FamilyChristian.com Exclusive Interview
By The Tree: Talking By The Tree ...continued

FamilyChristian.com: For a new artist on a new label, you seem to have an awful lot going for you. Your single, "Reveal," is climbing the charts. Steve Hindalong is your producer. After four years of being on the road as independents, does this seem real to you?

Chuck: I don't know what it feels like. To me, it doesn't feel different. It feels humbling. We get to things like this and we're like, "Wow, why are all these people helping us?" It's weird to think that people are going to put us in their stores to sell. That's a very humbling feeling to know that we were on the road for four years and now people are starting to help us, team with us, when we were all alone before. In that aspect it feels great. We're developing relationships with people but we're still playing shows with kids and hanging out with kids and traveling in a van. We're struggling financially. We still have all the ins and outs of being an independent band. I told the guys, it's almost like shock therapy because we played this outdoor festival in Texas and it was just a podunk show and no one was there and then we drove all the way to Michigan [for a full crowd at a Family event].

Kevin: The night before that we played at [a] putt putt [golf] pavilion.

Aaron: [It was a] prom alternative. Everyone who didn't get a date to prom came. There was a city ordinance thing and we had to turn the volume way down. Kevin: They finally turned it off.

Chuck: We're real fortunate, though, because the people we've been surrounded by are so incredible. Our record label and booking agency and managers, they're all such great people. They pray with us over the phone and it's so different than what the normal stereotypes of record labels and what the industry are.

FamilyChristian.com: What is God teaching you now?

Aaron: He is always teaching me. [He's teaching me] in the "watch your mouth" area. The tongue is a double-edged sword. I have a tendency to be a little bit edgy sometimes on things I say or my verbiage. Sometimes my tongue flies off the handle and I get mad at something. I'm pulled the wrong way. Like yesterday, we were going to Kmart. Kevin was with me. You know how they have the arrows and every other one is a different way? I go in the wrong one. I'm driving the van. The van, it's scary to drive for me for some reason. I just feel like I'm going to wreck.

Kevin: I had just wrecked it an hour before that.

Aaron: We've all hit something in that van. So anyway, I went down the wrong way and this lady is looking at me like, "You're the biggest idiot I have ever seen." She's sitting there in her car and I try to go around her and I couldn't so I backed up and I backed up real fast. She went into her parking space and I just took off. I just thought, "People are so mean." And whose fault was it? So later in the van, I said, "Kevin, man, I'm sorry that I got so mad about that. I don't really know why." Then in the store I saw the lady and said, "Listen, I'm really sorry about going down the wrong way." She laughed and [said], "It's okay." And it was all good. I think God is really showing me to try [my] best to edify and lift and encourage and to speak truth because truth is freedom. There are lots of people that need to hear truth. They don't need to hear lies, they don't need to hear jokes. They need to hear full-on, real truth.

Chuck: I think God's trying to teach me the fullness of Christianity. Each day there's something different that happens that stretches me or makes me think about something. I just read this book called Renewing Your Mind by R.C. Sproul. Wow. It totally nailed me. It's all about completely rethinking your Christianity and why you believe in this area and why you believe in this and the actual truths of the Bible. There's nothing candy-coated about it. It's just really solid.

I think that for me, it's time to realize what I do believe in and why I believe in it so that when those things happen, I'm grounded enough to know where to go and what to do. Especially in the life of a band, because there's going to be so many different roads that happen in the next few months for us. Our record comes out, tours and promotions [start] and hopefully people across the country start knowing who we are. I think for me to take all those different things in stride is going to be God teaching me to be grounded in what I believe in and why I believe in it.

Invade My Soul by By The Tree

Kevin: God has been, for a very long time now, trying to totally change my paradigm. You can try to do it but then halfway through the day you can say something rude or something and then they'll go, "Look at you, man, with your rude tone. What are you talking about?" So it's hard to try and really change [around] the people who know you inside and out throughout the past. But it just takes time until [they say,] "Man, Kevin's really changed."

I don't want to see another human being and even think along beauty standards, like whether someone is an unattractive person or a supermodel. I don't want to see that. I'd rather see their soul. God put a special seed inside of that person. They exist. What an incredible thing to just even have a conversation with that person and know about them. And I want to talk to strangers and be able to stare them in the eyes and get to know the people behind the counters, everything. [I don't want to do it] just to do it but I want to be genuine about it.

FamilyChristian.com: What is the most important thing that you want people to know about By The Tree?

Kevin: Something I want our fans and people to know is that we just aren't concerned with ourselves. One of my pet peeves about doing interviews is having to talk about myself a lot. It starves the soul.

Chuck: The most important thing is that God is definitely alive and well and wants to know them in a personal way. I think that as Christian artists, if we're not pointing people to Christ, then we're not Christian artists. One of my favorite Scriptures is [where] Jesus said if we lift Him up that He'll draw all men unto Himself. I think that's a great thing to stand on. I want people to know who By The Tree is [but] I hope that they'll walk away going, "Man, they really glorify Christ in their concert and the way they act and live their lives."

Jen Abbas, a writer in Grand Rapids, Mich., originally conducted this interview for Family Christian Stores' All Access music catalog.

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