By: Kimberly Hall
     http://www.jmbzine.com

As SLAMM Magazine once called it, "Soul Junk's sound beats the hell out of that John Denver folk that gets played in church, and if their brand of 'Lamb of God' was played at Mass, I'd be in church every day."

Although you may never have thought of funked-out, indie groove punk as a prime way to reach the unchurched masses, thank goodness Glen and Jon Galloway did. The duo of sonic wizards behind Soul-Junk (their eclectic San Diego-based "inspirational punk" outfit) have not only created some great music, but have since the band's inception, maintained a level of integrity, musicality, and intelligence unrivaled in the Christian scene.

And now the musical foresight of the brothers Soul-Junk has given them some serious headway in the secular music scene, accompanied by some serious spreading of the Word. Read on for Part 1 of the latest S-J news from Glen and Jon, insights into the thought processes behind their albums, and their take on the often tricky and conflicting realms of art and Christianity (and how the two can happily coincide).

I spoke first with Jon, bass player and sound engineering/computer guru, about the recent tour with the Danielson Famile and how the odd pairing has been fairing in the wilds of the club scene.

"The reaction's been pretty good overall," he reflects. "We always pretty much play in bars. Usually we start out with some just kind of straight rock and roll. Then in the middle we'll do some kind of crazy stuff. Glen will kind of mess with his pedals, and I'll do some stuff on my computer. Tonight, my drum machine thing didn't work, but normally we throw in some drum machine stuff. Then we do some more rock, and then we finish with some hip hop/jungle kind of stuff."
                                                                                    
 And pulling off such a complex stage show can be quite the task. As any Soul Junk fan is aware, an incredible kind of sonic layering goes into the albums. That alone would seem to make replicating the CD sound in a live setting extremely difficult (if not downright impossible), simply because so many instruments and sounds are going at once.

"Yeah. It's pretty tough," Jon agrees. "But when we recorded the things, we used a lot of Glen's effect pedals on his voice anyhow. So I try and do that live. He uses two microphones: one just goes into the PA, and the other one goes through all his effects. And I try and do similar to what's on the album. A lot of those tracks took weeks to put together, so there's no way that we can do those live. For a while we were playing them off of CD, but then when Glen would jump onto the stage, it would skip. So right now we have them as mp3s on my computer, and we play them back as mp3s."

It's this kind of creativity and commitment to musical excellence that have endeared Soul-Junk to many a music lover, Christian and secular alike. Recently, a reviewer from San Diego's Sidewalk.com rated the band as one of the area's five best. That feat by itself merits recognition. It is made all the more extraordinary, however, when one realizes that the band's primary lyrical source is the Bible. But it can also make the situation downright confusing. How exactly does one successfully toe the line between sacred and secular? And, at least on the surface, might there not appear to be a rather striking dichotomy between the fountain of the Good Book and the tap behind the bar?

Jon maintains that the disparity is "surprisingly not" as big a deal as one might think. "It's really strange…We do get some reactions like, 'This is a joke, right? You guys play really good music, but you're kind of messing around.' But we've been playing there (the San Diego area) long enough that people know us for real, and a lot of people kind of respect it. They'll say, 'Well, that's what you're into. That's really cool.' And we've had people say, 'I can't help it. I keep singing those songs over in my head.' And that's exactly what we want to happen."

However, to some Christians that is exactly what shouldn't happen. Sure, evangelism is great and conversion is wonderful, but if people want Jesus, they should find Him in church. To these critics, the means simply don't justify the ends. Christians should be taking their music to the local pulpit, not the neighborhood bars. So how does Soul-Junk weigh in on this Christian music quandary?

Jon answers simply. "I think that I would just say that Jesus got accused of spending his time drinking and hanging around prostitutes and the sinners of his day. If you look at where Christians of today would expect Jesus to be, sitting in a church pew, that's where he was least. The only time he was there was when he was cleaning it out. I think (with) the idea that 'Christian' means 'little Christ' and we're supposed to be like Jesus, this just seems natural. This seems the least crazy place to be, in that light."

Glen chimes in, agreeing. "There are two instances, in Portland and especially San Francisco, where Danielson was finishing up their set. And they were getting into the part of the song where they were singing 'You are my hiding place.' It's just them singing that, and there's just this incredible worshipful spirit that comes on the room. And it's insane, because, especially San Francisco, there's so much spiritual stuff going on there. But there's nothing like the Spirit of God coming in a place where everything else was saying 'No God in here. This is off limits.' And then God says, 'No. This is exactly where I want to be.'

"It makes me sad sometimes that people feel that way," he continues, "that they need to say, 'This is who you are. You're not allowed here.' It's the negative image of the way that Christ saw things. Christ was an offense to the people he spoke to. Christ went places where people were like, 'You're not allowed here.' And yet we judge ourselves and we say, 'We're not allowed here.' We limit ourselves. Christ watched what His Father did, did it; listened to what His Father said, said it; and then made no excuses. He said, 'You want to find fault with me? I just do what I see and hear.' So that's what we try and do."

So despite the inherent limitations of playing to club crowds, the difficulty of singing Isaiah's words to folks focused more on beer and flirting than on praise and worship, Soul Junk makes no attempts to disguise the Christianity they profess. As the musings on their website so eloquently request, "Please allow us to worship the one we call our God openly in front of your tonite. We do this with a deep respect for your own spiritual understanding and honesty. We ask that our Jesus would demonstrate the inner truth of these words - that God is a spirit and we worship him in spirit and truth."

"I think it's really interesting," Jon adds, commenting on the band's strange position. "Like recently in an interview someone said, 'Are you guys a Christian band or Christians in a band?' There shouldn't really be any distinction between that. We're not at all religious people. We're really into Jesus, and we're really into music. So we just do the two things, and it's kind of what happens naturally. We don't really have any kind of altar call 'cause we really feel like the music should speak for itself and the words should speak for themselves. Sometimes there's a place for that, but we kind of feel like our place is just to get out there, sing, and do what we do. And a lot of the time, because we're not trying to stuff something down anyone's throat, that's what people are willing to listen to."

And although there are definitely people willing to listen, finding the place where Soul-Junk belongs has been far from easy. With a product that doesn't exactly fit into the Top-40 mold, the outfit has shopped tunes from label to label over the past few years, releasing music on a host of indie labels, including Infinite Chug, SubPop, Karate, Holy Kiss, Shrimper, Homestead, and their current home at Jackson Rubio.

So where to now? Talking with Glen, he seems pleasantly content with the Jackson Rubio situation. "Matt (Wignall, head of Jackson Rubio Records and frontman for Havalina Rail Co.) is real open-minded. He contacted us, and part of what he likes about us is that we do a lot of different stuff. Havalina's that way, too, you know, with different types of music. But that's kind of our place, I think, (with) people that operate on several tracks at once, because that's how we do. A lot of people will like certain aspects of what we do, but not others. So yeah, it is kind of hard defining 'This is Soul-Junk's spot.'"

 And though that spot may still be somewhat undefined, the future of the band rests on a very solid identity. "I see my songwriting and who I am as a musician and artist just kind of coming out of who I am in the Spirit," Glen relates. "And all the verses about 'I'm dead and my life is hidden with Christ,' that stuff is making more and more sense as we do this for a while. So that's what I'm thinking.

I've talked to Dan (Smith, founder of the Danielson Famile) quite a bit about this last night. 'The flesh counts for nothing, but the Spirit gives life.' There's all these verses that I know the words and we all know the words, but the reality behind it (is not always realized)…It's like when Nicodemus came to Jesus and was asking him all the questions. And Jesus was answering as plainly as he could, and Nicodemus was going, 'I don't get it.' That's where I feel like me and so many Christians are stuck right now.

So I see myself going next is just asking God, saying, 'We need to go and penetrate these places with the Word. We also need to penetrate with Your power. We also need to just step in a very outwardly, offensive way that only God, You can do.' Dan and I were talking about it. We looked at other musicians in the world that step out with this power and this energy, and it's fueled by anger, drugs, drinking, sex. It's fueled by all this stuff. And Dan and me are going like, 'We really need to know where our source is. We really need to tap into that water that flows beneath the throne. And we need to step out.' It's this faith thing. Does it just mean I believe in God? Or is it an active thing? We're trying to understand that. So that's our direction."

For more on that direction, check out the soon-to-arrive Part 2 of EXIT's Soul-Junk interview. Coming in a jiffy, the conclusion of our conversation with Jon and Glen, with an in-depth look at their views on Christianity, art, and the state of the Christian music scene. So don't miss all the excitement! Y'all come back now, ya hear!?
 

-Exitzine