Detonation Magazine

ForChristSake:

They take their name from the biblical verse in 2 Corinthians 12:10 "That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." ForChristSake are a thrash and death metal band from Northern Ireland, who have a Christian faith background.

Interviewed by Pete Willoughby

Pete: When did the band form and how did the members meet?
FCS: Numerous members came and went within the band until 2008, when it then became a steady line up with everyone having the same goals and vision. During that uncertain time Rab played in other bands. The idea for ForChristSake was to take shape later when Rab contacted Mark to form a new group with a Christian message inherent in the music of ForChristSake. Luke had already been lined up by Rab to play rhythm guitar and as such the FCS unit was born. Rab and Mark do not think it a coincidence that they met. It seemed our paths crossed for a good reason and to this day we have been in FCS.

Pete: Are you a Christian band or Christians in a band?
FCS: We are both Christians and Christians in a band - our lyrics cover a wide of topics such which is close to Gods heart and to Christians around the world - the world has forgotten the sacrifice made by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ without whom none of this would be possible. Christians have been persecuted for centuries for their unwavering faith sometimes paying with their lives - although we live in a free country (Northern Ireland) our beliefs sometimes do not sit with the secular/liberal prevalent today. We can and do make a stand even if we suffer our own form of persecution or ridicule from the secular community and indeed the Christian community who sometimes do not understand what we are trying to achieve with our music. We are trying to draw people in with our vision and message - God gave man free will to accept and to be frank the door is only open for so long to either accept or reject him and we feel this is another form of being fishers of men.

Pete: Playing in a band is the dream of many musicians. Can you tell us why you want to record and release your own music? What are your main motivations?
FCS: First and foremost we all enjoy playing our instruments, we get on well together as friends, we have a positive Christian message whether people see it or not. Our main motivation has always been to try and plant spiritual seeds in people’s hearts with the lyrics of our songs and to live a Godly/straight edge lifestyle. The majority view sometimes find this strange and our curious as to our viewpoint we have played to mainly non Christian crowds but talking to people afterward they seem receptive to the message unless they are hardcore anti Christians - I all of us have been hard wired or programmed for worshipping God and it is reactivating that in peoples lives is what we are interested in achieving.

Pete: What bands did you listen to while growing up? And in what way did they inspire you?
FCS: 80’s thrash metal we all grew up listening to different styles of music in the metal genre such Anthrax, Slayer, Zeppelin, Megadeth, Christian metal such as Deliverance, Vengeance Rising, Believer to name but a few, Rab has switched us on a lot of Christian metal acts that I had never realised existed and to be honest I a am really grateful that he did because there is a world of great hard and heavy Christian music waiting to be explored and to be part of this community is great.

Pete: One of the criticisms of Christian bands is that they mimic mainstream artists. Would you say that you are a band with a unique musical identity or do you see yourself as a Christian equivalent of a mainstream act? Do you consider it to be a problem to be a Christian sound-a-like?
FCS: We cant speak for every other band who clones after their favourite but we basically like a wide range of styles and would like to incorporate those styles into our music - our Drummer does not like the Death metal label but he doesn't think that is pure death metal we have overtones of other styles inherent in our musical palette - We try to be as original and unique as possible but in this day and age our influences are bound to show up in our music and you will get tagged with sounding like someone that has influenced you in the past. We do not want to follow the latest trend but instead would like to be original in everything we do be it artwork or music or general approach to our gigs. In fact our shows are beginning to become known for their intense interaction etc with the crowd and to get on the same level with the crowd and not to be put on the pedestal of a stage or barrier to mixing with the crowd we are them and they are us.

Pete: How do you go about the song writing process? Is it something that all the band are involved with or do you have a specific song writer?
FCS: In the beginning Rab and Luke wrote the music - all band members can actively participate in the songwriting process the bulk of the lyrics and song titles were mainly written by Rab apart from one of the songs written by Luke called Cry of the Martyrs Blood. Then it was Rab structuring the songs in the format that they are in now. Now we all contribute to the songwriting process with various suggestions and ideas culminating in a more collaborative approach to songwriting and song construction ideas. We have a lot of material on hold for a full album this material is harder than our Death is But a Breath Away release but incorporates a lot of the earlier style and format of the previous EP. We recently shot a video for our song O with Darren Lee of Maverick Renegade Productions we are happy with the results of this.

Pete: Could you tell us more about your video?
FCS: We got Darren Lee of Maverick Renegade Productions (maverickrenegade.net); Darren has been involved in shooting videos for up and coming bands and artists coming out of Northern Ireland and has gained a reputation for quality work especially with the lighting and how the overall videos look. We had seen some of Darren’s work and were sold on that type of style for our music. We wanted a quality product for our song O which is based on Psalm 91 and we wanted an action video similar to how Gojira shot their video for Vacuity. Darren had a look at this video for reference and liked it himself we wanted to bring across the live quality of our shows within the video. Guy is wrapped up in chains signifying how we are all shackled to death it is a certainty for us all and how we with our faith in Christ are not afraid of death because he has conquered over death hence the lines Ransom from Hell, Redeemed from Death, Death is swallowed up in victory. We filmed this video in a church hall in Belfast and it was a lot of good craic to do but very cold as we did it in December 2010 around the time of the big freeze so you maybe able to make out our icy breath in some shots. It took about 4-5 hours to shoot with various different shots being set up it seems to flow well with the song itself.
We really are pleased with the outcome of this video and would recommend anyone thinking of shooting a video to give Darren a call, we hope our video exposes us to a wider audience and that we gain more fans of the band. Our video can be viewed on youtube or facebook or by following this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OeurL8UET0

Pete: What are your songs about? (What specific themes do they cover?) Is your song writing motivated mainly by Christian teaching or do you have other influences?
FCS: The songs on our four track EP are about a variety of subjects - Psalm of Repentance is self explanatory - Sleep is about metal torment in your sleep strangely enough ha ha - Cry of the Martyrs blood the Christian martyrs who have paved the way for our faith with their blood, O is loosely based around Psalm 91 we have unrecorded songs dealing with abortion (Extraction), Death is but a breath Away which isn’t on the EP (about the frail existence of humanity) Some of the stuff with spiritual stuff and injustices in the world that should be frowned upon by the churches we try to talk about subjects that are happening in the world from a Christian perspective or Christian world view. Sometimes this can be problematic as not every one agrees with our view point but we hope this can add to discussion and debate about God and at the very least get people asking questions and getting to know the Lord.

Pete: What image do you think your music conveys and do you think your image and your music causes problems within the mainstream church?
FCS: We go and play our songs with the lyrics being the message, for encouragement and salvation everything we do should reflect Christ whether we play in band, or have a 9 to 5 job or whatever else we do in our daily lives should reflect Christ if we call ourselves Christians. We understand that we are being held to a very high standard unlike other secular acts we have to be careful how we are perceived from our words and actions and especially with the advent of social networks such as Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/ForChristSake/114570038553752 etc it is available for the world to see http://www.myspace.com/forchristsake1 . Our band name causes problems within the church because they think we are being blasphemous and the secular world thinking we are satanic of our supposed blasphemous name. Our name reflects why we play our music and hopefully there is always a positive outcome that the name gets people talking we have stressed to people that the name is not blasphemous and we are really doing this for Christ's Sake. Ultimately God will judge us for what we do now but I know he can see the heart of what we are doing to try and bring souls into the kingdom

FCS

Pete: What are your music career goals or do you see your music as a ministry? If so what would you say is your main ministry goal?
FCS: Our main goals are to encourage as many people as we can to think of their own mortality and how short their existence on this earth is and their relationship with their creator - and if we can point the way to Christ through our lives or music well this is a big plus. We all enjoy writing songs and ultimately seeing people saved this is our primary aim we really have to get our name out their and are using all available methods of communication via the normal routes such as facebook, email, etc and our shows and recorded works.

Pete: Are you satisfied with the way your last recording turned out? What would you change about the project if given the opportunity?
FCS: Our drummer isn’t satisfied, but he’s never happy anyway - it was our first recording experience as FCS and we have learnt from the mistakes we have made but hopefully next time we will iron these difficulties out and have a full album of 10 tracks rather than 4. We would have liked more time to mix prior to releasing it and also considering that the singer we had before Guy left three days before our scheduled date for recording which knocked us back, so originally Rab did the vocals on the EP, and shortly after that it was redone with Guy and Rab doing vocal duties once again. We are due to record again this year and hopefully if things work out we may be able to improve upon what we did before like our lives we as a band our a work in progress.

Pete: Do you have plans to issue an EP or full length album?
FCS: We would like to release an album later this year we have the songs and the artwork more or less ready to go. But like all people we are trying to find the best deal with a studio so any offers would be gratefully accepted. We want to learn from previous mistakes and put out the best cd we possibly can and that should hopefully bring us more fans or people interested in FCS
.
Pete: How would you describe an average fan of your band? Are they mainly Christians are do you have a following with a mainstream audience.

FCS: Our average fans are from late teens to 20s/30s along with a few old boys the band was never set up to play in churches it was always meant to go out into pubs and clubs because that's were you become fishers of men. The established Churches are not really interested in what we do and as such we can understand that our type of music may not fit with normal church music but we feel our music speaks to the teenage, ostracized youth of today who have become disaffected with church, God, religion, religion is man made we are trying to show these teenagers there is a better way as opposed to falling into the usual traps such as alcohol or drugs. We have to show them a positive way and we aim to do this with the music and building relationships we everyone that wants to listen.

Pete: Which type of gigs do you prefer, church hall or the regular pub/club or festivals? What live performance experience have you had?
FCS: We have only been gigging since April 2010 and have played well known venues in Northern Ireland such as the Limelight and Spring and Airbrake. Our lives shows are interactive as much as stages will allow and we try and get involved with the audience as mentioned earlier in the interview we do try and get down with the people that come to any shows that we do - we have fun and use that in our performance we thrive on the energy from the crowd and it spurs us on if there is a good crowd reaction, so yes we are honing our live show into a well oiled gigging machine.
Pete: How would you define the word "success" in relation to your band?
FCS: It would be nice to make a living at this because we are really passionate about what we do different people have their interpretations of what success is or means but for us we want to see being encouraged and hopefully their lives being turned around and being brought into the kingdom of God, but its getting them onside and getting them to church which is the big hurdle some of the guys that follow the band had fallen away from their faith and through the band have helped to restore them to their faith so that they can commune with their Saviour Jesus Christ we would like to get more people involved and to come to know their saviour we do not force this on anyone we hope that our message is a message of forgiveness and a welcome some of these people have been shunned by society and have turned to other avenues for acceptance we hope to offer an alternative to these teenagers.
Pete: What advice would you give to fellow bands that are starting out?
FCS: Advice to bands starting out don’t because you are our competition only kidding check your motives why you want to be in a band is it to promote self or to promote Christ and his kingdom we know that this advice will not be taken by the secular community but we do offer this advice honestly and we are trying to be as honest as possible in this interview to really put across our motives for what we do. We are not a bunch of prudes or bible thumping activists we believe passionately in what we do the reason we do it and we want to reflect it in the band as much as possible. It’s not for self we are not trying to do this for advancement of ourselves but advancement of what we are trying to achieve the band is the vehicle for this task.
Pete: If you had the opportunity to give the world just one message. What would that message be?
FCS: We don't want to focus on the hellfire and damnation messages because it condemns people and puts their backs up against Christ and for us this does more harm than good we need to show the love of Christ in our thoughts, words and deeds and hopefully people will see the kingdom if we live our lives like the apostles did, we try to live good lives and to be a witness for God daily we are not saying that we are not sinless or subject to temptation but with Gods help we can overcome this. The enemy will sometimes use what we love against us and try to tempt us into situations that will compromise our viewpoint and make us look like non Christians or failed Christians.
Pete: Any final comments?
FCS: Yes plenty but we will save that for another day we would just like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has supported and encouraged and promoted ForChristSake and hopefully we can make a difference in some shape or form and thank you for allowing us to do this interview with yourself. We really appreciate what you have done for the band and what guys like you continue to do for us. Without your help, and of course the internet, we would be constantly posting and writing letters (old school, but slow).

Interviewed by Pete Willoughby

http://www.myspace.com/white_metal_man_777

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