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.
