During the late 1990s, I was a undergrad in college and heavily involved in the “Christian” hardcore/punk scene. I started in this scene while in high school when I found out about Tooth and Nail Records during youth group events. The promotional material would compare bands on the label to “secular” bands, saying for example that if you like Smashing Pumpkins you’d probably like Plankeye. Plankeye’s music is far removed from Smashing Pumpkins, but the paper-thin comparison drove me to the Tooth and Nail band because it provided an alternative to the “secular” music that surrounded me. Later, promotional material for Chevelle, a band on Squint Records, would get compared to Tool, partly because of their video for “Mia” and because they had a big name producer, Steve Albini, record their album. Again though, Chevelle is not Tool just as Tool is not Chevelle, even if there are some similarities.

I recall listening to bands like No Innocent Victim (NIV), Focal Point, or Blaster the Rocketboy, all hardcore or punk bands that met my desire for aggressive, fast music but also reinforced my evangelical beliefs and values. The cover NIV’s compilation albums No Compromise shows a lion in the foreground staring down a group of Christians in a Roman coliseum, playing into the persecution myth and that Christians must endure persecution and be willing to die for their beliefs. NIV sounds like an east coast hardcore band, but their message is steeped in evangelicalism. Take the anti-abortion song “Pro-Kill” for example, a song that has the breakdown, “If you’re pro choice, you’re pro kill. Innocent bloodshed, murder at will.”

Likewise, Focal Point’s debut album Suffering of the Masses has songs that scratch the heavy itch but preach the same message I would hear from the pulpit on Sundays. The cover of the album depicts individuals in Hell, suffering eternal torment because they rejected God, and the album, while musically different from NIV, contains antiabortion songs such as “Homicide.” While “Pro Kill” is fast, east coast hardcore with a bombastic breakdown, “Homicide” is sludgy, providing a west coast feel, but the themes are the same. Ryan Clark sings that he bleeds with “sympathy for the aborted and forsaken” before screaming “killer” again and again at the person who had the abortion, thus labeling the person a murderer.

Following Focal Point, Ryan and his brother Don Clark formed Training for Utopia, an utterly chaotic band that pushed the musical boundaries. Most of my friends didn’t like the chaos, but I ate it, before I discovered bands such as Botch and The Blood Brothers. On their debut album, Plastic Soul Impalement, Clark and the band continues to push evangelical points through songs such as “Single Handed Attempt at Revolution” where Clark sings that he doesn’t know everything, but then he goes on a rant at the end of the song where he screams, “You don’t scare me. Your makeup, your women’s clothing. I’m sorry if that’s what you had in mind.” As the music becomes thicker, he says he wants a reaction. He proclaims, “Your Book of Satan, you Book of Mormon, your Koran, they’re been wrong this whole time.” He concludes by telling people they have no standards or morals they live for nothing. Embedded in this rant is the demonization of individuals, the dehumanization or individuals, paving the way, specifically for the Islamophobia that arose after September 11.

I used to play Training for Utopia and Ryan and Don’s follow up band Demon Hunter all of the time, bobbing my head to the music. I would think about the rantings, but with Demon Hunter nothing seemed as blatant until the song “Freedom is Dead” off 2022’s Exile. Musically, I really like “Freedom is Dead” and Demon Hunter, but the song is a rally cry, in many ways, for right week grievances. While Clark does not mention this explicitly, the chorus of “Freedom is dead” coupled with the language of warfare and the fear of losing power plays in, again, to the persecution myth that individuals cannot say anything. That is not, as we know, the case. People must be willing to face criticism for their words, but that is not the same as persecution or censoring.

I really hadn’t thought about how Blaster the Rocketboy fit into all of this until I put a few of their songs on my “Punk Playlist.” Blaster the Rocketboy plays into the horror punk ethos, think the Misfits. Their lyrics pull from pop culture, and specifically horror. However, it serves, in many ways, as a guise. On “Ghouls of the Night,” Daniel Peterson describe kids dressing up as devils and witches and being called “adorable.” He asks, “How much more of this distorted view will we subject our children too.” While the band uses elements of horror, and are called “Christian horror core,” they undercut these images providing an evangelical lens through which to engage with the music.

All of these, and more are problematic, and each reminds me of a Payable on Death (P.O.D.) show I went to before they broke out. I saw them in a high school gym during their tour for Brown, probably 1997 or 1998. After the show, as I usually did, I talked with band. As we chatted, Tool’s album Ænima came up. I had been listening to that album a lot during that period. As I talked with P.O.D., they brought up the song “Eulogy” and claimed it was anti-Christian, specifically because Maynard James Keenan sings, “Come down, get off your fucking cross, we need the fucking space to nail the next fool martyr.” P.O.D. argued that the song talks about Jesus, and I bought that argument.

However, “Eulogy,” like all Tool songs, is rather vague lyrically, and it does not, at any point in the song, mention Jesus. When listening to the song, Maynard comments on hypocrisy and the use of religion to control and maintain power. This is a common theme throughout his lyrics, look at “Right in Two” for example. Yet, it does also comment on his upbringing and his mother’s faith, something he explores in songs like “Wings for Marie” and on A Perfect Circle’s “Judith.” When I listen to these songs, I don’t think they are anti-Christian. I see them as art that explores the unknown and our connection with the universe and the ways that religion both helps and harms us.

Art brings us together and helps us explore ourselves and our very being. Lillian Smith, in The Journey, talks about the ways that science and faith conjoin to help us think about ourselves and the universe. Beginning her journey, she says, “What I sought, of course, was something to believe in; something that intelligence and heart can accept, something that can fuse past and future, art and science, and God and one’s self into a purposeful whole.” That is what I search for, something that can expand my understanding of myself and the world.

I’m thankful that there are bands such as Five Iron Frenzy, Zao, Stavesacre, MewithoutYou, Derek Webb, and others who arose out of that Christian underground scene and didn’t fall into the evangelical trap of closemindedness that repackaged pulpit talking points into a hip new veneer to attract the youth and keep them in the pews. Each of these artists, as I’ve written about at some point on this blog, seek the “purposeful whole.”

What are your thoughts? As usual, let me know in the comments below, and make sure to follow me on Twitter at @silaslapham.