Goodbye Audio is an independent band who recently released a pretty solid album. Liking what I heard, I figured I'd take to the world wide soapbox and see if I could satisfy a few questions that were taking up valuable space in my head that could be better used elsewhere.

I'd encourage you to visit the band's site and check them out.

Official Site | banophernalia.com review

This interview is from March 2003

1. As musicians how did you find the creative process recording for yourselves, as opposed to recording for an industry oriented label?

It was much more rewarding to have complete control over what we did with the songs. The biggest difference was that we were allowed to make an album for ourselves rather than having people making song decisions for us because it might make a song more "radio friendly" or sound "more Christian." It was very different for us as well because we were also specifically trying to create songs that could be used for worship in other churches by other worship bands.

2. Interesting that you bring up worship music. There are a lot of opinions out there regarding worship music. I know personally I find most of it very self-congratulatory, and almost arrogant in it's look at how saved I am, and how unsaved the rest of the world is attitude. It hasn't helped matters that worship music moves a lot of units. Given the band's conscious move into the worship arena were you concerned about the label being applied to Goodbye Audio?

In the interim time between Goodbye Audio and our previous bands we were all involved in leading worship at our local churches. In organizing worship services I think we all started to feel a sort of frustration at what we perceived as a lack of worship music that is musically or lyrically relevant to our generation. Another problem was that many modern songs are very impractical in a worship setting and more suited for performance. This project really sprung out of our own personal need for modern music that was simple and practical enough for a worship setting.

I wouldn't necessarily categorize your music as "simple" - simple in my mind is a youth pastor with a bad 80's haircut that Billy Ray Cyrus would laugh at, whose musical ability is limited to strumming an old Yamaha classical guitar and singing the Lord's Prayer in the key of D.

3. You mention an interim period before Goodbye Audio picked up. When you got together did you deliberately choose the indie route, or did the collapse of the Pamplin labels more or less dictate this path for the band?

Our only specific choice in this whole thing has been to follow God where he wants to take us. We have talked to labels and if that is where God wants to take us, that is fine. If God wants this cd to be the end of the road, that is also fine. Both bands had actually parted ways with Pamplin before the collapse of the label, so that really wasn't a factor. There are also definitely things about being indie that we love. There is so much freedom to control the direction of our own ministry. We have no pressure to tour unless we want to and we aren't always running around to promote our album. It is very liberating.

4. I can relate to the freedom and control being independent can bring an artist - there is still a perception that when you support and indie act you have to listen to an inferiour product. Having said that, I'm really impressed by the mature sound and brilliance of the recording. I assume there are a couple of gear nuts in the band. Did you look for any outside help in production or engineering? Or was it all pretty much recorded digitally and edited and mastered at home. Technology is a wonderful thing - where were all these gadgets when I was stuck with an analog 4 track back in the 80's? Care to run through the recording process, or is it better left as one of those "magic" things that impress non musical types who can't figure out how you were able to sing along with yourself?

We produced, recorded, engineered, mixed and mastered the whole album ourselves. Part of the excitement of recording was realizing what we were capable of on our own. We got an outside opinion after we had finished recording from an engineer friend of ours to make sure that we were on target, but let's just say that it was a digital home recording in a very very tiny room.

At least it was a small room, and you were cramped and hopefully uncomfortable and suffering for your art. I'd hate to think you somehow managed to convert your basement into an egg cartoned soundproof recording haven.

5. In terms of Christian music influences are there any bands you find inspiring either musically or lyrically? I know this is a somewhat loaded question as there are a lot of good bands and musicians out there that are probably equal in number to those who have no business setting foot in a studio. I'm not looking for dirt, although that's fun too.

To be honest, no. Our main two goals were to create a worship album that was totally different than what was out there and to write songs that we would use in a worship service. We know there is really good worship already available, we just wanted an undilluted expression of our own worship.

Sigh, so much for getting any good bits. What, No tongue in cheek bashing of the good old bands like Daniel Amos (David Amish? Those guys are still making records?) or making fun of DC Talk's grammy win for a glorified solo compilation? I'll give you credit for staying focused.

6. Why is it that so many people assume Christians have no sense of humour?

Being a Christian means being separate to God. I think that a lot of believers think that the way to do that is to judge and outwardly disapprove of what others are doing rather than to focus on making their own lives separate. When this happens it makes Christians appear down on everything. Take Harry Potter for example. So many believers spend so much energy downing Harry Potter for being "evil". If they spent that much time and energy telling others about Jesus we would probably have worldwide revival! If we could focus on the freedoms Christ gives us instead of restrictions, the natural joy of Christ would flow out of us all the time.

No kidding, we do seem to like pointing out the motes. I don't think this will ever change though, as this kind of behaviour for many is a normal "christian" (note the small "c") passtime. Being self righteous is dangerous, as no one is worthy of the gifts we are given. Humility isn't a bad thing.

7. Here's a question I have to ask, if you pulled Stacey's finger what would happen? Be careful in how you answer, as this one could follow the band around for a long time.

She would giggle…don't ask about Lewis. It's bad.

Poor Stacey, there is no greater love shown a husband than a tolerant wife and a can of Lysol.

8. How has the reaction been overall to the album, and is it being picked up by enough retail to give you a shot a recording a follow-up? I know there are those who think if you're making enough money to live on macaroni and cheese you're doing the Lord's work. Any more than that and you're just being greedy.

Overall, the reaction is beyond what we ever expected. People really like this record and say that it really ministers to them. And what we do is not based in any way on record sales at all. The fact that we have been blessed to be able to do this on our own gives us the freedom to not worry about money. Besides, we know that God is going to take care of us no matter what we do as long as we follow his lead. The fact that we are equipping people to worship God is motivation to record another album, not money.

9. One of the things I really liked about this album was the diversity in writing, and performance. How conscious was this?

It wasn't really something that we planned. All of us have very diverse tastes in music, which should be obvious by the past bands that we have all been in. We started out by bringing in songs that we had written indivdually and ended up writing more together. It wasn't very deliberate at all. Also, Stacey and I both have very different singing styles. She is definitely a strong vocalist who can really carry a song, whereas I see my vocals more as a small part of the whole. We all played to our strengths and it ended up having a pretty diverse sound.

10. Since you brought up writing and singing, how about running through who did what on the album. Not having the credits was a bit of an oversight at least for me. Please don't crush my image of the band by saying you're basically a modern version of the Monkees and you only sang on the record, hired guns played the music.

Every track on the album was recorded, played or programmed by one of us. We engineered, mixed and mastered it ourselves and no outside musicians played on the album. We made a conscious decision to not include who played what in the album notes because we didn't want to distract from the worship aspect of the album by drawing attention to ourselves. There have been people who have speculated about who played what by going on the internet to see what we have played on past projects, but we'll never tell…

Thanks for taking the time to chat about the album and what you're trying to do with the band. May you continue to have much success.

Jevon the Tall
banophernalia.com
March 2003