How are you? I'm fine, I'm doing good!
Can you tell me a little about how Juggernautz came
to be? I just hand a handful of worship tunes,
well lyrics mostly, that I had had for awhile. Brian
(President Metro1Music) approached me about doing a
record. He actually wanted me to do a Mortal record
but awhile back I had told Brandon Ebel (President
Tooth and Nail Records) that if I were to do a Mortal
record again, I'd do it with him. So, I came up with
the whole Juggernautz idea and made a record out of
the handful of worship tunes I had. That was
actually my next question. Why was this Juggernautz
and not Mortal or FoldZan? Umm…I don't know! I'm
schizo i guess (laughter). It really comes down to the
fact that I had promised Brandon a Mortal record if
there was gonna be one. I told Brandon that if I did
do a new Mortal record it would be just a studio thing
and no touring or live band stuff. A lot of this (Juggernautz)
is like FoldZan, which just hadn't played in so long
that I just wanted another entity to get my mind
working in different ways. To embrace a whole new
entity and write that way, with a particular style in
mind. That's what immediately struck me about the
record. There is so much energy on it. There is very
little in the christian market the last couple years
that has got me excited but this record really got me
excited! Right on. (interviewer babbles on like
a little groupie!)
So this is a live band then? Yes, it's actually
my band from FoldZan it's just that Jerome is now in
Switchfoot and our drummers' playing both with Pax 217
and The Supertones here and there. So, we haven't had
a chance to get together and work on a live show. But
yes, it's meant to be a live entity. Hopefully, I'll
have a band together for it soon. So the same band
on the record will be the live band? Yes.
The album really is chocked full of anthems.
Yes, it is. So that was completely intentional? Well,
I don't know. Those were the hand full of songs that I
had! (laughter). I'm not really sure if it was
intentional or not. I just meant to do a record that
was vertically oriented as far as lyrics and stuff and
the way it turned out was more anthemic.
"Mandarin Sky" is in memory of the late
Gene Eugene (Producer and frontman of Adam Again).
Would you mind talking a little about that? Sure,
I was just wondering when I wrote that. It's the same
for everyone I guess, "the great unknown",
"what happens when I die", y'know? I assumed
for Gene what it would be like to be where you most
wanted to be. Where someone would be when their soul
really wanted to rest. I know Gene loved Jesus and I
know his soul wanted to be with him and what it would
be like for him to be in that presence. I'm sure the
words and the sentiment don't even come close to that
but I was trying to imagine it and put his soul in a
place where it was finally at rest. I mean, to anyone
who knew Gene, you knew that he was really mellow but
that he was always kinda restless. He was always
restless. When he would write lyrics you could always
tell in them that he was kinda yearning for something.
His life was totally like that and I know that he's
finally found peace and that can only come from the
presence of God. So that came from a sort of extended
Haiku for me. It was just a poem and I turned it
around and into a little song.
To the best of my knowledge, you have always been
on "christian record labels". I'm not really
sure how to even approach that phrase anymore!
(laughter) Would you consider yourself a "christian
artist", it seems like a lot of artists are
really touchy about that tag. Yeah, umm….. It's
fine if it's for lack of better words, y'know? I'm
sure you guys feel this way too, even remembering the
ethos of This Prophecy (1340mag.commers Jeff Holton
and Mark Fisher both emerged from said magazine) , if
you didn't have to draw that line that says "christian
music" then the better for everybody. If it'd be
like music is music and it would all be music except
for maybe worship songs and hymns and stuff like that.
I have always believed in that but, you know, you just
end up going along. Yeah, that's true. Whatever,
y'know? Yeah , with 1340mag.com we try to present
all music as equal. We have Mayhem (Satanic Black
Metal) and The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir side by side
on our site. (laughter) That's awesome! That's
really the way it should be too. Take someone like U2,
who's pretty much a christian band. There are plenty
of "christian artists" out there who have
had more questions about their faith than U2 ever had,
but U2 is just called an artist, y'know? Any artists
who leans a certain way, like U2 or Moby, could be
called a "christian artist". I'm glad U2 and
Moby aren't called that though!
Since the first Mortal record came out 10 years
ago, things have really changed in music in general.
What do you see when you look around? Do you think
it's been mostly positive changes? Yeah…music is
so subjective and everyone believes that their
collection of cds or vinyl is the definitive
collection (laughter). I think music revolves and as
longs as it is cyclic it is always healthy. I think
it's also healthy to recycle some stuff. Like some of
my friends of mine who have never listened to "christian
music" are into the Juggernautz stuff cause it
reminds them of the stuff that was cool in the
eighties. In the eighties everything was anthemic.
They liked it because it stuck out a little bit. There
are other friends of mine that love the fact that
Juggernautz is kinda hip hop and kinda rock, there are
rock guitars and vocals with some glitz and some
electronica. So, really it's all good.
Do you have a particular favorite song off the
record? I like the epic nature of "The
Reach" and "You Are The Light" was a
FoldZan tune so I'm kinda partial to that one. "Pacificcoaster"
was fun to program and to throw it into the album mix
of songs was kinda funny. I finished it all in like 2
months. Writing, programming, recording, mixing,
everything. The only things that really stick out to
me are the themes of the lyrics I wrote.
So, now there's Juggernautz , also there is a new
Mortal record coming out (laughter), will there be a
FoldZan album this year also?! Ummm (more
laughter)… I don't think I'll have time this year! I
wish I did though! I'm working on the Crystal Lewis
hymns project now and that will come out this year, so
that will be three big projects this year though! I
think I'll take a break but I am writing some new
FoldZan stuff and I'm thinking about doing an all
electronic instrumental record also and I'm talking to
some labels like V2 and Plug Research about that.
Something most people don't realize, that I think
is funny to really even think about, is your
connection to CCM star Crystal Lewis. You do a lot of
stuff with her. How did that all come about? That
is funny because when Mortal was shopping demos trying
to get signed in 1990 is when it all started. My first
foray into christian music was rock bands like Daniel
Amos it was like Amy Grant and Crystal Lewis and
Michael W. Smith. Stuff that my little sister had
bought! The reason why Mortal tried so hard (and
succeeded) to sign with Frontline was in the hopes we
could try to work with her! (laughter) So then we got
screwed over by Frontline. Yeah, who didn't get
screwed by Frontline?! Once we got signed to
Frontline , she split and went over to Word. Later on,
through a friend of mine, Chris Lizotte , who used to
work with Metro1Music, wanted me to produce the first
Spoken record and then they just decided they wanted
to hire me on as house producer for Metro1Music. That
was like in 1999 that I produced that, then I did some
hip hop records, then I did all the programming for
Crystal's "Fearless" record. She decided she
was gonna have a band that was not from Nashville and
she picked me for it.
Okay, the burning question on a lot of minds is ,
"What does the new Mortal record bring to the
table?" What can we expect? It's been a long
time. This one doesn't sound like any of the
previous Mortal records except. I did like 9 tunes of
it and Jerome did 2 tracks. One of the 2 tracks Jerome
did is a remake of "Mytho-X" from the first
record ("Lusis") only he had John from
Switchfoot sing it. It was easy because Jerome is in
Switchfoot now. The rest of it is, well…I always have
crazy dreams and most of my songs are like a story
from them. I'm calling the record "New
Engine" and that story is like….well the whole
thing is like a "space opera". The thing
about it is there are no guitars, it's all
programming. It's my best work so far I think, at
least as far as my programming goes. All the songs
have vocals but I only actually sing on 2 songs. It's
just really dark because the characters in it are
really dark. It seems like I can't really write any
personal songs, everything has to be huge and epic
everytime! That's something I'm trying to work on!
(laughter) It's about the human condition, y'know? I
think people will relate to it in that sense. I don't
know though, I played it for all my techhead friends
and they are freaking out about the programming! It'll
be "outside the box" for christian music for
sure. I hope it will clear the table for Mortal and
cleanse the palette so we can open up new doors. Yeah,
most people never let you guys move past
"Fathom". Oh, I know! Oh I Know!!!!
People have always asked us why we changed our name to
FoldZan! Yeah I always kinda went, " Well
Mortal changed their name to FoldZan and now FoldZan
is changing there name to Juggernautz…." then I
stopped and said "Wait a second, there's a new
Mortal record coming out to?!" That was kinda
the plan. I was gonna try and release an independent
FoldZan on my own at the same time the other 2 come
out so people will understand they are different
entities. So is there friction with the labels?
What did Metro1Music say when you walked in and said
"Oh yeah, I'm doing a new Mortal record on Tooth
and Nail."? No, everything is pretty laid out
for everyone. Brian at Metro1Music is cool about it.
When we were signing contracts, I only requested that
I can work on other stuff , so it had to be a
non-exclusive deal, and he'd get his publishing or
whatever. I just don't want to be locked in to a deal.
Everyone was cool with that and so here we are….
~SHELLIE
R. WARREN
