around 11 or 11:30 the guy comes moseying up and totally acts like nothing is wrong. Ash was on him like a rat on a Cheeto. “Where have you been?” he asked at full volume.
And you know what the guy says?
“I’ve been here.”
Yeah, you read that right. He said he had been there all along. It was as if he decided that he could use the jedi mind trick on the line of people that had been waiting for hours. He could just say he’d been there and everyone would go “maybe he was here and we really didn’t wait 3 hours.”
Ash completely freaked out, and went off on the guy. It seems like the guy told him they were going to fight or something which was really funny because Ash is about 6’1, and about 200 or so pounds. We literally laughed as he quickly gave us our $20 back. We complained about it the whole way back to the hotel and then some more the next morning.
As we were driving home I called the golf cart company and griped about the guy and to make sure that he hadn’t “accidentally” lost our cart or something. They told me that our cart was fine and apologized that the guy had been such a jerk. They added that only one cart had come up missing for the whole festival.
I found out later that the cart in question had been rented to one Lori Lenz. What are the odds? So then Lori has a go around with these guys, it was crazy. Lori was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing in the case of the missing cart.
In any event we had a great time at the fest.

Chris Daughtry

We interviewed Chris Daughtry at the Foundry in Joplin Missouri, which is an amazing venue. I was seriously impressed and the staff there was really helpful and cool. Ash hooked this one up. For some reason he has this in with all these American Idol alums. I think he secretly longs to have Randy call him “dawg” and critique him ever so sternly. That’s just speculation though. Anyway, he hooked us up with Chris Daughtry and we made the drive to Joplin to see the show. From what I understand the show was booked well before he went number one so the venue was way smaller than where he probably should have been playing. There were tons and I mean tons of kids there and it was full on Beatles style pandemonium. Seriously there were girls crying there. I’m totally not kidding. Screaming, crying and clutching at their foreheads.
For most of the day I totally thought the interview was never going to happen. We were told several times that Chris was not doing press, then he was doing press, then it will be 15 minutes, no wait 25 minutes. I totally thought we would go home empty handed but finally at one point they took us back to the dressing room where we set up and waited for a bit. I remember hearing a lot of screaming and freaking out from just outside the door and then Chris came in. I’ve never really been around this kind of stardom before, it’s kind of surreal, just like in the movies. Girls ripping at clothes, passing out, and they always scream and cry for some reason.
Chris didn’t seem like it was anything out of the ordinary, he just came in and sat down. He was really cool and approachable, we talked about Live and some other grunge type bands which Chris and I are both really into. Most of my stories were like, “I really like that CD” or “I saw them on this tour” while most of his were like “they asked me to be their singer” or “I just hung out with those guys.” It was somewhat emasculating. I can admit that now.

POD

We interviewed Sonny from POD in a trailer behind the mainstage at Corner-

stone.
By way of background, I love POD. Mere words cannot express what this band means to me on a variety of levels. I can honestly say I do not know the course my life would have taken had it not been for seeing POD for that first time in 1996. I firmly believe that on that day God put me on a course that would take me places that I never dreamed and eventually end up with my participation in this documentary.
As with my earlier entry about Living Sacrifice, the first time I saw POD was on October 5, 1996 at the Where-House in Bartlesville Oklahoma. At that time I had recently accepted Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior. I grew up in the church my entire life and even did the walk down to the front once when I was young but as I joke now, it just didn’t take. Ironically on New Year’s Eve of 1995 after bottoming out on my own, I got saved in the church that I grew up in, with many of the same people who had known me through my ups and downs in attendance. It changed my life and was without question the best thing that ever happened to me.
I had been a lifelong music fan and of course was interested in finding music that reflected my new attitude towards life and was horrified at what my prospects were. I actually remember having the thought that Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith was all there was and being really bummed out. My favorite bands at the time were Jane’s Addiction, Pearl Jam, Black Flag, the Rolling Stones, Tool, and Rage Against the Machine and I couldn’t fathom trying to substitute Petra or any other Christian market band for any of them. I had absolutely no idea that there was actually relevant cool spiritual music out there. This all ended one day when I was in a local Christian bookstore vainly searching for something that inspired me. For some reason most Christian bookstores have “demo” CD’s on the shelf so that you can listen to the CD before buying it. Solely on the basis of the pictures on the covers I remember picking up Audio Adrenaline and Bride and not being moved at all. As I was about to leave the store I asked this guy if he knew of any good Christian rock bands and he said not really but there is this place in town called the Where-House and they are having a show tonight. Words that would change my life.
I asked who was playing and he said that he didn’t know but that it would be cool. He told me where the place was and what time it started. Looking back on it now I’m kind of surprised that I went with that little information to go on but I guess it just goes to show how starved I was for something good.
So I show up and at first I thought I was in the wrong place, it was just this non-descript building in kind of an industrial area of town. There were like 5 people waiting in line at the door and these totally scary looking guys throwing a football in the parking lot. It is important to note that going into this I totally thought I was stepping down going to this Christian rock show. I think the last show I saw before this one had been Primus or Pearl Jam or something cool, and I was sure this was going to be some weak Amy Grant-esque stuff.
Right about the time I was pondering how lame the show was going to be, one of the guys throwing the football, threw it over towards where I was and a couple of the guys ran over towards me almost knocking me over in a scramble to get the ball. Not only did these guys run up on me but there were totally hard-core looking. Pierced, dreads, and more tattoos than I had ever seen in my life. This was not the kind of guys that we had in Bartlesville. Unlike myself these were guys that could use phrases like “homie” and make them work.
I distinctly remember thinking, “I’m in over my head.”
So the doors opened and I go in and I remember being totally amazed at the place, it was so, for lack of a better word: Rock. Inside this run down warehouse was a different world, a huge stage with a cool lighting rig. There were merch stands and this huge 80s style mural down one entire side of the building. Everything was really grungy and very punk looking. It was the exact antithesis of what I thought a Christian rock place would be.
I looked at the flier by the door to see who was playing and it was Living Sacrifice and Payable On Death (POD). I had heard of neither band, and the headline at the top of the flier was “country music night.” At this point I didn’t know what to think.
So eventually the lights go down and the guys that were playing football earlier climb up onto the stage, I was stunned, they were the band and they had just been walking around hanging around with people. They went into this intro that they used to start every show with. I don’t know if it even had a name but the only lyrics were “when we come, when we come, the wicked run” the kind of thing that you could learn the first time you heard it and shout it with the band the second time.
The crowd, all 60 of them immediately went nuts. The music was so crushing and real. I really remember Wuv, the drummer hunching over his kit, all tatted up and just going for it.
The next song they did was called “coming back” and the chorus was “He’s coming back for me and you.”I remember watching the band going nuts and there was this guy in front of me that was thrashing around that had this shirt on that had a small icthus fish between his shoulder blades and it said “Jesus Saves.”
I know that this is a term that gets thrown around way, way too much in music circles, but it was beautiful. I darn near wept. I really mean that. It was one of the most emotional moments in my life. I read once where Jimmy Chamberlain of the Smashing Pumpkins had said that all that the love of music is you searching for that one thing that drew you to it in the first place, that element that touched you on such a deep level you would always want to recapture it again and again and again. This was for me a moment that I am still trying to recapture. I always loved music, it had always been a major part of my life but that moment in time was like no other, it was how it was meant to be.
Every day that I walk this earth I will carry some of the joy from that show with me. As I said before I cannot adequately put into words what an experience this was for me.
Near the end of the set I head Sonny’s testimony for the first time and as anyone who has heard Sonny’s story before will tell you it is a moving moment. Right there in the town where I grew up, where I dreamed about something more, where I wanted to get out of, I found my life’s pursuit.
After the show I hung out with the band, we talked about Suicidal Tendencies and tattoos. One thing that really had made an impression on me was that the bands and the people at the show were so up front about what they believed. They were not embarrassed or ashamed about anything nor should they be. This was one of the coolest venues that I had ever been to and it was one of the best shows I had ever seen.
At the time, platinum records and MTV cribs was a long time off for POD, and they were like every other band, traveling in a van and barely making it. I had $6 to my name, not even enough to buy a T-shirt, but I wanted to support the band so I gave it to Sonny.
I remember the first few years being really exciting. At that time no one ever thought a Christian band much less one on a very very very minor league label would ever make it big, so I just wanted to enjoy them every chance I got. They were really struggling to make it and were doing a lot of touring. Once I saw them on the back of a flatbed in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Tulsa. A church had put on the show and during the performance they were baptizing people in a cattle tank off to the side. I remember seeing them another time at a Skatepark in Arkansas. My friend Judah, who later became a bass tech for the band, drove us there. About ten feet into the trip I found out that Judah is one of the craziest drivers I have ever encountered. We were doing about 90 on the way to Arkansas and Judah was passing cars every way imaginable including on the shoulder. We were listening to No Innocent Victim the whole way there, it was pretty nuts.
I also remember talking with Sonny after the show and this woman coming up to him and saying that she had gotten saved after seeing them in a club. Apparently she was a waitress at the bar that POD had played at. She said that she could feel that they were real and she wanted what they had. It was really moving.
Another time after POD played at the Where-House, I went to Denny’s with the bands afterwards. It was POD, NIV, Dirt, Nailed Promise and Mindrage. Picture this scene, it’s Saturday night, 12 o’clock midnight at a Denny’s in Bartlesville Oklahoma. It was kind of like if you took all the locals from the movie “Deliverance,” got them hammered and then went and packed out a Denny’s. I’m totally not kidding. And I go walking in with these guys, tattoos, piercings, dreads everywhere. It was like in one of those old westerns where there was this really busy saloon and then the marshall walks in and the music stops and everyone shuts up because they know something crazy is going to happen. I remember the place literally freezing, people were stopping mid sentence and staring. The only words being spoken were by the waitress asking where we wanted to sit. After we sat down people started going back to what they were doing but it was really uneasy. The great part is that no one said anything. I truly thought that one of the locals would mouth off something but no one did. I think they were scared to.
The cool thing about POD at that time was that while most people didn’t know or care who or what POD was, people who liked them, loved them. To see them was for them to become your favorite band. They were just so awesome on every level, it was insane. I distinctly remember how much everyone at the Where-House was into them. At the time the WH was doing tons of shows and we were meeting all kinds of cool bands and people every couple of weeks but POD was different. They would travel in this beat up brown van that looked like it was from about '85 or '86. Bands would always roll in, in the afternoon and there would be a couple of staff on hand to greet them. It was really funny with POD because everyone on staff rolled out and would actually line up at the door when the van pulled up. Seriously, I think there was one time that someone was waiting at the door and yelled “there they are” when the van was in sight and everybody lined up. It was kind of embarrassing but I loved these guys so much that I didn’t mind being a fan-boy.
A short time after that Cook started managing them. I was of course overjoyed because not only would I get to see them more, I’d get to hang out with them more. I was always asking what was going on with them and Tim would always have something good to report. At one point Rescue Records, POD’s label went belly up and they were left looking for a new label. Tim told me that several labels were looking at the band and it was looking really good. I remember saying “do you think they might be able to sign to Tooth and Nail?” because at the time I thought that Tooth and Nail was the apex of all we could hope for. He goes “we’re really looking at Atlantic.” I couldn’t believe it. Atlantic was at one point the home of Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Rush, and Stone Temple Pilots, among many, many others.
I need to stress that at this aside from people in the scene, no one on earth cared about any Christian artist, much less a niche band like POD. Heck the Christian market didn’t even care about POD. I told Tim, “yeah, that would be nice” but I totally thought that they didn’t have a chance.
The next thing I knew they were signing to Atlantic.
It was crazy. There was this incredible buzz everywhere. All the sudden people who never even knew there was a band called POD, was talking about them. There were magazine articles. They were on every website. I don’t remember where I saw them next right after they signed the deal but I remember being really overjoyed and emotional. I was so proud that these guys had overcome everything, and despite every odd against them had succeeded. It was a glorious time (Goodfellas reference).
I remember seeing the “Southtown” video on MTV for the first time and again being blown away. It was just as good if not better than any video out at that time. Wuv was wearing a ZAO shirt and you could see others wearing NIV and Project 86 shirts. I felt like not only had POD made it but they were taking us all with them, the whole scene.
Then it seemed like everything good that could happen, did happen. Gold records, then Platinum records, then multiple platinum records. Saturday Night Live, MTV, TRL, Cribs, Ozzfest, Rolling Stone, Spin, everything.
The shows were amazing at that time, the kids knew all the words and the band was truly on top of their game. I remember seeing them at the Brady Theater in Tulsa on the “Satellite” tour. I got to watch from the side of the stage and it was one of the great moments in my life. The place was packed to the gills and everyone was so jazzed for the show it was like this incredible release when they got on stage. They opened with “Outkast” and people were going nuts, I remember the crowd was just surging up front and Sonny was all over them screaming the “don’t count me out” part. Wuv was wailing on his kit and I vividly remember him throwing out his sticks as he was playing. They were hitting the stage and skidding into the crowd. There was nothing like seeing POD at this point in their career. It was amazing.
I guess I should get back to the part about Bleed Into One. We interviewed Sonny in a trailer behind the mainstage at Cornerstone. He was as cool and nice as he was the first day I met him. He talked about people not getting the band in the early days through to the fact that people still didn’t get what they were doing. I asked him how it was playing for Ozzfest crowds and he said that sometimes people would be really hateful. He said that sometimes people would flip them off with both middle fingers held in the shape of a cross. I have to admit you’ve got to hand it to people like that, at least they’re creative with their hatred.

Bill Power

We interviewed Bill at the Zambooie offices in Nashville last year during GMA week. I am in no way a fan of GMA and I’m usually pretty miserable most of the time I’m there so it was really nice getting to hang out with friends for a while.
I think the first time I met Bill was one year at the Where-House’s new band tournament. We always tried to make the NBT something that would not only be cool for the bands but would actually help them to make it to the next level. This included flying in “celebrity” judges for the final round. This was almost always record labels, booking agents, magazines, things of that nature. So naturally Tooth and Nail would be first on our list. And as one of the higher ups at Tooth and Nail, Bill was lucky enough to be the one to make the trip one year.
A little bit of background on Bill, he’s kind of the Henry Rollins of the scene. Aside from being in on the ground floor of Tooth and Nail he was in one of their first bands, Blenderhead, and then went on to found Zambooie merch with Bruce Fitzhugh and Mike Lewis. No kidding. I still don’t know when this guy sleeps.
We hooked up with Bill about ten minutes after we finished up with Bruce’s interview. Bill’s office was really cool, he’s really into punk and had these cool Jawbox, and Rollins posters along with a string of hot pepper lights so we just shot him at his desk.
Bill was as usual really cool, very insightful and totally honest. At one point we were talking about the scene becoming cool and Bill said that anytime whenever whatever it is that you are into becomes the cool thing to do it’s in danger. Good advice for anyone not just Christians, I think that’s why Tooth and Nail and everything Bill has been involved in has been so relevant. I honestly wish more people in our scene could be as much of a mover and a shaker as Bill.

Maylene and the Sons of Disaster

Every once in a while a band comes out that totally makes you feel like that 13-year old that’s just discovered Heavy Metal for the first time. A band that’s so good that you just rediscover what is so great about music all over again. Maylene and the Sons of Disaster is one of those bands for me, so much so that I don’t even know where to begin talking about what’s so great about them.
I guess like all great bands it’s really about the music primarily. With Maylene if that was all they had going or them it would be way more than enough. This is a band that you simply can’t categorize, any tag that you put on them points at elements of their style but not even close to fully encapsulating the band. Southern? Yup. Hardcore? Yeah, Hair Metal? Well yeah, there’s some of that too. That’s part of what’s so amazing about this band, they are truly doing something that is unique. It’s almost like Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Van Halen took their stuff to a point, and Maylene picked up where both left off and added some of their own personality and just went from there.
To make a bolder statement I truly think that Maylene is the next step in the evolution of Southern rock. At the risk of sounding like a snotty Rolling Stone writer, I think that Southern rock has really not progressed that much since Skynyrd’s demise in 1977. Sure you’ve got your .38 Specials, and your Molly Hatchets, and your Georgia Satellites, but most were just putting their own stamp on a tried form of music. Then in 2005 here comes Maylene.
While the band gets comparisons to Skynyrd quite frequently, I think the main similarity is both of the bands realness. Maybe that’s just part of being southern, I don’t know but it’s there nonetheless. I’ve got to admit, and if you’ve read the rest of my blog you already know this, I’m kind of a rube myself. Totally not kidding, my first grade class had 24 kids in it and I took my first driving lesson in my grandpa’s farm truck out in a pasture. The thing was so rusted out that you could see the ground going by beneath your feet while you were driving it. The first car I ever owned was a beat up Camero, and I spent many, many high school nights at parties in barns and metal buildings. Anyway I understand where Maylene is coming from. In the video for “Tough as John Jacobs” the guys are having a party in a barn, wearing Motley Crue t-shirts, having a cookout and swimming in the pond. I also think that like Lynyrd Skynyrd, they aren’t really trying to change anything or push any boundaries, but regardless, that is what’s happening just by them being true to who they are and trying to make the best music they can.
We did the interview with the Maylene guys behind the main stage at Cornerstone. I had never noticed before but there is a creek that runs through about 200 feet behind the back of the stage. The guys said they wanted to do the interview down by the creek because it felt more like home so we took the handheld and shot by the water.
The interview was one of the funniest ones we’ve done throughout the production of the film. As I said before these guys are just real. There is utterly not a shred of pretense about these guys they’re just who they are. At one point one of the guys, I think it was Josh, just goes “I gotta pee,” so he turns around into the creek and takes a wizz. No joke. We just kept on with the interview.
As you can imagine, the guys were hilarious. One of the first questions I always ask is what the artist’s first impression of Christian rock was. In this case I said, “what’s your first recollection of Christian rock?” Immediately Josh says, “what does recollection mean?” Sitting here typing this almost a year later, I’m still laughing.
We’ve always intended that the end credits of the doc, would be a series of funny moments from interviews and the production, and I think that Maylene will be featured prominently in that portion.
Sample dialog: “we’re from the south and we talked funny.”
Awesome.
Seriously though I think the best part of talking to these guys was when I asked about how things had been with other bands. Maylene, for all intents and purposes, is a general market band. They play Warped tour and were recently listed at one of AP magazine’s bands to watch but at the same time are very up front about their faith. When I asked them how the reception from the general market kids were, they said “awesome” and basically related that as long are you are real with who you are people will respect it. As simple a statement as this seems, it’s what every band that came before them struggled to attain.
My prediction right now and you can quote me on this. Maylene and the Sons of Disaster are the next big thing.

Randy Stonehill

We interviewed Randy Stonehill at a show at Church on the Move in Tulsa Oklahoma, which is a mega-church in every sense of the word. Randy is by anyone’s definition a true pioneer of the genre of Christian Rock. Releasing his first album in 1971 Randy, went on to be one fo the most influential voices of his (Christian) generation. With that said all that I knew about Randy was that he was important and we should for sure include him in the doc. A quick trip to his Wikipedia entry confirmed this, not only did he release a Christian Rock album in 1971 it was financed by none other than Pat Boone?!?! But more on that later. Randy’s second album was engineered by Andy Johns, who had also worked with the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and The Who. Wow. Ottley was also really excited about Randy too, which meant something. Tim’s background is different from mine in that his tastes range more toward guitar driven pop, so I usually listen when he’s into something.

So we get there and set up and Randy just comes strolling in. Very friendly and outgoing and if I understand correctly something of an amateur comedian in the vein of Robin Williams or Jim Carey. The kind of guy who is on 10 all the time goes into impressions and “bits” at the drop of a hat. To use an “Almost Famous” term, it freaked me out. Since there was really no Christian Rock prior to Randy and Larry Norman my standard first question of “what was your first exposure to Christian rock” didn’t really apply so I asked him what were his thoughts going into his music career. He totally took it and ran. No kidding he talked for about 25 minutes straight and basically answered almost every on-deck question I had prepared to ask. He also mentioned that in the early days he had seen shows and hung out with The Doors, The Grateful Dead and the Mommas and the Poppas. Cool.

While all this is going on however, I started smelling something burning and realized that it was one of Ash’s lights. Now on the surface this is not out of the ordinary, Ash’s lights are like a zillion watts and often smell like they are getting a little bit hot. This time however to my horror it didn’t just get hot it actually started smoking. So there was smoke pouring in a steady stream just to Randy’s right, and it smelled like a volcano. So what to do? Ignore it of course and hope that it wouldn’t escalate into full on flames. I was totally sweating that at any second Randy would jump up walk out disgusted with the amaturish nature of our interview. Thankfully Randy was a total pro. Either this had happened to him many times before or he just didn’t care because he was really cool about it. Even when Ash went to attend to it, he kept focused on the camera and didn’t let it affect the interview.

Randy talked to us for around and hour and it was all good. I brought up the fact that he was actually an actor in the cult classic “Son of the Blob” and he said that I would have to be killed for knowing such information. When I asked about the Pat Boone story he said that he and Larry Norman had gotten a sit down with Pat at his home in the early 70s. When they arrived Pat was out by the pool and the two were seated in the living room to wait for him. For some reason Pat’s wife felt that the Boone children, including a very young Debbie, needed to be present for the meeting and they were called in. Randy said that they all walked in single file in order of age. Kind of surreal. He said that a short time later Pat walked in tanned to the hilt, wearing white shorts, deck shoes and a windbreaker, full-on Bing Crosby style.
I will never in my life ever be as cool as Pat Boone, I mean that.

He added that the kids seemed to be kind of weirded out by the whole thing. He said that their attitude was kind of like “Daddy who are these pirates in our living room?” speculating as to why there were two hippies in their house.

I guess the pitch must have worked out because Pat fronted them the money and the rest is history. Another interesting note, it’s kind of funny to hear these older guys relate the things that people had a problem with in the early days. We all know that the long hair was a major problem as was the high volume but Randy brought up a new one: patched jeans. He said that people absolutely flipped out that he wore patches on his jeans. This actually came up several times. Interesting.

Showbread

We interviewed Josh Dies and Matt Davis of Showbread at the Where-House early on in the production of the film. One of the first questions I asked as usual was “what was your first take on Christian rock?" to which Josh said something to the effect of “since we’re aliens from Mars we don’t really know too much about that.” It seems like they followed that up with something about eating insects or once being insects or something along those lines.
Ash and myself secretly (or not so secretly) rolled our eyes and I kept asking questions. Surprisingly the answers became more serious.
Later I read this on their Wikipedia entry concerning the same issue:
“Showbread is known for being notoriously unreliable in the press. Most interviews, regardless of purpose, vary from light hearted nonsense to outright absurdity, and the band seems to become serious only when answering questions dealing with their faith. Showbread has made many absurd claims, ranging from the accusation that Tooth and Nail Records was holding their family members hostage to guarantee a softer sound in Age of Reptiles than No Sir, Nihilism Is Not Practical, to blaming the war in Iraq on Queen Elizabeth, to saying that the members of the band Pillar are made of grass clippings, to admitting to storing of weapons of mass destruction in their tour bus, to the claim that certain members of their band are space aliens and travel the country on mutant Manta rays.”
So now I don’t feel so bad. Actually with all that said, I feel pretty good that they decided to talk to us seriously. Anyway I really like Showbread, I think in an age where most bands are just trying to sound like everyone else, Showbread is a true original. They are influenced by old school horror films (as am I) and have done songs on George Romero, the Evil Dead and Tobe Hooper, Franz Kafka, William S. Bourroughs, and Emetophobia, among other things.
In the interview the guys were very outside the box. I had been asking them about Christian bands and they were semi-responsive. I do remember Matt saying that he had been kicked out of youth group for playing a Third Day song. They really didn’t open up until I mentioned Marilyn Manson and then they really go into it. Josh said that he was really influenced by his work and when I told him that “Mechanical Animals” was my favorite Manson album, we really had a good discussion.

Delirious?

“My Glorious” is probably one of my favorite rock type worship songs so I knew that we would have to interview Delirious? at some point. The show was at a large church in Oklahoma City called the Cathedral of Praise. The good people at this church are all about servitude and I mean that in a good way. In most instances I am completely respectful of the fact that to most promoters our film crew is little more than another headache to deal with prior to the show. That’s OK, I used to be a promoter and that’s how I would have felt. Anyway the people at the Cathedral of Praise were the exact opposite. They treated us like kings. They gave us a room to ourselves and repeatedly brought deli trays and drinks in to us (it is a dangerous thing for anyone to offer food to Ash and myself), always asking if we had everything we needed. At one point I had to tell one woman that although we appreciated it we weren’t the band and they didn’t have to be taking care of us so well. She looked at me like I was absolutely crazy. I really got the impression that they just want to serve the people that came into their church. Here’s your shout out, people of the Oklahoma City Cathedral of Praise: You Rule!!!
We did the interview with Stu G and Jon Thatcher in this TBN stye room complete with paisley, rich mahogany, potpourri, gold leaf and catering everywhere. It was easily the funniest interview we have done for “Bleed Into One” mainly due to what we later dubbed “the language barrier." I knew that the band was from England and knew that I would have no problem understanding them, I mean we’re speaking the same language right? I never considered that they would have a problem understanding me, specifically my American euphamisms. Apparently I’m much more of a rube than I thought. I became aware of this when during the interview, I asked them “what’s your take on POD?” Then silence and both of the guys look at each other for a few moments as if thinking that I am insane. Then Jon says as proper and nice as can be “do you mean in a fight then?” As I am still trying to process the answer when Stu says “I think if we got in a fight with POD they would crush us.” So we all kind of look at each other and burst into laughter. It dawns on me that what I said was “what’s your take on POD” and what they heard was “what would happen if you took on POD?” Ash ever the personal motivator says “English, only the Queen’s English, you hick” to me. It was really funny. Later I said “let’s riff on some bands” and Jon said “we don’t feel comfortable ripping on other bands.”
As I said before I’m a rube.
The interview itself was pretty good. I was really interested in their influences. Being from England they were into Joy Division, Queen, Suede, Pulp, etc. Stu had even gotten to see Pink Floyd on the Wall tour if you can imagine. Wow.

Norma Jean

If you don’t feel “Memphis will be laid to waste” at a Norma Jean show there is something wrong with you. For days after I see them I always have the lyric “you’re doing a waltz with your murderer” in my head.
The first time I saw Norma Jean they were still called Luti-Kriss. They opened for ZAO at the Where-House on their first tour. At the time they were doing this sort of post Marilyn Manson semi-goth metal thing. I remember that the band came out and started playing this sort of extended instrumental intro. After a couple of minutes the singer comes running full speed from backstage does a full forward flip onto his back on the stage and starts screaming to the mic writhing around the stage. Amazing. I couldn’t believe it. I had them a couple more times at the WH until they got too big for us.
One memory I have of them was the big Cornerstone 04 possession thing. Here’s what I remember. Norma Jean was playing in one of the Encore tents late in the evening. If I remember correctly they were still on “Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child” so there were a ton of people just spilling out of the tent. They were also doing this really stark performance where they just used strobes and really bright white lights with stuff being projected onto a screen behind them. I remember going for a couple of songs and then taking off and then forgetting about it until the next day. I think I was waiting in line at the showers when I heard someone talking about the girl that got “possessed” at Norma Jean last night. People were saying all kinds of crazy things about how people were getting sick and passing out and this one chick got possessed in front of the stage. It was hilarious, everyone was talking about it and the story was getting crazier and crazier as the day progressed.
We interviewed the guys at the “Otherside” club in Tulsa that is run by my friend Matt during the “Great American Noise Tour” with the Chariot, the Handshake Murders, and a Life Once Lost. We only got to do a short interview but it came out really good. The guys were really frank about how many bands in the genre were largely irrelevant and had some good stories. We talked quite a bit about Ozzfest and Corey admitted that when Living Sacrifice broke up there was talk of continuing on in a third incarnation with him as the singer. When I asked them about a good Cornerstone story they came clean about the “possessed” girl and said that it was all a set up. You heard it here folks.

The Prayer Chain

Aside from videos I have never seen the Prayer Chain live. They pretty much came and went before I was even aware of a Christian underground. I did know them by reputation however, the Prayer Chain was kind of always regarded as the apex of the cool indie band and their shows were legendary. Retroactively I got all of their releases starting with “Shawl,” which I loved. “Mercury” eventually came into my possession and despite an initial reluctance to accept it became my favorite Prayer Chain CD. Ironically during the interim period before I came to adore “Mercury” I met Wayne Everett, the Prayer Chain’s drummer for the first time. Wayne was playing with Starflyer 59 on the “Americana” tour. He asked me which PC record was my favorite and I told him “Shawl.” He kind of shook his head and that was about it. I found out later that the stylistic change between the albums had been a major point of contention between factions of the band and among other things had directly contributed to their eventual breakup. Which side was Wayne on? “Mercury” of course, and there I was telling him that I liked the other one better. I’ve always intended to tell him that I was wrong when I told him that but it’s never come up.
Since that time I’ve actually become friends with Tim Taber, the Prayer Chain’s singer. Tim ran Floodgate records the label that Mourning September, a band that I used to manage was signed to. Through that time I got to know Tim quite well and found him to be a stand-up guy. From time to time however I would revert back into fan-boy mode and question him about all things Prayer Chain and he would always answer me. He has said many times however that he thinks that me and Dave Walker (Mourning September’s drummer) were the only ones that cared anymore. Hopefully “Bleed into One” will help to change that.
We interviewed Tim at GMA, and it was great. As I said before I’ve known Tim for a while and he was really at ease. He has this unique way of looking at everything from both an artists and an industry perspective at the same time. Probably his best story was about catching Mike Rowe from the 77s blow drying his own butt backstage at a show. I’m sure we’ll get more on that when we interview Mike.

ZAO

I freaking love ZAO. “Liberate Te Ex Inferis” is one of my favorite albums of all time. I think that ZAO are everything that every band should be. Relevant, artistic, and above all have something to say. I remember hearing the band for the first time on one of the Tooth and Nail penalty box CDs. The song was “to think of you is to treasure an absent memory.” Just the title alone inspired my imagination.
I remember seeing them at Cornerstone on the “Liberate” tour. It was in one of the Encore tents in the middle of the day and it was like 110 degrees but it was awesome. Jesse Smith played sideways to the crowd and it sounded amazing. I remember that Russ Cogdell was just going absolutely insane, a mass of flailing arms, legs and a guitar. He would periodically scream into the pickups, you could totally tell that he was just in his own world with himself and the music.
I was able to book ZAO later at the WH on the “Self-Titled” tour. Dan had left the band for a while and a guy named Corey was singing. It was still great. Jesse asked me after the show how I would describe ZAO and after a second I came up with “what Pink Floyd would sound like if they were a metalcore band.” He seemed impressed and I hoped that the quote would some way make it into ZAO lore but that was pretty much the end of it.
We interviewed Scott and Marty at Cornerstone and I think it was one of the best interviews we have done. Anyone who knows anything about ZAO knows that they are no strangers to controversy and our interview was no exception, but I really think that they were just being honest about who they are and what they do. The best quote was when Scott said that when they were a “ministry band” that the money they made was not spent to feed the poor or anything but was spent just like any other money. “It went right into my pocket” he said. Wow.
On a side note it turns out that Scott is really into horror movies (as am I) and lives close to the Monroeville Mall where the original “Dawn of the Dead” was filmed.

Living Sacrifice

I have known Bruce Fitzhugh of Living Sacrifice for several years now and am still in awe of the guy. I have many, many great memories of Sacrifice shows from the mainstage at Cornerstone before thousands of people all the way down to church basements for 10 people. Each and everytime I have seen them it has been a moving experience. Even as I am writing this thinking about the sheer power and brutality of LS’s music still brings a smile to my face all these years later.
The first time I saw Living Sacrifice was October 5, 1996 at the Where-House with POD. Simply put it was a life changing event. Sacrifice was on the “Reborn” tour. I knew absolutely nothing about them at the time other than the fact that they were described as “old school metal.” I remember they came out and opened with “Reborn Empowered” and it was absolutely amazing. At the time is seemed like the band was more attacking the songs rather than playing them. I remember Lance (Garvin) absolutely destroying his drum kit, especially during the intro drum jam. He just hit so hard and then locked into an almost metronome quality beat. Bruce was playing a Charvel guitar which was at the time way not trendy, but to me it made it even more cool, like these guys were who they were and they flat didn’t care what anyone else thought.
I will never in my life forget hearing “Reject” for the first time. Shouting “reject your lies” in the middle of a sweaty Sacrifice show is simply bliss. And the breakdown to end all breakdowns, anyone who has ever been to see Sacrifice live knows exactly what I’m talking about.
I remember seeing LS once with Dear Ephesus, and after the show Brett from DE was playing air guitar to Sacrifice. He later said that it was the best show DE ever played mainly because you have to be good to play with Sacrifice.
Enough gushing though, Bruce is now running Zambooie merch with Bill Power and Mike Lewis. We met up with him at the Zambooie offices in Nashville, it was really cool seeing the guys and the company that they have built. Bruce was as usual very cool and admitted that when he didn’t have a guitar in front of him, he was kind of shy. Very good interview though, he was very frank and cool about things.

The Where-House

Since the Where-House figures so prominantly in not only my personal story but Bleed Into One as well. Here's a little information on the venue. FYI this was originally supposed to be for Wikipedia but they determined that we were a "concert venue of little to no consequence" and would not post our info. We'll try again after the movie comes out.

The Where-House is an all ages live music venue located in Bartlesville Oklahoma.

Founding
The Where-House was founded in 1990 by then 17-year old Tim Cook. Cook, a California transplant and avid music fan became frustrated that his favorite bands had no local venue to support them and began booking his own shows. His first venture in the live music arena was a show by Believer held at a local high school auditorium. Opening the show was an as-yet unsigned band called Living Sacrifice. The show turned out to be a huge success with a crowd of several hundred kids turning out for the underground band.
“It was insane” Cook said later of the show.
“I just remember this line of kids going around the building.”
In the wake of the success of the show, a permanent venue located at 331 N. Quapaw was secured. The space, an abandoned warehouse that had formerly been used for auto repair and salvage was immediately cristenend “The Where-House.”

The First Show
The first show at the Where-House was the now legendary Crucified show held on July 21, 1991. Cook recalls that the Where-House stage was constructed in a marathon 48 hour process prior to show time.
“We finished the stage the night before the show and were taking a break after all the work when the fire marshall came in” he says.
“He basically told us that we had to have a fire exit in the building or the show could not go on.”
Undaunted, Cook and several volunteers rented a jack hammer and were able to tear a ragged hole in the side of the building, just enough to satisfy fire codes and ensure that the show would in fact go on. And go on it did the Crucified, who were in peak form tore through one of the most memorable shows of their career, with singer Mark Salomon swinging on a rope out over the churning crowd.
Cook would later be quoted as saying that the do it yourself spirit that surrounded the first show would follow the venue throughout it’s history.

The Early Years 1990-1998
Focusing mainly on the then underground Christian rock scene, the venue mainly presented punk, heavy metal and alternative music, with Cook booking shows purely based out of his own taste.
Early shows included, Deliverance, Believer, Mortification, Scattered Few, Mortal, Steve Taylor, The Altar Boys, the 77s, and the Prayer Chain.

Formative Years 1998-2005
With the Where-House in full swing Cook began dabbling in artist management, with several bands that had come through the Where-House including Mortal, Grammatrain and Squad 5-0. Eventually Cook signed then fledgling hardcore act P.O.D and eventually guided them to multi-platinum status. In the coming years Cook’s company, Cook Mangagement would come to represent acts such as Blindside and Pillar. With the increased activity on the management side, Cook began finding less time to devote to the venue. Eventually he appointed then volunteer staff member, Tim Hudson as new director.

New Band Tournament
The Where-House New Band tournament began in 1997 and has since grown to one of the most successful tournaments of it’s type in the United states. Beginning with 30 unsigned bands, the tournament kicks off in January of each year and runs through March, with the top band securing a showcase at Cornerstone Fesetival or the Gospel Music Association convention. Throughout the tournament’s history numerous bands have went on to national record deals, including Philmore, the Agony Scene, Mourning September, Edison Glass, Fern, Eleven Hours Down, Jackson Waters, Neveah Nevi and Mindrage.

Title?

If there were a FAQ about “Bleed Into One” one of the first questions on the list would surely be “where did the name of the film come from?” The short answer is that it comes from a U2 lyric, specifically a lyric from “Where the Streets Have No Name” off of “The Joshua Tree.”
“I believe in the kingdom come, when all the colors will bleed into one.”
The main idea for this came from an unlikely source: Hootie and the Blowfish. For some odd reason, I remembered an anecdote about their gazillion selling album “Cracked Rear View” that the title of the album came from a Bruce Springsteen lyric. Seemed like a good idea to me at the time and I apparently filed away said information until the time came to choose a title for the film.
I knew I wanted something that would represent not only the scene but of culture in general, and from there it was only a short jump to U2. Thanks to the trusty internet it only took a few minutes to have every U2 lyric ever written at my fingertips, so I started at “Boy” and went from there. I had a stack of post-it notes on which I would write any phrases that I thought might be a candidate. I had compiled a list of about 10 or so possibilities before I came to “The Joshua Tree” which is actually my favorite U2 album. As soon as I got to “Streets” I just knew. I had heard the lyric literally hundreds of times before but I knew as soon as I read it in the context of what we were trying to do I knew that “Bleed Into One” would be the name of our film.
And the rest is semi-history……

needtobreathe

We filmed needtobreathe the other day and it was amazing. I knew that the band would be interesting in that they seem to be completely sidestepping the Christian industry but I way underestimated them. Virtually everything about these guys are unconventional, first off they are from Possum Kingdom, SC where they all met and went to school. I was also surprised to find that not only did the singer, Bear, play college football for Furman university, but he holds numerous school records and received several awards for excellence. Anyway it turns out that Bear and his brother Bo, the guitar player, were preacher’s kids and pretty much grew up around Christian rock. They had a ton of great stories and didn’t hold back at all when talking about the genre as a whole. After the interview we (being myself, Ash and Paul) raided the show’s catering. We devoured everything that wasn’t nailed down. During the feeding frenzy, we got to talk to Matt and Mark from Sanctus Real, who we had interviewed about a month prior. Good times.

Genesis

The project that we now know as “Bleed Into One” began one day on my couch watching a film called “Grey Matter.” “Gray Matter” is a documentary directed by Joe Berlinger on an Austrian movement to bury the brains of 700 childhood victims of Nazi medical experimentation held over from World War II. The doc was very moving and relevant to not only it’s subject matter but the human condition in general. For those who aren’t into documentaries, Joe Berlinger is a name right up there with Michael Moore in terms of influence. Some of Joe’s earlier films include: “Brother’s Keeper”, “Paradise Lost: the Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills”, “Paradise Lost 2, Revelations”, and “Metallica, Some Kind of Monster.” He is also responsible for the “Iconoclast” series on Sundance Channel. Anyway, I was thinking about how great Joe’s films were and how he was really doing well for himself making docs that were important as well as entertaining. Then I had a thought: “someone should do this for Christian Rock” and that was about it. The gears started turning (as much as the gears in my head can turn at least) and I came to the realization that I could actually do a documentary on Christian Rock, or at least be a part of such of film. A bit of background on me, I’ve been a film and music geek most of my life and at that point been a promoting Christian Rock concerts for several years, but more on that later though. It began to dawn on me that I actually had enough connections in the scene to make such a film happen. But then reality set in and I realized that although I was very familiar with the subject matter, I had absolutely no skill or knowledge in the field of filmmaking. Problem. In the next few days I remembered that a friend of mine, Chad, had mentioned to me that he knew a guy that was a director and had recently completed a documentary on the band Hanson.
Turns out the guy was Ash Greyson. Shortly thereafter, Chad hooked up a meeting at a Chilis in Tulsa. I had the chicken crispers, I think. Anyway Ash tuned out to be pretty cool and was interested in the idea right away. That was pretty much it, and then on to the interviews….

Cast of Characters

Cast of Characters: I will try to give a description of the players in this blog.
Tim Hudson, your humble narrator. Read about me on the side of this page.
Ashley Greyson: Accomplished director, cimematographer,and all around good guy. Ash has worked with Hanson (yup, Mmmbop Hanson) for the last ten or so years and did an amazing documentary on them called "Strong Enough to Break." Likes fancy macaroni and cheese and is a personal friend of Weird Al Yankovic. Also is not afraid to come at you like a spider monkey when provoked. The next big thing.
Tim Cook: The Cook portion of Cook Management. In addition to managing Tim and Ash, Cook Management handles POD, Blindside, and Pillar. Founded the Where-House when he was 17. Likes Jazz and handguns.
Tim Ottley: The Ottley portion of Cook Management. Also manager of Tim and Ash, POD, Blindside, and Pillar. Really into U2, Rush, and Midnight Oil. Is from Australia and thus knows a lot about the Road Warrior and Men at Work (the band not the film). Feels that "Crocodile Dundee" is a bad stereotype.
Lori Lenz: Publicist for Tim and Ash. Lives in LA and pretty much knows and is friendly towards everyone on earth. Trendy.
Paul Lawson: Assistant to Tim and Ash. Also trendy. Kind of Andy Travis to Hudson's Mr. Carlson (WKRP reference).
John Russell: Editor for Bleed into One. Guitarist for Tulsa favorites Admiral Twin. Also collects Planet of the Apes memorabillia.