Lost Among the Found: the movement that didn’t exist
Words by Matt Fink

As John Davis sits in the passenger seat of his humble white tour van, tuning up his guitars in a ritual he must have repeated a thousand times as the lead singer and songwriter behind power-pop neoclassicists Superdrag, it isn’t obvious that he is a new man. But much has changed since the last time he took to the road: he is now a husband and father, he has stopped drinking and experimenting with drugs, and Superdrag has disbanded. Ask him and he’s not afraid to tell you that he has undergone an even more drastic internal transformation: He has found Jesus.

“Well, to tell you the honest truth, I thought our fans would be a lot more hostile toward me,” he says, graciously allowing me to invade the privacy of his van as he changes guitar strings on this chilly Pittsburgh afternoon. “I don’t feel any sense of entitlement. That’s why I didn’t put it out as a Superdrag record, because that would have been the safest, easiest thing to do, to just try to sneak it in there. But that didn’t feel right; it didn’t feel truthful. To call it a Superdrag record just because I say so, I don’t think it would sit very well with those other records, in terms of a continuous body of work. It’s still the same dude writing the songs,” he says, pausing for a moment, “but it is and it isn’t. I don’t feel any sense of entitlement at all, and it can be the difference between playing to 800 people and 80,” he continues, looking up from the business of tuning to let me know how serious he is. “Because, really, when you go solo, you’re sort of starting over anyway. Sadly, there are people who, if they aren’t outright hostile, they’re pretty close to it. And I know because I used to be one. I wanted to do a record for people who like Jesus and Badfinger.”

That record, John Davis, his first solo release, is a bold statement. While largely steeped in the same power-pop pastiche that informed his work with Superdrag, there is no mistaking that Davis is writing from an explicitly faith-infused position. Gone are songs about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, replaced with testaments to his new life and faith. “I keep waiting on somebody to get good and offended, because if they don’t, I’ve missed the boat in some way. Because the truth is, it is a gospel album,” he laughs, as if he still can’t believe that he has gotten away with making such a record. “And the gospel is offensive. It’s not meant to coddle you. It’s not an I’m OK, you’re OK kind of thing. It kind of forces you to confront your need for something beyond yourself, and some people find that offensive. And I certainly don’t mean to offend. But I’m still waiting for somebody to come up to me and say, ‘Man, I hate this record, and I’m disgusted by you, and I don’t want to hear anything about it.’ But that hasn’t happened yet.”

A few hundred miles away, at the Festival of Faith and Music at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Sufjan Stevens is clapping his hands, expressionlessly looking at his feet as the mix of students and faculty break the deep hush of his performance and explode into rapturous applause. Watching him perform in a stark white shirt covered in feathers (symbolic of the Seven Swans theme of his fourth release), it’s sometimes hard to imagine that this shy, humble man is arguably the most successful Christian artist ever birthed by the independent rock scene. One gets the impression that he applauds not in an ironic or self-congratulatory way, but as a sign of his membership with the audience for whom he performs. Or is he applauding God, from whom he believes all creativity flows? Despite his willingness to explore his faith in his songwriting, such mystery remains because Stevens has not been one to proselytize beyond the music that he makes, making himself a truly stereotype-smashing example for the indie-rock community that is generally suspicious of artists who claim a faith.

“He doesn’t talk about it at all,” says his friend, collaborator, and sole member of avant-popsters Half-Handed Cloud, John Ringhofer. “I think he wants to worship and sing to God but not have to talk about that. I don’t know if I’m representing him correctly, but I think he just wants to worship and not have to think about it. He will talk to you about it, especially if you’re already friends, but his recordings are capturing a special moment between him and his Creator. And to analyze that, I wonder if he feels like it taints it.”

Still, Stevens is undoubtedly the part of a growing musical community, where artists like the Danielson Famile, Pedro the Lion, 16 Horsepower, and Half-Handed Cloud, among others, share band members, record labels, audiences, and a common faith. If anyone were to be anointed the posterboy of this movement by an eager media, it would be Stevens.

“There is no movement,” he responds definitively to such a secret society suspicions, obviously uncomfortable with the suggestion that he represents some great movement. “There is no new American folk movement, and there is no Christian indie-rock movement. I don’t think so. I think people within churches have always been making music - it has been going on for centuries. There might be some recognition of certain songwriters who are within the church, and I think that’s terrific on some level, because it allows good songwriting to be heard. I think we use certain terms like patriot, or Christian, or utopian. I think people generally see me and my music for what it is, which is… I don’t even know what it is,” he says, laughing.

And though his hesitance to speak on the subject probably owes more to his intensely private nature than to any desire to distance himself from his Christian faith, Stevens is adamant in his belief that he is not part of a Christian indie-rock movement. “It’s really just relationships - that’s all it is. And if we’re part of an industry and we’re releasing records, then maybe you could develop a case for an actual movement or scene, but…” he trails off, “and that’s going on, so you could probably work toward that argument, but for me, personally, I really just work through relationships. That’s what’s most important,” he says, alluding to the growing congregation of musicians he works with. “I know that I am sort of avoiding that conversation and probably not helping you out much,” he apologizes, then quickly changes the subject. “I think you would probably have a better time summarizing that than I would. You know, Daniel Smith would have some interesting things to say about that, too.”

As the head brother of the Danielson Famile and Br. Danielson (as well as proprietor of Sounds Familyre Records and musical mentor to Sufjan Stevens), Daniel Smith is arguably the patriarch and figurative gathering ground for the Christian avant-garde. Whether dressing in hospital scrubs as a symbol of spiritual healing or performing in a custommade “nine-fruits tree,” Smith’s honest expression of his faith through his art has drawn criticism from nearly the very first moment he opened his mouth to let loose his piercing chirp on 1995’s A Prayer for Every Hour. Contrary to what one might expect, though, most of his opposition has come from the very people who ostensibly share his faith perspective. “It wasn’t rejected by Christians; it was rejected by people in the Christian music industry who were infuriated that these people who didn’t know how to play their instruments were allowed to have a record out on a Christian label,” Smith says, drawing a sharp distinction between listeners and the business of music. “I was the guy who couldn’t sing - just really mean stuff. Was it disappointing at the time? No. I couldn’t have been more excited. I was so happy.”

Still, one gets the impression that Smith couldn’t help but be hurt a bit by the rejection he has felt by the gatekeepers to Christian culture. “It made me sad,” he admits, “but at the same time, I felt like it was stirring people up. Why would people get so angry about music? And that was the thing. It wasn’t the lyrics - it was the music,” he continues, admitting that there were those who even threatened to do him bodily harm for what they perceived as an unholy mixture of the sacred and the avant-garde. “And I say that industry because I want to separate it from the church. I’m part of the church. I’m talking about EMI records. That’s not the church. There’s a very big difference.”

Smith, more than anyone, knows that being rejected by the Christian music industry only deepened the appeal of his music to the indie rock masses looking for something subversive, as what he is doing was arguably offending audiences both secular and Christian. “I would say that was the Lord’s doing,” he says with no discernable sense of ego. “I really believe that. It was God’s sense of humor. I’m this token weird Christian that people are allowed to like, but, therefore, writers don’t really have to take seriously what I’m writing about. I think that’s why a lot of my friends resist these categories, because then the conversation is no longer about the music; it turns political or about religion,” he explains, admitting that he has no interest in being perceived as being involved with any Christian avant-garde movement.

“I’m much more motivated by community. There’s a community of people who share the creative process and who are willing to pass the credit on to the Creator. To me, that’s very different than saying that there is a Christian movement, because that means so many different things to people. I know there’s a community happening now, because I know them, and they know me. When [you say] there’s a movement, there are connotations. Just like with the word ‘Christian’ or anything. So I’m the leader of this movement and Devendra Banhart is the leader of that movement, and it allows them to lump everyone together,” he says, obviously uncomfortable with the artificial constructs designed by the media’s need for order and categorization. “I really think that can be harmful. I’d rather just talk about the Lord.”

In many ways, the fact that rock and roll and religion are now perceived as strange bedfellows is a deep irony, given that rock was largely birthed by the rhythms and spirit of African-American churches in the deep South. From the God-haunted Delta blues of Skip James to the rousing defenses of traditional Christianity in Roy Acuff’s “Great Speckled Bird,” the roots of rock and roll are tangled around the pews of American churches. Elvis Presley made albums of hymns, Little Richard left the devil’s music for the pulpit for a brief period, and Ray Charles was once a quasi-heretic for taking the music of the church, subtracting the faith content, and calling it soul music. We live in a different world, indeed.

“I’m still shocked that Christianity can freak people out,” says Sub Pop singer-songwriter Rosie Thomas, an artist who has never been explicit about her Christian faith in her music. “Even on the last record [2003's Only With Laughter Can You Win], I had a guy e-mail and say, ‘I’m not going to go to your show in Boston. You talked way too much about God on this last record,’” she says of the album that made one specific mention of God. “I was devastated, because the last thing that I want to do is steer anybody against that. I don’t want to be that person. It’s a very tough position to be in, but I had to realize that I have that responsibility. I don’t want it, but it’s mine. It always will be,” she continues, knowing that she either has to surrender her faith or make concessions in her art, neither of which she’s willing to do.

“What’s up with a guy that’s so bummed out that he won’t come to a show in Boston because he’s that pissed off that someone mentioned the word ‘God’ in their music? I wanted to write back to him and say, ‘You better throw out your Dylan records and your Johnny Cash. What are you talking about?’ It’s amazing how quickly you can offend somebody, when you think you’re the least offensive person on the planet. I don’t want to not be offensive, but what difference can you make if you can’t offend someone? I’m not going to judge people for thinking differently than me, but I realized after that second record that I am going to offend some people. And I never wanted to. It was a wake-up call to realize that if I stood for something, I was going to.”

Given the increasingly polarizing role that religion plays in American society, some musicians have even taken to making the topic off limits in interviews and press releases, restricting the expression of their faith to their art and their private lives. Damien Jurado, long recognized as an artist of faith, is one such musician. “He will talk about it from time to time, but it’s possible to get pretty burned for it,” says Pedro the Lion’s David Bazan, a close friend of Jurado and a musician who has himself long drawn criticism for his unorthodox expressions of faith. “As of late, just sort of sorting it out in my mind, I’m hesitant to be called a Christian at all, just because the popular or practical definition of that includes traits that don’t describe me in any way. I think mainstream Christianity is the antithesis of the Bible and particularly Jesus’ teaching and the like,” he explains, admitting that his music is often his way of capturing his crises of faith.

“It’s certainly not popular. What I’m doing isn’t really that popular with Christians, and it gets quite a bit of ridicule from people that don’t have anything to do with Christianity, too. I can see [Jurado's] hesitancy, and I suppose I am more willing to talk about it. I also feel weird because I’m talking about it for the sake of conversation and because it’s an interesting topic, but I think there’s the tendency for people to see it as me attempting to evangelize in my own way, and that’s deeply embarrassing, the possibility that that perception is at work. Because it’s a pretty fucking easy target, since Christians are notoriously foolish and mean-spirited. But I’m trying not to live in fear of that sort of thing and just be frank, because I think that frank discussion of these things is interesting and is the way that public discourse is supposed to work. No one has taken advantage of me in that way.”

Back on stage at Calvin, David Bazan has taken the stage with an acoustic guitar, delivering what he says will be history’s only solo acoustic performance of the synth-and-drums songs of his new project, The Headphones. Bazan, even more than Daniel Smith, has become a lightning rod for controversy among Christian artists, as he has slowly gained a reputation for traversing the perceived taboos of mainstream Christian culture. Tonight will be no different, as he will perform the bitter “Shit Talker” and call Blockbuster video “fuckers” in a rant against censorship from the stage. As always, the crowd seems equally split between those who were waiting for just that kind of controversial moment and those who reach to cover their children’s ears when Bazan takes the stage. To an objective observer, it almost appears that he aims to offend.

“It’s funny. It would seem so, and I’ve gone through a process over the years where I’ve noticed that. I even named that EP, It’s Hard to Find a Friend, after how influenced I was by what I perceived as the opinions and reactions of my peers,” Bazan says. “So I’ve gone through this process of really trying to focus internally when I’m making decisions about what I’m going to do to try not to pander or write for an audience. But at the same time, you’re still influenced. When I was making the set list, I tried, almost like meditation, to focus on what songs were going to be satisfying for me to play in this context. But it wasn’t what I was thinking about that specifically, like, ‘Well, I really want to piss these people off.’ I’m sure that, in some ways, that’s what was happening.”

“Control was the main jumping off point,” he says of the sexually charged concept album the detailed an adulterous relationship and effectively ended his ability to be seen as acceptable for Christians. “A lot of people who were Christians and fans of the band misunderstood Winners Never Quit, thinking that it was championing the good brother and that whole way of thinking, when I meant it to be a critique and a harsh one. But when Control came out, and I used the words ’shit’ and ‘cum’ on the album, that was it. I got numerous emails from people who said that they opened up the CD, scanned through the lyrics and put the CD back in the mail to Jade Tree to get their money back. And on that tour, I would get cornered every night by a dozen or more individuals who were telling me what I was doing was wrong. And I certainly wasn’t shocked or bummed, but it was very wearing. But considering the source, it didn’t really bother me very much.”

Though Bazan appears to be amazingly comfortable - even pleased - with the controversy he stirs up, former 16 Horsepower and current Woven Hand frontman David Eugene Edwards is the first to admit that he hardly shares that sentiment when using his art to confront people with the idea that every day places them on a spiritual battleground. “No, I’m not comfortable with it. When I do it, it’s usually a horrifying experience for myself, as much as for anybody else,” he says of the strikingly stark world of sin and redemption that he has been creating over the last 15 years. “The music is speaking to me, as much as it’s speaking to anyone else. I’m not barking at anybody; I’m at war with myself.”

Like Daniel Smith, Edwards acknowledges that the dimension his faith adds to his music is a novelty to both secular and Christian audiences, lending it an outsider appeal as it limits the number of those who will even give him a cursory listen. “For some people, it’s like coming to see the circus. Or some snake handler,” he explains. “It’s exotic because it’s religious and it’s backwoods and weird. It’s like going to see a movie. And I’ve really tried to kill that, just because that’s something that has really bothered me. Just the stereotypes of the South and of religion - even though a lot of that stuff is real - that’s all people talk about because it’s so sensational. I’ve been part of documentaries and things from different countries about things in America, and it’s ridiculous. It becomes a mockumentary where they’re trying to make it like Deliverance. That’s what draws some people, and maybe they stick around for another reason. Especially with Woven Hand, I’m trying to kill that. I’m trying to bring it from another place, because people are more complex than that.”

Back in Pittsburgh, John Davis closes his guitar case and thanks me for my interest. Despite the temptation to now frame him solely under the narrative arc of his conversion story, such reductions seem disingenuous. Davis is more complex than that. For him, tonight’s performance will resonate with a different meaning from those hundreds of shows he performed chasing his rock and roll dreams. “I’m not a preacher; I don’t have that gift,” he shrugs when asked how he sees his faith interacting with the music he makes. “But what I do have is an experience that was so radical and profound that nothing will shake my sense of it being real. Nothing. I’m far from being an enlightened being, but that moment of realization.. I’ve taken every drug coming and going trying to get that. And it doesn’t work that way. This was something else, and it changed me,” he continues, looking out the van’s side window. “I just know that the songs minister, and I’m just the leaky vessel up on stage. And I feel like every night when it’s all said and done and the show’s over, I’ll be the one standing at the T-shirt booth. If anyone wants to know what I’m going on about, I’ll be right there. It’s like Joe Strummer used to say: ‘just three chords and the truth.’”