I had always liked music. From as early as I can remember I would go to sleep listening to the radio. When I was very young, it was a small silver AM/FM radio that I would keep next to my bed. I can still vividly remember how the chorus for Goodbye Yellow Brick Road would give me goosebumps (it still does). Music affected me, it comforted me.
I didn't grow up in a religious home. Non-practicing Catholics probably summarizes it best. I was confirmed, went through Catechism, but that was the extent of my religious upbringing. I'm sure it helped develop some sort of ethics for me, but honestly, all I remember is watching a few film strips and sitting in the back of the class, trying to get pencils to stick in the ceiling.
In high school I met a pastor's kid. We hit it off, he invited me to church. At first, I felt out of place at church. Not because of any of the people there, but just because the whole act of "church" was so foreign to me. I slowly felt more relaxed, but I was doing this all without the comfort of my parents being by my side. I was always a little nervous. Even as my comfort grew, and even as I started to enjoy my time at the church, I still felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb. At the time I was really into metal. Metallica, Megadeth, Sepultura... I definitely had found a genre that I grabbed on to. I figured my new friends would eventually have a little talk with me about my musical choices but that never happened. Instead, I was introduced to new music I was never aware of.
It started with the Christian metal bands. Living Sacrifice's first album had just come out. I was floored. I was never really a big Slayer guy, but that self-titled album was a better version of anything I had heard from Slayer. It was great. I wanted more. Then it was Mortification, then it was Believer (still a favorite to this day). The metal bands slowly gave way to other bands in the Christian scene. Then Tooth & Nail showed up and helped usher me towards shoegazer and indie rock.
The 90's was a golden age in both the Christian music scene and the secular one. And while no one was coaxing me to stick with the Christian bands, it's where I focused a sizable amount of attention. The easy explanation was because of the people I was hanging out with, but I think it was more than that. The Christian scene was dealing with real issues and real emotions. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. Looking back, some of those bands were actually pretty bleak. For a brooding teen, what more could you ask for? You were given the emotional struggle we all felt at that age, but sprinkled with hope and purpose.
The morning I first talked to DL about possibly starting something chronicling our musical choices as teens, it was born out of a sense of nostalgia. But the more I thought about it since, there really was a wealth of great music from that era that largely went unnoticed simply because it was Christian. Most of the people that will stumble across this blog will probably do so out of the same nostalgic feelings, but maybe there will be those music loving souls that will have their eyes opened to a scene that silently passed them by.
Personally knowing the guys involved in this project, I can comfortably say that we were serious about music. Age and life slowly shift priorities and the passion with which we once searched for new music has waned but that doesn't diminish the impact music had on us. So we plan on giving you a cliff notes version -- a best of, if you will. You'll recognize some, but I have a feeling we'll surprise you with some of the gems we unearth from our personal collections (we listened to some weird crap).
I mean... just wait until Adam and I start talking about Saviour Machine...
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