Tag Archives: roy culver

April 30, 2012

An interview with Jason Barnes

By welcometoflavorcountry

My friend Roy is back again with another contribution for the blog. Thanks Roy!

I met Jason Barnes for the first time nearly ten years ago. I was working for a record label in Seattle and went to see his band, Haste the Day, at a small church outside the city. After about a year of negotiations (I think this was the longest time I would work on signing a band), his band signed to the label, the same label that would lay me off about a month later. Ahhh the music business! Over the next six or so years Haste the Day would become a significant band playing Warped Tour numerous times as well as concerts all over the world.

In 2008, before the band began writing their fourth full-length record, “Dreamer,” Jason was asked to leave Haste the Day because he considered himself an atheist. Although I hadn’t been involved with the band for several years, I always tried to see them when our paths crossed. Jason’s sudden exit from the band was painful to hear because I knew how close the guys were to one another.

Some time passed before I was able to reconnect with Jason again. Recently we sat down and talked about what life has been like since he was asked to leave the band, how his philosophical and theological perspective have evolved and check in on his new band, Beyond Oceans.

 

Where do you live?

Indianapolis, Indiana.

What do you do to pay the bills?

I am a bartender at a martini/sushi bar.

How did you get into bartending? Did you have a genuine interest in it or did you just need a job and acquired the skills along the way?

Well, the staff was the first to come to my rescue when I was in need of a job once my tenure with Haste the Day came to an end. I started as a bouncer and then got moved up eventually to head bartender. Plus I enjoy a drink myself so it was a pretty natural fit.

Nice! Before we get into your history with Haste the Day, let’s talk about your new band. Do you guys have a name yet? Who’s in it? 

We are called Beyond Oceans. It is Brennan Chaulk (formerly of Haste the Day), Dave Powell (Emery) and myself. We are finishing an EP that I will have a link to in the near future. Brennan broke his ankle recently, which has delayed the process slightly. We are all very excited about the music we are creating though.

How would you describe the new songs?

I like to think of it as just good rock music. It isn’t heavy; there aren’t any breakdowns or screaming. Just good melodies, guitar riffs, and solos. If I had to compare it to anything I suppose I would go with Foo Fighters or Muse, something along those lines but definitely epic!

Most people that know you as a musician are familiar with your time in Haste the Day. What is the biggest difference in writing the music you’re doing now vs. the music in Haste the Day? Is one more satisfying for you than the other?

I loved being in Haste the Day but this new project is really what I have wanted to do all along. The heavy stuff is fun to play live, and we had amazing fans. I think most of them will really enjoy the stuff we are playing now. I am writing all of the music for this project and Brennan is taking care of the vocals, so it’s not much different from our time together in Haste the Day. This project resonates with me more; it’s something that I would listen to even if I weren’t in the band.

I remember talking to you a few years back and you were into big guitar rock bands even then. What was some of the music that inspired you to begin playing guitar?

Well I have been playing guitar for 20 years now, and I still listen to most of the same stuff as I did when I was a kid – stuff like Stevie Ray Vaughn, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Guns N’ Roses, Nirvana, Pink Floyd, Green Day, AC/DC, etc.

20 years? Crazy! So, let’s get into some of the Haste the Day story. How did you first get connected with the guys in the band?

I met them when I was in my first band with Dave in the late 90′s. We played shows with Devin and Brennan at a Christian coffee shop called the Catacombs. I met Jimmy later; I used to work with his ex-fiancé.

Correct me if I am wrong but you were one of the original members, right?

The original members were Brennan, Mike and Devin. I joined about 5 months later and brought Jimmy with me. So essentially yes, the first full line up that originated in 2001.

It seemed from the very beginning that Haste the Day was a band that actively evangelized and often stated that, if not their sole mission, it certainly was a big part of it. Can you tell me about how you first became a Christian and how it shaped your worldview prior to the band?

Yes, Haste the Day was always a ministry-oriented band. Christianity was something I kind of inherited from my family and was raised to believe. It was a driving force for me as a teenager, up until I started thinking a bit more objectively about it.

And what began that journey to begin thinking more objectively about Christianity? Did that present a crisis for you?

Well, for me it was just bound to happen. I am the kind of person who needs good reason and evidence to believe something, and it became increasingly difficult to square my Christian worldview with reality. The amount of mental gymnastics I had to put myself through to keep rationalizing my religious faith started to get really old. There seemed to be a mental mechanism that I was employing that felt dishonest and didn’t allow me to really address challenges and questions about faith. Once I decided to be completely honest about what I believed to be true and where the evidence pointed, religion naturally dissolved for me.

What branch of Christianity did you come from? Would you describe it as conservative or maybe fundamentalist?

I belonged to a non-denominational Christian church. The people there were nice for the most part but my leaving Christianity had nothing to do with being wronged by a church member or anything like that. They all did seem to have a very fundamentalist interpretation of scripture which I knew in my core was a bit childish. Like young-earth creationism and whatnot.

Haste the Day

As I’ve gotten to know more people who have left Christianity and started calling themselves atheist or agnostic, they seem to go through a process similar to what gay and lesbian folk who are coming out experience. When you finally realized you were no longer a believer, did you begin to talk about it right away or was it something you kept hidden?

I certainly kept it hidden from my band members because I was afraid of how they would react. But, as time went on and it felt much more natural to me and not such a big deal, I started opening up more.

How did your family, friends and band members respond to that? Haste the Day toured constantly and everyone seemed very close so I would imagine conversation about it would happen naturally.

Well, conversations about it were had one on one but it wasn’t until we met to start writing “Dreamer”, our 4th full length album, that it became a full band conversation. Well, not so much a conversation as it was I being told I was no longer welcome to be a member of the band. It was really difficult for me to handle at the time; I would compare it to being disowned by your family. But I have mended relationships with all of them, and it’s water under the bridge. And in a way, I was glad that I was honest about who I was and wasn’t part of something anymore whose message I no longer believed to be true.

I would imagine that had to be intense. I remember the day when the press began to report the reason for your departure, one of the bands I worked with at the last label I worked for were staying at my place and they were dumbfounded, they couldn’t understand it. Haste the Day was not only something you helped create but it was your livelihood as well. What did you do after that? Did you have a network at home that was supportive? I imagine this was a surprise to a lot of folks.

Yeah, it was a surprise to most people, including me. I didn’t see it coming; maybe I was in denial. Luckily, I did have a group of friends who were there for me. They were there for me when I was a Christian, and when I wasn’t. That is unconditional love.

How has your family dealt with your departure from Christianity?

That was actually the most unpleasant conversation – nobody wants to make their mother cry. The bizarre part of it is, I didn’t do anything wrong, you know? I was just being honest. I would imagine gay people deal with a similar coming out process.

One of the challenges folks who leave religion encounter is the existential crisis of meaning. When you think the creator of the world is directing and talking to you, meaning comes about kind of naturally. It sounds like you were already skeptical of religious claims early on. How did you deal with the question of meaning? What directs and gives your life meaning now?

Well I try to deal with the question of “meaning” as honestly as I can. I think we can give our lives meaning by loving and being loved. As far as people who think that we can’t have morality without religion, which is really something that doesn’t even resonate with me because we know it isn’t true. The universe is almost 14 billion years old, the planet is 4.5 billion years old, and primates (which we are) have been around for millions of years, all the while showing empathy, creating moral guidelines, and practicing everything that we would call ethics. Christianity has only been around for 2,000 years so thinking that it has a monopoly on morality is almost laughable.

The Bible is a really challenging book to use if you want to establish a moral code. If God is the author of it, like some Christians believe, God seems to endorse a lot of terrible stuff.

Well, of course, and the fact that we are able to discern that proves that our moral intuitions come from outside of scripture and not from it.

You have reconciled with the guys in Haste the Day now. What did that reconciliation look like?

It took me a while to be able to really feel comfortable around them again. They are all still Christian but, as most people do, they have re-evaluated how that actually works out in their lives and how they interact with other people who don’t share the same views. Brennan and I are in this new band together and are closer than ever. One night Brennan, Mike (bass player of Haste the Day) and I all had a little too much Jack Daniel’s and we really let all that emotional baggage go. It was pretty therapeutic.

One of the most powerful things someone can do to learn and broaden their worldview is travel – even just around their own country. Did you find that getting out of your hometown and interacting with different people and different cultures on tour had an impact on validating your skepticism? Did you have friends and confidants along the way you were able to talk to about this process or was it internal?

It was mainly an internal, introspective realization. Studying history and science played a big role too. And yes, traveling and exposing yourself to other cultures that are completely different from your own helps in shaping your worldview and puts things in perspective. There have been several people from Christian bands, and people in ministry positions at churches, that have contacted and confided in me about their own lack of faith because my experience was kind of a public example.

During my time at Tooth and Nail / Solid State several band members talked to me about either being gay or agnostic/atheist. It’s a hard predicament to be in when your livelihood is wrapped up in endorsing a set of beliefs you no longer hold or might be hostile to you. Were there any resources that were helpful for you along the way? Anything you would recommend to people just beginning to open themselves up to skepticism about their faith?

Well, part of the whole thing is just learning how to think, not what to think. If there is any topic that is troubling you, seek out an author that is properly trained in their field and see what they have to say. I am a bit weary of recommending books on atheism because I don’t want to sound like an evangelical pushing the Purpose Driven Life (laughing). I do think Sam Harris has a very good talent though for eloquently pointing out the difference between good and bad rationale. Just get yourself out of your comfort zone, and base your beliefs on facts and evidence. The truth is nothing to be afraid of.

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Bands & Musicians, Interviews

February 27, 2012

Best & Worst Jobs #2

By welcometoflavorcountry

A while ago I did a feature where I interviewed people, asking them what their best and worst jobs were. I thought it was fun and so decided to do another round.

Sara Billups

Sara and I went to college together. When I think of Sara, the first thing I think of is the Misfits song, “Mommy, Can I Go Out And Kill Tonight?”

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? Why?

Writing dry-as-bone articles about information technology, fitness, endowments, you name it, for a poorly-designed alumni magazine in the Midwest. The rag was stuck in the 80s, and I was stuck attending homecoming brunches with wild Indiana sports nuts driving banana yellow convertibles.

What’s the best job you’ve ever had? Why?

Right now, working as a writer from home. It’s certainly the scariest and the best at once. I take that back. Motherhood is both the wildest and most insanely excellent thing I’ve ever done. And it was pursuing the classic work-life-balance thing (such a trendy topic right now, I admit!) that compelled me to leave my stable job working for an small art book publisher. But see, I have a kid. I like him a lot. I wanted to be around him more. So when the chance came to leave my job and work remotely for a company in the Bay Area, I took it.

The last several months have been a hearty lesson in the beauty of losing control. I’m writing blog posts, press releases, and SEO web content for a few clients now, and also writing a column about kids and food for the Seattle Weekly’s Voracious blog.

Roy Culver

Roy is Roy. Like the dude even needs an introduction. Okay, fine…

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? Why?

For me, there’s a razor thin line between love and hate when it comes to employment. Responsibility and I, well, we have often had a strained relationship. I like to go to bed when I want and get up…occasionally. I am responsible enough to realize that I can’t spend every day in bed watching Netflix but I’m still grieved by this fact. I know that some people like their work but, as a friend said to me once, my resume is basically just a list of all the things I hate to do.

That being said, out of high school I did a bunch of odd jobs but none more disgusting than making sausage at a local meat shop. It was winter break between semesters at the local community college and a friend got me the job. For eight hours a day I would stand around a metal table in a freezing room with other unfortunate souls and dump boxes of pig parts on the table, mix them with spices, grind them, and then make links out of the shredded meat. The thing I remember most was how cold it was – we could all see our breath and, because we were never given gloves, our hands would freeze from handling the meat. I also remember a guy who worked around the table with us who had a nasty beard and no front teeth. He’d regale us with stories of all the girls he’d had sex with and all the pussy he’d eaten. He referred to his beard as a “flavor saver.” I also remember spit constantly flying out of his toothless maul and into the meat as he talked. I hated that job.

What’s the best job you’ve ever had? Why?

I guess my favorite job was when I worked for a record label in southern California. I have been accused of being cynical, sarcastic and nihilistic but truly, compared to the crowd I worked with there, I must have seemed positively hopeful. There are so many incredible stories from that experience but one of the first that comes to mind is the morning when the executive assistant to the president who, having been given the duty of planning and executing the annual company retreat, called me at 6am on the day of the retreat to let me know that she was in the office parking lot, having been up all night doing blow, and needed me to come pick her up and take her grocery shopping. That was an adventure. There were also the meetings with Frodo, that little dude from Lord of the Rings, who decided he wanted to be a band manager and picked up one of our bands. That was surreal and, unsurprisingly, didn’t go anywhere. There are other stories of threats of violence from unpaid reggaetone artists, games called “Who’s in my Mouth?”, a coked up forklift driver, meetings with David Hasselhoff & Michael Bolton and on and on it goes. In addition to all the ridiculousness I also got to work with and sign some bands I really liked.

Adam Gnade

Adam is a musician and writer who currently lives in Kansas. I forget exactly how we met but I think it had something to do with an old website I had. I’ve also reviewed his fine book, Hymn California. You can read all about his life here.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? Why?

The worst job I ever had was watching people die. I was 19 and my girlfriend at the time did home-care for people with late-stage cancer. She didn’t want me writing and neither of us thought I’d make it, so when she got too busy I “volunteered” to take over.

At the stage my patients were at, there was nothing I could do but sit by their bedside and talk to them and give some kind of comfort at the very end of everything. It was a lot of waiting and a lot of quiet rooms and a lot of holding hands.

And they died. One by one. It was devastating.

There are people who can work jobs like that and they’ve got something both steel-strong and more gentle than anything I’ve seen. I wasn’t one of them.

That was the point I learned just how weak I am.

What’s the best job you’ve ever had? Why?

My best job was my very last non-writing/publishing gig. In the midst of burnout from the home-care job I got hired as a waiter in a retirement home. It was a proper post high school job–everyone as decadent and horny and stone-dumb as teenagers get. Busboys on acid. Pregnant 14 year olds. XXXXX and XXX and I leaving mid-shift to score beer and drinking it in the boss’s office. Terrible pranks. Blood on the walls. Darkness. Poor, doomed XXXX who did a barrel of speed and disappeared for three months and came back schizophrenic. Sweet, curly-headed XXXXX who took it on herself to “learn to give head” in the broom closet and ran through all of us and broke half our hearts.

The one I’ll never forget is good-hearted, gentle XXXXX who threw himself off the 10th story of our building the day his wife gave birth to another man’s child.

The place was called Wesley Palms. It was tragedy and lust and triumph and I miss it every day.

Ann

Ann and I used to work together at a library. I miss our Monday morning bitch sessions.

What was the worst job you’ve ever had? Why?

This is a tough question, because I’ve had a lot of jobs that weren’t that great. But it’s probably got to be the time when I was the personal assistant for a venture capitalist and his filmmaker wife. He worked in agri-business—you know, the world of GMO: Syngenta, Monsanto, all the people who bring us self-destructable seeds and chemical-ridden foods. His wife was usually high. He was besties with lots of famous people, and would always ask me if I knew who they were, like I was supposed to be impressed with everyone he knew: Daryl Hannah, Lou Reed, Adam Clayton. But I never met any of them, despite the fact that Daryl often came to stay with them. I managed his calendar and all of his phone calls. I ordered and mailed out birthday gifts for friends and family. I managed his cell phone plan and prepped his paperwork for tax time (which I wondered if it was a sneaky way to show me how much money he made). I was pretty much on call whenever I wasn’t in the office—like the the time I had to come in on a Sunday afternoon so he could dictate an email to me. Or the time I had to be at work at 5:30am to dial the phone number for him on a conference call to India. I even scheduled bikini waxes for his wife! I also handled all of their RSVPs for both his business engagements and their personal party invites. They were, in fact, invited to Fidel Castro’s 80th birthday bonanza that was canceled because he was hospitalized. Remember, when Fidel turned over control to his brother Raul? That one… Anyway, they required me to have a college degree for the job, but then called me “Kiddo” every day. But they also expected me to eat at all of the fancy restaurants they ate at and shop where they shopped, despite the fact that they did not pay me the big bucks to do this job. It was just degrading….and oddly similar to The Devil Wears Prada.

What was the best job you’ve ever had? Why?

The best job I’ve ever had was when I worked for a 200-year-old membership library in Boston. There was a real sense of purpose at the place—the people who work there know that the place they work at is special. I was just a graduate student and learning the ropes, but was always treated like a real colleague, like I had something to contribute. Because I did! We had birthday parties every other month. We celebrated the re-opening of the terrace each spring with champagne (yes, during work hours). And I got to research and use rare materials every day I was there. I got to work with authors I knew and admired, who also respected me back. It was fantastic to walk by a Gutenberg Bible, or a well-known portrait of George Washington and to feel the history around you. But the kicker, the thing that made this job the coolest, is that the building is haunted. I did not believe in ghosts until I worked at this place and encountered one myself. But it’s true, I swear.

Julie

I interviewed Julie before. She’s still pretty badical.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? Why?

The worst job I’ve ever had was detassling corn in Illiniois. This job paid a lot for someone who wasn’t even of legal working age. I think I was 14 or 15. For those who don’t know, detassling is actually pulling the penis off of the male corn to make it into female corn so that the corn can have sex. Or something.

This is a seasonal job, taking place during the hottest months of the year. Your day starts before sunrise at about 5 am. Because there is dew all over the corn, you have to wear a rainsuit. My mom bought my brother and I the camo rainsuit because it was cheaper and ironically we stuck out like sore thumbs, which when you’re a self-conscious teenager, that sucks. You also have to wear a mask to protect your face from the corn’s leaves because they are sharp and cause a paper-cut sort of situation. So you look like you’re about to hold up and bank and you can hardly breathe. With gloves on, you pull the tassel out of every corn stalk going down the rows. As the day heats up, you have to get rid of the rainsuit and your clothes underneath are soaking wet. I really did not like this job. My mom forced us to do it because all of my cousins did it every summer and she didn’t want us to be the soft grandkids who never did backbreaking labor in the fields. This did nothing to harden my composition; I am still a wimp, just a wimp with nightmares about walking through endless rows of corn. And camo rainsuits.

What’s the best job you’ve ever had? Why?

I love what I do right now; I teach college and I do consultant work on the side. I love being around college students. They are idealistic and unaware of how the real world will eat you up and spit you out like an angry komodo rhino. I get to teach writing which I’m good at, and assign whatever I feel like reading and talking about. My consultant work allows me to be creative and I get to meet interesting people and travel. I don’t have to work very many hours and so I have plenty of time to live my actual life.

4 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Friends & Acquaintances, Interviews

January 23, 2012

An Interview with Matt Fast of The Undecided

By welcometoflavorcountry

This post is a guest interview done by my friend Roy.

I worked at Tooth & Nail records from 2000 – 2004 and one of the bands I really enjoyed getting to know was the Canadian band The Undecided. While pop punk wasn’t the genre of music I normally gravitated toward, I really liked the guys in the band and their music grew on me. Thanks to Facebook I’ve had the opportunity to reconnect with The Undecided and was happy to discover some of the exciting things going on in their lives. I caught up with lead vocalist Matt Fast and we talked about life now that The Undecided isn’t full-time any longer. You can hear the band here.

Where do you currently live?

I currently live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

What do you do to pay the bills?

I pay the bills through student loans and scholarship money. (I am currently doing my Masters in Peace and Conflict Studies).

Are you still involved with music in any way (work for a label, play in a band, do press for a band, book shows, etc.) or any of the other arts (performing, visual, literary)?

As far as music goes I don’t really do much. I would love to though! I still write lyrics and stuff, but I don’t actually know if they’ll find their way into a song one day or not.

At what point did you decide to “give up” the touring and band life and why? Was there a sudden realization that you wanted to live in the “real world” or was it gradual?

I think there were a couple of reasons why we stopped touring. One of them was getting dropped from Tooth and Nail so that left us without a record label to put out our records. Another reason would be that at the time I was married (I’m now divorced), and our guitar player John Paul also got married around that time. When you’re a smaller band touring out of a van it’s hard to balance those things if you can’t bring your spouses on tour with you and you’re not making enough money to support the marriage. So we just sort of stopped touring. We still play maybe once a year or so if one of our friends is doing a benefit or something like that.

You’ve been away from being in a band for a while now. Looking back, what are some lessons you learned during that time?

I learned that nothing is given to you. I learned that to “make it” as a band (and by no means do I pretend that we ever made it) you have to spend a hell of a lot of time on the road. I also learned that it doesn’t necessarily matter how good you are as a band. A lot of your success has to do with networking. I don’t think we were good networkers and we didn’t dress the right way. HA!

So, you lived in Uganda for a while after The Undecided ended.

I initially went there just to do some volunteer work for a few months. I have my undergrad degree in International Development so I wanted to get some practical overseas experience. I went to volunteer with this organization that worked with former child soldiers. They were a well-intentioned org, but really unorganized. This was January 2008. Because they were so unorganized I felt my time was not being used properly so I left them and randomly met this dude who’s from the UK who had been in Uganda for several years at that time. He had worked for a few different organizations himself and was now starting his own so he told me I could come and volunteer with him for the remainder of my time. He was just moving into his office at the time so I bought a mattress, threw it on the floor of the office and slept there for the next 3 months. We were working in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, in a neighborhood called Namuwongo, which is one of the city’s largest and poorest slums – our back door literally opened to the slum. We did child sponsorship, micro-finance for women stuff – like that. I stayed there until April of 2008 and then he told me that I could apply for personal funding to this Irish organization, which personally supported him. So I did that and got accepted. In October 2008 I came back and stayed until October 2010. I got my housing paid for and 600 Euros a month to live off of.

Why did you choose to go to Uganda? Why not another country?

I had originally wanted to go to South Sudan, but I had a friend who had been to Uganda and she told me it was good so I checked it out. By the time I finished in Uganda our org had a child sponsorship program, micro-finance for women, vocational training for women, street kids program, medical clinic, we did HIV/AIDS awareness and testing. It was pretty awesome! The organization is called Uganda Hands for Hope: www.onlinehope.org

My perspective of Uganda is that it’s a war torn country with immense poverty and a lot of folks living with HIV/AIDS. What was it like moving there? What misconceptions did you have? How was it to adapt to a new culture like Uganda?

There is immense poverty in Uganda, especially in the community where I worked. You had open sewage running everywhere, no running water or toilets, small mud one-room houses that slept six or more people. It was on the edge of a swamp so lots of malaria, cholera and flooding. Many of the families that we worked with were war affected and had fled areas of conflict. That being said, you could drive through the capital city and think that the country is very rich and prosperous. There are plenty of high rises, plenty of fancy hotels which are $200-$300 per night, people in their land rovers etc., but the wealth is in the hands of the few. The rural areas are also very poor and there’s no social welfare

How do families in those areas most impacted by poverty and disease sustain themselves if there is no social welfare?

Some of the families we assisted who had small jobs in the informal economy would lose all their savings when one of their children would get sick. They’d have to spend all their savings on treatment. They wouldn’t have any money to put back in their business and so it would collapse. Many worked informal market jobs like selling vegetables or fish, wash people’s clothes or stuff like that. Over 80% of the people we assisted lived on less than $1 a day and most of those were single parents (mom) with an average of four kids.

So when someone gets too old to take care of themselves does it fall back on the family to take care of them or are they just SOL?

The family takes care of the elderly, but they often don’t reach that age.

Here in America the conservative wing of our government often talks about shutting down or scaling back social services. The idea is that if we all just had control of our own money then we could invest it and get rich. However, a lot of folks are barely sustaining themselves and their families. Saving and investing are not even options. Granted, the situation in Uganda and America are very different and I am hesitant to even compare them but I bring it up to demonstrate what could happen here in America or Canada if the government completely gets out of the business of taking care of its impoverished citizens.

In Uganda there is decent healthcare, but you have to pay for it. They have sort of a two-tier kind of system where you have private care, which is well funded and resourced for the wealthy. And then you have the public hospitals, which are grossly underfunded and understaffed. You have to wait all day just to get in and if you have to stay overnight you have to bring your own toilet paper, bedding, food, etc. You also have to have someone take care of you; the nurses do not do that. So that means a relative or a caregiver has to come and bring you food, bathe you, etc., and that means if they’re doing that, then they’re not working which means they’re losing valuable income especially for those living hand to mouth

You mentioned to me that you were a lot more diverse in your own personal beliefs and in how you live your life now compared to when you were in a band on Tooth & Nail. What did you mean by that?

Well, I guess for starters I don’t go to church anymore. I still believe in ‘god’ but I don’t believe that the Bible is the infallible word of god. I think there are some good lessons to be learned from the Bible, particularly from Jesus and his message of Love, but there are some other things where I just shake my head.

Did that transition have an impact on your family or are you still “in the closet”? 

I wouldn’t say my family is conservative so it hasn’t had much of an impact. I’m a Mennonite, but that can mean different things to different people. My parents are pretty liberal in their theology nowadays. I mean, they probably wish I went to church but I can have a good discussion with them about the way I see things and they appreciate it.

Over the last couple years the international community has come down on Uganda because of what came to be known as the “Kill the Gays” bill.  Can you speak to how that impacted the country or how that bill even came to be?

For starters, homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda as it is in most African countries. This new bill, which was being proposed by a member of parliament named David Bahati, wanted to push for the death penalty if someone was found guilty of “being gay.” It also included imprisonment for anyone who knew people who were gay but did not turn them in to authorities. Apparently an evangelical American group who came to Uganda and worked with churches and members of parliament heavily influenced this bill. Thankfully there’s been huge international pressure from the U.S., Sweden, Canada, etc., to kill the bill or they would cut all funding to Uganda. So far this had been successful, as I don’t think Uganda would be able to function without funding from the States. The backlash against this is that people are saying homosexuality is a “disease” of the West and that Africans will no longer be told what to do by the West. They’re framing it in colonial terms. Of course there’s the whole propaganda machine, which tries to tell people that homosexuals are the same as pedophiles, which you also see being used by the Christian right in North America.

When I hear that I think surely no one believes that anymore but low and behold some Christian organization runs with it. I still don’t understand completely why so many high profile, anti-gay Christian leaders here in America got involved in that.

Yes, very odd indeed.

Once you finish your masters degree, do you plan on returning to Uganda?

I’d love to return to Uganda as I still have a lot of friends there and of course I still have a personal connection and feel a personal interest in the organization I was with. I was there from its inception and helped to build it up. But I’m open to going anywhere there’s work. I would love to work in the West Bank or Gaza and also South Sudan but we’ll see where the wind blows.

Let’s get back to your time in The Undecided. What are a few of your fondest memories?

One would be our very first tour in ’96 way before we were signed. We booked our own tour and played Gilman Street. That was pretty cool just given its history. Another would be playing Warped Tour. Another would be swimming in the ocean in Pensacola. We had a day off and just went. I’ll never forget that day; I just felt so free. To be honest a lot of the good memories weren’t necessarily playing the shows, but just hanging out with three of my best friends in the world and trying to make something out of what we created. Laughing with them and the banter in the van. All the shitty sleeps in the van, driving all through the night to get to the next show half way across the country, all that kind of stuff. At the time you’re like “this sucks” but in reality not very many people have the opportunity to do what we did with their best friends. It was pretty special.

Do you still speak with the other members of the band?

All of us guys in the band are still really close. I hang out with Steve at least once a week if not more – he’s married now and does computer work. I see Dan a few times a week as well, as we play on the same hockey team – he’s a firefighter and also married now. And we don’t see John Paul quite as often because he’s super busy with work and family. He owns and runs his own studio so as a producer / engineer. He works crazy hours and then he’s also married with two kids so he’s quite busy, but we catch up whenever we can.

Are you content with not living the “rock and roll” lifestyle of your past or do you miss it? (Please note: I use the phrase “rock and roll lifestyle” loosely.)

I’d say I’m content with where I am now. I love academics and I love what I’m studying so I’m very happy with that. Touring and playing music was definitely awesome and it’s something not everyone gets the opportunity to do so I feel quite privileged to have had that chance. I sometimes wish we would have put more effort into it to see where it could really take us, but I suppose the timing was never right, as we always seemed to be at different stages in our lives as band members so it was hard to get us all to commit to that lifestyle at the same time. But hey, I have no regrets!

Do you feel as though you can still relate to the person you were when you were in a band and touring? Why or why not?

Although I’m a much different person in many ways since our touring days I can still relate. I still care about much of the same stuff as far as social issues go, etc. But I’m definitely a lot more mature and a lot more diverse in my own personal beliefs and how I live my life. That part has probably been the most significant change in my life. I used to be very sure of what I believed regarding religion or faith, whereas now I’m not so sure. I don’t believe a lot of the stuff I used to, or at least I’m a lot more skeptical of it.

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December 9, 2010

Interview with Roy Culver

By welcometoflavorcountry

Roy and I met through our mutual music connections (he worked for a record label and I ran an online zine) many years ago and then found ourselves as roommates in Seattle for two years. He is certainly the best roommate I have ever had. He has some of the most interesting stories you’ll (n)ever hear and has led a life full of ridiculousness. He’s also a dear friend who has exposed me to a lot and continued to help me on my path in life. Thanks Roy!

What was elementary school like for you?

I remember getting in trouble in Kindergarten for the first time for using the red crayon on the carpet and not trying to deny it to the teacher. But elementary school was pretty bland and vanilla. It was rural Kentucky. Everybody was white and everybody was for the most part poor. There wasn’t a big class difference as far as the rich kids and poor kids. I always tended to gravitate towards the girls for whatever reason. I think it was because I wasn’t into sports and at that time I was really into animals and wanted to be a veterinarian. I didn’t get into racecars and all the shit boys talked about. Sixth grade was when things started changing: all of us were getting older and people started hitting puberty.

I do remember I had a best friend named Quent and we were together all the time. In retrospect I think he was probably gay because of the things we had in common. When we both hit puberty there was this sort of “guilt by association” thing so that neither of us wanted to hang out with one another. It was strange how that happened but we just quit talking to one another. I still look for him online and hope to one day find him and see where he’s at and how he’s doing.

Have you ever visited anyone in jail or been in jail yourself?

I’ve never been in jail and I really want to one of these days. I’ve had so many crazy experiences but I’ve never been arrested and I’m hoping that one day I can do that. I have visited people in jail. When I used to be a youth leader [at church] there was a kid in my youth group who had been put in jail for stealing something. It was a repeated thing for him. I went to visit him and he seemed to be having a good time. He seemed to like it. And sure enough, as soon as he was let go three days later he robbed another store and got put back in jail. I think jail kind of suited him because he didn’t have to worry about anything and he was taken care of.

There was a guy I worked with and I didn’t get to see him in jail but I did see him right before he got arrested. He was a weird guy and a lot of people didn’t like him. He went to the same high school that I did and he was the Satanist and in rural Kentucky that was a really big fucking deal. And basically his Satanism was equated to the really shitty 666 tattoo he had on his arm. But I worked with him and one day he came to work and he was torn up because his wife had left him. He didn’t come into work one day and we found out he had killed his wife and buried her along the street where he had lived which wasn’t very bright. You’d figure if you were going to go that far you’d think it out a little better than that. And as far as I know he’s still in prison.

You didn’t ever visit him, though?

No, I wanted to but he got moved to a prison in Western Kentucky. It all happened pretty quickly because he admitted to killing his wife. There wasn’t a huge trial as far as I remember, but that was years ago.

You have toured with a bunch of bands – which was your favorite and why?

Definitely mewithoutYou. That was in 2004, when I got laid off from Tooth & Nail [Records]. They’re just sweet, wonderful people and I really like their music. Aaron (vocalist) and Ricky (drummer) are both incredible guys to sit down and have a conversation with.

So, speaking of music, I’d like you to tell me about your experience playing in a metal band in high school.

In high school I was in a band whose name I don’t remember and we didn’t write a lot of material but mainly did cover songs. I remember doing “Creeping Death” by Metallica and “In My Darkest Hour” by Megadeth. We were doing a bunch of songs and I don’t remember all of them but we were trying to branch out and do our own stuff. In rural Kentucky we thought being cutting edge was trying to cover a Faith No More song. I graduated high school in 1989 and in the early 90s after I became a Christian I put together a Christian metal band with the guys who used to be in the band I was in. I got them all to become Christians and we started this Christian metal band called Penitent. We made up t-shirts – World Tour t-shirts actually. I think our final show was a birthday party for a kid in my youth group and we promptly emptied the gymnasium two songs in. I don’t think anybody wanted to hear what we were playing.

Penitent – Roy is on vocals. Please keep in mind this is the early 1990s.

There should be a Penitent reunion tour.

Yes, after all these years. One of the funny things is that I remember we used to practice at the church I went to – this little Southern Baptist church. There was a big scandal that started because we were practicing there and kids would come see us. We had this small following and I don’t know why, because we were terrible. I think kids just wanted to come hang out. But we had these kids show up and the church threw a fit about it because we were playing this kind of music they didn’t understand which was death metal, thrash metal – that sort of stuff. We also had these kids showing up that they didn’t trust and didn’t really know. I had to go meet with the elders at one point and they chastised me and said what I was doing wasn’t right and all this other stuff. That was the beginning of my conflict with Christianity and the church, I suppose. I remember leaving that meeting and thinking, “I’m going to take on the establishment! I’m going to take on the world!”  And essentially I just left there and gave up.

Penitent! NO!

*laughing* We could have been so big! I remember we used to play a Tourniquet [Christian metal band] song, too, but I can’t remember which one.

“Ark of Suffering?”

Oh yeah! It was “Ark of Suffering!” I was thinking it was another song but that was it. I remember we used to always play the song right up to the solo and then no one could play the solo so we quit.

If you no longer consider yourself a Christian, why are you involved with GCN (Gay Christian Network)?

That’s a good question and a question I get quite a bit. I really don’t talk about my own personal faith too terribly much with people because it’s subject to change. You’re talking about a belief system when you talk about the hereafter and about God and to even talk about it diminishes it to a degree. I don’t identify as a Christian anymore because I don’t find much within Christianity that I want to be associated with. The reason I’m involved with an organization such as GCN is that I know a lot of people who grew up or are currently a part of evangelical Christianity and they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered. I want their experience to be different than what mine was. I had a very tough time dealing with being a gay person while also trying to be a Christian. And Christianity was something that was very serious to me. It was a decision I made a little bit later in life – I was 18. So it wasn’t something I grew up with although it’s impossible in the rural South to escape it.

All that being said, what’s something you used to believe that you don’t believe anymore?

I guess this all goes back to religion, but the idea that man is flawed or “wicked,” as Scripture says, is just wrong. There are very few people that do things strictly to be evil. I think it’s complicated and the more we travel and the more we read and the more we meet people the more we realize that the framework we’ve created of our world is often very fragile and not very accurate. To compensate for that I think we make decisions and do things that are hurtful to ourselves and hurtful to other people but we’re trying to do the best we can with the information we have.

Since we’re talking about a philosophical-related thing, I’m curious who your favorite philosopher is and why.

I would say Nietzsche is definitely there. He attacked everything. There was no sacred cow. He called himself a hammer and I believe that was indicative of what he was doing and what he was about. I’m definitely a big advocate that if something tries to make itself into a monument we try to destroy it. If it can be destroyed it definitely should be. I would say that someone who probably leans a little closer to me is Jacques Ellul. He’s a Christian and was contemporary but he was also an anarchist. He was someone who attacked orthodoxy and who asked, “What are the essential truths of Christianity?” He was one of the first philosophers who was a person of faith that I came across that I felt like was really trying to tackle that story and interpret it differently than I had ever experienced before.

Here is Roy, wielding Nietzsche.

Do you ever think you’ll feel too old to do anything?

I hope not. I went to see The Black Angels last night and I went to see Nick Cave’s band, Grinderman, last Saturday and a few days prior to that I went to this punk show that was mostly younger kids. I hope that as I get older I don’t lose that flavor for life. I love expression and I love people. Whether that’s someone screaming or writing a good book – I hope I never get weary of that. And I’m not just talking about shows. I mean just experiencing life. I hope I never get tired of that and give up.

What’s a good book that you’ve read recently?

There’s a book called Silence by Shusaku Endo. The book was written in the 60s and takes place in Japan in the seventeenth century. It’s an interesting book not only as far as the story but theologically and philosophically. You have these priests who at one time were accepted and admired in Japan and then Japan took on a new leadership that kicked all the priests out. Well, the Catholic Church was still sending priests in and there were still pockets of Christianity throughout Japan at that time. And there’s one priest in particular who was wrestling with the idea that he was there to spread the Gospel and knowing that part of Christianity is the idea that as a Christian, you will be persecuted. But his being there is causing a lot of pain, torture and death to the community. There are people who are being tortured and killed because they support him. He’s really wrestling with wondering whether it’s God’s will that people be tortured like they are.

What do you think is the worst way to die?

I think prolonged agony. Whatever the case might be. I think drowning would be pretty terrifying. I used to fly a lot for work and I still fly a few times a year and I often wondered what it would be like to be on a plane that is going down. Because you’re not just dealing with your own terror but you’re also dealing with the terror of many other people and how they react in those circumstances. I would say that’s up on my list too.

On the total opposite end of things, being that we’re in the “holiday” season what is your favorite holiday and why?

Any holiday that gets me out of work is a pretty good holiday as far as I’m concerned. But I would say Christmas – even though it’s a religious holiday – is a pretty good holiday for me because that seems to be a time when my family is all together. And we all get along fairly well.

What is your favorite season?

Spring because the cold and snow is disappearing. Especially in the Northwest, after we’ve had four to six months of gray the sun is starting to come out. It also represents the possibility of what summer can be.

What kind of clubs or organizations were you involved with in high school?

I joined the pep club one time.

No way!

I did. We went to games, but I don’t even remember what we did. I just know I joined because it got me out of class.

And speaking of high school, what does Ronald Reagan mean to you?

I don’t remember much about Ronald Reagan. More of my understanding of Ronald Reagan and most of history, actually, comes from grindcore and hardcore bands that used to sing about it all the time. I think I learned more about history from a DRI record than I ever did in a history class. I think that’s more a testimony of how horrible the Kentucky education system is. I remember some of the conversation at that time about Ronald Reagan and wondering why it was important. I remember there was a lot of questioning of Ronald Reagan’s religious beliefs and thinking in Junior High, “What does this have to do with anything?” I guess it goes to prove that America has a boner for God.

Me, Roy, and a blow-up doll he got from Chuck Palahniuk. For real.

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