"My whole life, I listened to almost all of the bands featured in this film. I know what it was like growing up on 70s and 80s christian music, as well as 90s and current. I watched the bible belt squeeze the life out of so many of these bands" -Stephen Mark Sarro (Tantrum of the Muse, 1998-2004) Stephen writes more about it here.
This documentary film seems to have two parts to it. One is an oral report not unlike ones that get awkwardly done in front of High School classrooms, while the other part of this film is a pushy, and quite off-putting salesman who probably has his shirt unbuttoned too low and has a gold cross suffocated in chest hair.
The oral report is on the history of Christian Rock. And I have to say no matter how many times I hear the term “Christian Rock”, today or when I actually had a life and business ventures within the subculture of Christian indi and hardcore music, I always envision a Will Ferrell like Jesus with messy but shiny hair doing a guitar solo and saying, “I died on the cross so you could rock harder.”
So like any report on any history only the big shots will be made mention. I know there will be complaints of smaller Christian labels and more artistically moving bands not being mentioned, but that’s how reports on large topics are. When you were younger and had to do a report on the United States Presidents you probably only gave a few sentences, and only when there was no way to go without a mention, to any Vice-Presidents. This is probably why bands like The Prayer Chain and Stavesacre will be in the film, there was no way to avoid their parts in the story of believers in Jesus who play instruments at this point.
The salesman part of this film has a very old sales pitch. It goes along the tines of: “Sure Christian Rock is overly positive, and not very sexy, but it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous to the uptight Christians we all can agree, as humans, are assholes.”
Bands like Reliant K are going to talk about being boycotted for not having enough mentions of Jesus in their lyrics by the messure of a minute, and P.O.D. will talk about how fans turned their back on them when they didn’t do alter calls at shows once they signed to a general market major label. My guess, and I bet I am right, will be the end of the film will be about bands like Underaoth and Mutemath being successful without being labeled preaching Christians with guitars. Bands like these will be called the future where Christian Rock is accepted as a form of music, and not just a chick track with a soundtrack.
I’ll probably see this film, but I hope when talking with MXPX they talk about a show in Cleveland Ohio at Peabody’s Down Under where a fervent fan pushed guitarist Tom Wisniewski down to the ground so he could jump and surf the crowd. Tom yelled “Shit” when trying to break his fall without destroying his guitar. The crowd stopped being entertained and those who weren’t silent, as they dragged up their jaws up from the sticky floor, where screaming at the band to repent of their sin. I found that moment to be a Christian version of Spinal Tap. I hope this movie mentions some of those.