FamilyChristian.com Exclusive Interview
downhere: Serving It Up Downhere ...continued

FamilyChristian.com: Marc and Jason, as the principle songwriters, who would you say are your musical influences?

Marc: For me personally, I grew up listening to Keith Green.

FamilyChristian.com: What's your favorite Keith Green song?

Marc: I know every single Keith Green song.

Jason: He knows every song. He can play every song.

Marc: Actually, one of my favorites is "How Majestic Is Thy Name." It's just a plain old worship song. Our influences are quite varied. Everything from Keith Green to Pearl Jam, U2. I listened to a lot of Michael W. Smith growing up.

Jason: I would like to say some musical influences too. Simon and Garfunkel and the Beatles. We play off of harmonies and weave around each other sometimes.

FamilyChristian.com: So, if you were to write a review for your debut, how would you describe it?

Marc: As far as our general style, a lot of people have said that they can't really compare our style to a lot of other acts. Vocally they can but musically it's pretty eclectic. I'm closer to the hard side and Jay's more the folksy/ballady kind of stuff and together we find a middle ground. We mix our tastes to find something that's really unique to us.

Jason: He sharpens me up and I soften him down. That's kind of the way it works. So we're both dull [laughs].

Jeremy: Every song sounds different. There's such a neat variety, even in terms of instrumentation on each song.

Jason: We came at the album thinking, "We need to make this a journey." There's low points and there's real high points. There's points where we can goof around and there's points that we get really serious. I think it does that artistically and I think it does that musically.

Glenn: Plus, I think what's going to make the album stand out is that our piano is more prominent than a lot of rock CDs. Jay's got a real rich, deep voice and Marc's got a great voice and they blend so well. But they're so different so one song can go into the next song and they both sound totally different because the lead singers have switched roles. We've got two lead singers, which is a huge benefit.

FamilyChristian.com: So what's in your CD players now?

Jason: Interesting guy, Martin Sexton. He's got incredible vocal control and [I've] really been influenced by him. He's a little bit messy around the edges too, so I really like that. He hasn't been completely hammered over by auto tune. He's just there to play music and I really appreciate that musically. I don't necessarily line up with what he's talking about but I enjoy his musical abilities.

Glenn: I've got Radiohead, Radiohead, Radiohead and Radiohead. When Kid A came out, I really went into a deep phase and I'm just sort of coming out of it now.

Jeremy: I tossed Waterdeep in. I just heard a couple of tracks and it sounded really cool.

Marc: Radiohead, U2, Keith Green.

Jason: We have our CD player on almost all the time. Lately we've had Live at the BBC albums, the Beatles.

Marc: Jars of Clay.

Jason: Yeah, we're still listening to Jars of Clay a lot too.

FamilyChristian.com: I also know that you guys are readers so what have you been reading lately?

Jason: I've been reading Every Man's Battle. It's an amazing book and I think everyone should read it…single guys and every married couple. If you're going to read it as a single guy, read it with some other guys. It gets pretty heavy and it can get pretty detailed because of the nature of what it's talking about. Guys are always thinking about it-I'll leave it at that. My wife and I also just finished The Hobbit. That was a great book.

Marc: I'm still trying to get through Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. I'm halfway through. I'm just finishing up The Jesus I Never Knew. That's basically what I'm reading, besides my Bible, these days.

Glenn: I'm in the middle of Mere Christianity and I'm also reading a book by a guy named Phil Wall [I'll Fight]. I'm from a Salvation Army background so it talks about the Salvation Army and its beginnings in England and where we are now and what's happened. It's really, really great. It's talking about fighting the war of Christianity, a Salvation Army metaphor.

Jeremy: I'm still a big fan of Michael Card's The Walk. If you haven't read that, it's a real easy read. Jerry Bridges wrote a book called The Discipline of Grace. I'm just getting into that one. I'm trying to explore grace and what exactly is grace. We're looking forward to reading this new John Ortberg book, If You Want to Walk On Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat.

FamilyChristian.com: What is the most important thing that you want readers to know about downhere?

Glenn: I think probably that our heart is to get out and meet the people at our shows. When we go to shows, we prefer to stay in homes rather than hotels. We like to hang out before and after the concerts. Retreats, those types of weekends, those are really, really great because we get to know the kids then we get to play for them and worship together. We've built relationships and that's what it's all about.

Marc: Part of what we want to do is encourage people to get excited about what they're good at and what they feel that the Lord is calling them to do. I count it such a privilege to be able to do this as a career for now, but I know that a lot of, especially younger people, will look up to me and say, "I wish I could be doing what you're doing." That's great but I want to encourage people to find out what the Lord has in store for them and pursue that with excellence. There's nothing better than that. You can do music but if it's not what the Lord wants you to do, it's not worth it.

Jeremy: I think if you're looking for a catchphrase, it would be making God's priorities our priorities. Then, from there, you can go any which direction. You can talk about the servanthood thing. That's very much a part of who we are. You can talk about the relationships thing and that those are important to us. You can talk about the worship or the finding your giftedness thing.

Jason: We're calling people to be reconciled to God and I think what comes out in our music, too, is that in that process we become reconciled to each other as well. As believers, it's an incredible thing that we've experienced personally where differences are settled, not because of anything that we could have done to make those differences come to a rest but because of the bond between us as brothers in Christ. Because we have been reconciled, those differences don't merit a friendship loss. Actually, it's a strengthening thing where we work through the problems that we have with other believers. We become a stronger unit, a stronger body.

Jeremy: One more thing would be a desire to serve the church and to serve and facilitate what's going on in the local church.

FamilyChristian.com: I would probably add that you're very transparent as a band regarding your needs and prayer requests. What are you current prayer requests?

downhere by downhere

Glenn: One thing I'm thinking about is [how] to make sure that my heart stays where it has been to make the decision to come here. I needed to rely on God totally and I think it's going to be easier to rely on my own abilities or "Oh, the label will look after us" or that kind of attitude. I think [we need] prayer to be able to rely on God still and not try to not be selfish.

Jason: My prayer for our band would be that we stick to what we said we were going to do and that we land out of this thing above reproach, having made relationships that we can carry on after the band. [I'd ask] for prayer that we make wise and godly decisions so that we could finish well.

Jeremy: Those are big picture prayer requests. There's lots of smaller picture stuff, even just practical stuff. We usually keep the website pretty updated so people can drop in at downhere.com.

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

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