What's the Deal, why can't Christians really rock out???
Hello everybody, My name is Clint Forester, I am 26 years old and I am from Houston, Texas...though I don't have that "Texas pride" that a lot of Texans seem to have, it just happens to be where I live at the moment. This is my first blog, I am definitely not an English major or a writer, so I'll try not to sound cheesy...anyways, I am a Christian first and foremost, but I am blessed by God to be given the ability to play my guitar, sing, and write music. When I first started playing at 13, I went on a mission; I wanted to play guitar like those good ol' boys in Lynyrd Skynyrd. God gave me the discipline to stick out this painstaking instrument during the first couple of years. It was fun for me but “Hell” for my family…you know the old – crank up the little 15 watt amp with terrible distortion playing 3 or 4 half out of tune chords over and over again for 2 hours, sorry Mom and Dad. However, I am not sorry for my 3 brothers, someone told me that’s what you’re supposed to do to your little brothers…Just kidding. I grew up on “Classic Rock”, which, in my opinion, is still the best music out there. I don’t mean to offend any Gospel or Contemporary Christian music listeners out there…that is the whole point of this article. Well, this isn’t my life story so let me get to the point.
I was sitting down with a friend of mine yesterday who happens to be a drummer. He is interested in starting a project (codename for a “band”, which seems to be a 4 letter word around here) with me. We both are Christians who want to glorify the Lord in our music. Now, I don’t mean We will be writing praise music, I write music about being a Christian and the aspects of God’s creations and attributes. As we were talking we thought about how there’s hardly any Christian bands that really rock, some of the bands like “Third day” and “DC Talk” have there moments, but overall it still has that cookie cutter praise music sound, again these are my opinions and some of my Christian friends opinions as well. I love the music of bands like “Rage against the machine”, “Stone temple pilots”, “311”, and yes “Tool”. Now most people would agree that most of this music and band bands like them have the psychology; “do what you want”, “Live the life you want”. But the music, the melody have powerful emotions and feelings in them. Emotions like anger, lust, pride, greed, though not all of the time but Peace and Love. Let’s be honest with ourselves…as Christians…as human beings, we have these feelings. Let that sink in a bit…O.K. Rock and roll has all of these images written all over it. When I listen to Rock and roll, I don’t sit there and think to myself “Oh, I hope this song is about Greed, I would enjoy that” or “I’m glad this song makes me depressed, I love it when they tell me I’m worthless and so is my life”. I listen to it and the emotions and feelings it pulls out of me, and if I identify with it and it souds good and matches the emotions from the melody, I will more than likely enjoy it. Consciously or unconsciously that’s the way music works…I think…I don’t know never mind but my point is is that I have those emotions and feelings at times and the melodies reflect what I feeling, but I don’t glorify those feelings, I try to expose them for what they are (Sin) and how they should be dealt with, or how I deal with them (hopefully biblically)…anybody know what I mean?
I don’t think that this is a wrong way to write Christian music without stepping out of line with Christ. Oh, if someone knows of any Christian bands out there that REALLY ROCK, let me know. And let me know what you think of this article and your opinions as well.
Peace Brethren