Latest / The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine / Derek Webb

Transcript

Derek Webb · The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine

• 0:13
  Hey, Paul, it's not it. I don't believe your story. She
• 0:19
  saw Glordippe in all this glory, we fell down at his feet. Today
• 0:30
  we have our good friend Derek Webb with us. It doesn't feel like it
• 0:34
  was that long ago, Derek, that we were hanging out talking about you
• 0:37
  and your career and all your new music, and here we are. I
• 0:41
  think it's been like close to a month now since the album has been released,
• 0:45
  or at least a few weeks which we tried to record before it actually
• 0:49
  happened, and then we just had to reschedule a bunch of times. It's
• 0:52
  just totally fine. It was me and it was you and it was me
• 0:53
  again. Yeah it was. Yeah, it has not been long, but
• 0:57
  it's felt like it's too long. Like I so enjoyed our last conversation.
• 1:00
  I've been very excited. And obviously, I mean, I I follow,
• 1:06
  you know, I'm I follow very closely with all the things that are being
• 1:11
  posted online, and I'm such a fan so that it's like I'm you know,
• 1:14
  I'm pretty stoved to be able to It's like for me, this is
• 1:15
  crid. It's like I get for me, It's for me. It's Krid
• 1:19
  in my circles, it's cred that I got I'm here a second time,
• 1:23
  a second time day. Well, I feel like it's cred for us.
• 1:26
  I mean the fact that this is like Derek. Actually, the funny thing
• 1:30
  is when we last chatted, you went into like depth around CCM music history,
• 1:34
  which was so incredibly There's a lot of insights to that that I had
• 1:38
  no idea about before. In fact, I don't like listen to every one
• 1:42
  of my podcast episodes that I've made, but I will listen back to some
• 1:46
  of the ones that I'm like, oh, wait, I learned something there
• 1:48
  and I want to like re relearn that or like kind of you know,
• 1:52
  drive it home for myself. And your episode was one that I listened to
• 1:55
  maybe a couple times even just because I was like, wow, I had
• 1:57
  no idea about this like part of the CCM world. And then we ended
• 2:01
  up doing the CCM draft with a guy named Kevin Porter who does the Good
• 2:06
  Christian Fund podcast, and um Sah Sarah mcmannon, who is an MPR reporter
• 2:12
  and she grew up in the evangelical world, so he did a CCM draft
• 2:15
  And I feel like every now and then when I talk about CCM, whether
• 2:19
  it's that episode or in other situations, I'm like constantly reminded back to some
• 2:23
  of the things that you taught me. So I feel like you have a
• 2:25
  PhD's worth of knowledge of of CCM music, and I feel like I'm just
• 2:30
  one of your students, one of your people. Well yes, yes,
• 2:34
  yes, uh no, yeah no, I what I recall, And I
• 2:37
  don't even think I meant to do it. But I basically for anybody who
• 2:40
  did not hear that episode, essentially, if you'd like to go back,
• 2:43
  here's here's the teaser for you, is that I essentially put the blame for
• 2:47
  the modern worship product kind of movement, the worship movement thing, squarely on
• 2:53
  the shoulders of Third Day, and and I tracked back, I tracked it
• 2:57
  back to like the big bang like inception of it. I'm pretty sure it
• 3:01
  was unintentional on their part, but I I'm pretty sure I blamed Third Day.
• 3:06
  So anyway, so if anybody wants more, you can go back and
• 3:07
  find that other The other thing that was interesting was one of the picks in
• 3:13
  that CCM draft was delirious or Okay, I was just about to say,
• 3:19
  do you mean Delirium five. Yeah. I was just gonna say, yeah,
• 3:22
  Kevin deliri five, Deliria five as a question because there's a question mark,
• 3:27
  that's right, and it's the question mark. Yeah, totally. So
• 3:29
  anyway, the the like idea that we have around CCM music or specifically worship
• 3:35
  music of the of that like YouTube cold Play sound, especially in like the
• 3:40
  two thousands. Yes, I mean that was the worship music I had grown
• 3:45
  up with and Culin had grown up with. That sound. We really can
• 3:49
  owe like how that happened in worship music. We can really owe that specifically
• 3:53
  to Delirious because of their like British kind of influence and being, you know,
• 3:59
  probably will be really influenced by you two. And they were coming around
• 4:01
  at the same time as Coldplay, so they were really influenced by that sound.
• 4:05
  And it's really interesting that that's that's probably the band that got that sound.
• 4:11
  But the like the music, the worship music that you're talking about,
• 4:14
  like Third Day where it's like this big band, like three chords and it's
• 4:19
  really singable. You're totally You're right. I think it's absolutely it started with
• 4:23
  Third Day. It's certainly went through its evolutions, and you know, and
• 4:27
  and also interesting to think about. Just hearing you say that made me think
• 4:30
  that you also have to wonder if that kind of uhum, that style that
• 4:35
  big YouTube like you said, YouTube cold Play kind of influenced style. You
• 4:40
  have to wonder if it's if it also has something to do with around that
• 4:44
  time, the kind of emergence of more mainstream mega churches and so suddenly like
• 4:50
  stadium music made more sense in those venues totally. They were like arenas.
• 4:56
  I mean, you know a lot of those the rooms that the room music
• 5:00
  was being played, and they were like arenas, and so arena music makes
• 5:03
  way more sense that kind of energy in that room like that. I don't
• 5:05
  know, I guess I haven't really thought of that, but yeah, the
• 5:09
  just the simple architecture and design of the space is what has influenced that means
• 5:14
  well could it's arena rock and so like that big chimee guitars and all those
• 5:17
  big vocals. It's like that makes sense in a room like that, and
• 5:20
  it wouldn't have made sense in the little wood chapel, you know what I'm
• 5:24
  saying, And so it all that was changing around the same time. I
• 5:26
  don't know, I'm just talking at this point, I don't know, Oh
• 5:29
  yeah, I think you're absolutly right. That's exactly what it was, because
• 5:30
  that wouldn't work in a chapel, wouldn't work in a in a you know,
• 5:34
  one thousand square foot room, all of a sudden like it, because
• 5:38
  before that, it felt like the big mega churches were more the outliers,
• 5:41
  like you knew about them because there were only a few of them. But
• 5:46
  now like most mainstream, you know, churches in most cities, like every
• 5:53
  city has a megachurch, every city has multiple mega churches now, But back
• 5:57
  back then there were just you know, just before that, there were only
• 6:00
  a couple of them around, you know really, and you knew, you
• 6:01
  knew what they were. We could all name them. They were like on
• 6:04
  one hand, you could count them. But yeah, I mean, as
• 6:08
  that started to become more prevalent and more than we needed soundtrack, we needed
• 6:12
  more music that worked in stadiums. You know, yeah, some some something
• 6:16
  you could throw up, a big old light show and all that good stuff.
• 6:18
  That's what I'm talking about, hazers. Did you did you guys?
• 6:23
  I don't know if you guys saw this. There was like a TikTok and
• 6:25
  like YouTube and all that stuff that was that was blowing this video up of
• 6:29
  a church down south I think it was in Texas probably, and it was
• 6:32
  like the most ridiculous, was it the ones where they were like gliding across
• 6:38
  Yeah, yeah, it was around Easter, I think, yeah, it
• 6:41
  was around Easter, and it was it was the most outrageous, outlandish production.
• 6:46
  It was like Mission impossible. It was like there were like there were
• 6:49
  like dudes coming down to steal the jewels from the ceiling on the like repelling.
• 6:56
  It was just waiting, you know, it was I was just waiting
• 7:00
  for that. You know what would have been amazing is if, in the
• 7:02
  style of a Mission Impossible on Oceans eleven, if the if the dudes had
• 7:06
  come down from the ceiling in lieu of an offering, they come down and
• 7:12
  take your money, that kind of take your money, like like everyone gets
• 7:14
  your wallets out and then the people come down and like snatch it because like
• 7:19
  they're like secret, like like everybody close your eyes and when you open your
• 7:23
  eyes, your tithe will have been taken kind of yes, and and and
• 7:27
  everything that they're just they're just stuffing bread and wine down your throat. Oh
• 7:30
  they're like dropping They're like dropping off the elements and picking up the cash and
• 7:33
  then being hoisted back up to the ceiling. Yeah. I'm just telling you,
• 7:38
  I think there's something there. I think that's edifying. If that's not
• 7:41
  what they were doing, someone's going to do it once they hear this.
• 7:44
  It's going to turn into a movie. It'll happen or both front. Ideally,
• 7:48
  the church is going to start hiring David Blaine to just magically start pulling
• 7:53
  money from people's pockets. And now for the next fifteen minutes, our pastor
• 7:57
  is going to hold his breath underwater, give give him prayer cover. It's
• 8:01
  gonna be what a sermon entrance? Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be like
• 8:05
  the uh, what were those dudes called who ripped phone books in half?
• 8:09
  The Power Team. It's like you'd be like trying to like break rip the
• 8:13
  phone book and they'd be screaming and everybody to give the guy prayer cover.
• 8:16
  That looks like one of those guys. Like especially now, now, how
• 8:22
  like buff you've gotten over the last couple of years, just like where where
• 8:24
  a tank? And you could just you totally play the part. You know.
• 8:28
  What's funny is I actually did that trick in front of my classroom probably
• 8:31
  about a month ago, and my class is like, they're like, there's
• 8:35
  no way you could do it. I was like, I'll do it with
• 8:37
  this textbook. So I just grabbed one of my old textbooks and I and
• 8:39
  I like did like the trick. So you have to like kind of like
• 8:41
  fold the paper in a certain way and then you just you just pull it.
• 8:46
  And the kids were like, oh my gosh, mister Mack is the
• 8:50
  strongest person on earth. It was the funniest thing. That's also like a
• 8:56
  what was the what was the carpet? DM? You know movie What was
• 8:58
  the um Um with Robin Williams uh and the the students standing on the desks.
• 9:09
  That's what I couldn't It's way too much time spent trying to figure out.
• 9:11
  But the point is it's like a dead post society move. Also because
• 9:15
  remember how at the beginning he's they're ripping all the pages out of the out
• 9:16
  of the poetry textbook totally. And I mean, if somebody walks into the
• 9:20
  wrong moment and they see you tearing textbooks in half, it's gonna be like
• 9:22
  the other gonna think you're a Republican a mutiny has started. Exactly easy easy
• 9:33
  anyways. I feel like you were just like bump Set Spike that one to
• 9:39
  me. Yeah, yeah, we get a really good job. Gang.
• 9:41
  Teamwork makes the dream work. All right, Derek, let's talk about the
• 9:46
  new album, Jesus Hypothesis. I'm super stoked about the album. I think
• 9:52
  it's so great. Oh it does all the things you do really well,
• 9:56
  and then also you really explore some themes where it's like, wow, this
• 9:58
  feels as much as like it feels like, oh, you're like the deconstructed
• 10:03
  person whatever, Like it feels like even there's some things that you're talking about
• 10:05
  where like even like that whole crowd would be like this kind of feels a
• 10:09
  little edgy for Derek Webb. So yeah, I think it means a lot
• 10:13
  and wonderful. I love it. Yeah. I don't remember where you were
• 10:18
  in the process last time we chatted. Where you were in the process of
• 10:22
  the album. I don't know if you had already written it maybe even recorded
• 10:26
  it. But yeah, talk a little bit about the kind of production side
• 10:30
  of things, like how did you kind of get started with some of the
• 10:33
  ideas, the themes, the writing that you had with this album. What
• 10:35
  were some of the things that you were thinking about, What were some of
• 10:37
  the things you were reading, What were some of the things that you were
• 10:39
  listening to that started the process of creating this album. Yeah, gosh,
• 10:43
  well those are very kind words and it means a lot coming from you,
• 10:46
  And yeah, you're just at this point, you're just so grateful anybody even
• 10:50
  hears about it, anybody even knows that you did a thing, because there's
• 10:54
  just so much going on and it's hard to get people's attention, and so
• 10:58
  I'm well, really grateful. Before to go off on that, I do
• 11:01
  have to admit, last time we had you on, I was like,
• 11:03
  you know, Derek Webb, pretty big name. You know, people know
• 11:07
  them and you at the end, at the end of the episode, you
• 11:09
  were talking about how like you have a cult following that like you just want
• 11:13
  like this subset of people to listen to you. And do you not get
• 11:16
  it bigger? Don't get it bigger? Right, That's what he kept saying.
• 11:18
  It's true. I have like your episode ended up being one of our
• 11:22
  biggest episodes. Oh and I was like completely blown away. I was like,
• 11:26
  Okay, Webb has a like this incredible cult following me. I just
• 11:33
  have, well, I just have I have like a small kind of gang.
• 11:37
  They do they do you call them web heads. I really from here
• 11:41
  forward, I will come here forward. But they're just they're just following you
• 11:46
  around the bootlegging like recorded copies, and that's how they make their own money.
• 11:52
  And probably there's a whole farm industry built up around me because I'm that
• 11:56
  big. Uh no, no, no, at this point, here's what's
• 11:58
  crazy. I am in my thirty first year in this job. We started
• 12:03
  Cayman's in nineteen ninety two. I was just out of high school and uh
• 12:07
  so it's like been him. I mean, I'm I'm short, so I
• 12:09
  look young, but I am the I am essentially the Bilbo Baggins of indie
• 12:13
  CCM fringe e CCM music, because I've had this freakish, weird long career.
• 12:18
  I don't even know if like my parents had produced their zygoats yet.
• 12:22
  Uh Like, I don't know if my mom had one of those eggs yet,
• 12:26
  and I don't think my dad probably certainly certainly did not have one of
• 12:30
  those sperms that ended up making me. Probably not When you first started Cayman's
• 12:33
  called, and if your parents are listening, I'm just I'm so sorry for
• 12:39
  what's just happened, and I feel like I was responsible for it. If
• 12:43
  they're listening, I'm very sorry too. Okay, Okay, Um, you
• 12:46
  reference yourself as Bilbo Baggins of of this? Yeah? Um? Do you
• 12:52
  feel like like too little butter spread over too much bread? Uh? Well
• 12:56
  no, not not yet. I feel like I'm still got the ring on
• 12:58
  right now. I feel pretty good. I got a new record out,
• 13:01
  you know, a new lease on life. Okay, So when we talked
• 13:03
  last, I think I was probably still writing. I was for sure still
• 13:07
  writing the record. And because here's here's what's weird about it is some of
• 13:13
  my friends when the record came out about a month ago, and I was
• 13:15
  kind of sending it to friends or just telling friends about it and hoping that
• 13:18
  they would listen to it maybe, and more than a few of my friends
• 13:22
  were like, wait, like, the what's the new record? I was
• 13:24
  like, the Jesus hypothesis? And they were like, didn't that come out?
• 13:28
  Didn't that come out like a year ago? Like a year ago?
• 13:31
  And I was like, and so here's what I realized is what I did
• 13:35
  was when I came up with only the title of the record, and I
• 13:39
  knew that I wanted to make a record called the Jesus Hypothesis about essentially going
• 13:43
  back into the area where you have a great rule of thumb. If ten
• 13:48
  people define the same word ten different ways, you should immediately stop using that
• 13:52
  word. And the word deconstruction is certainly one of those words. But I'll
• 13:56
  use it as shorthand here because I don't want to take too long. But
• 14:00
  like going back to the place where you deconstructed or kind of pulled a thing
• 14:03
  down, pulled a plant up, you know, to see if its roots
• 14:07
  were real, like in the rubble of that, to go back to it
• 14:11
  and kind of sit and camp and stay and sift through to see if there's
• 14:15
  things that are meaningful or beautiful or true that feel true that you want to
• 14:18
  bring with you. To go back into that place, to go where you
• 14:22
  a minute ago, you know, we're in there with an axe, and
• 14:24
  to go back with the scalpel, like to really say, like I don't
• 14:28
  want to leave behind anything that's meaningful or beautiful just because it's part of the
• 14:33
  season that's just behind me. And I think that that tends to happen,
• 14:37
  and so once I had the idea of like, Okay, I want to
• 14:39
  make this thing, I kind of announced it and said, if you want
• 14:43
  to watch me write and conceptualize and make this record, I'm going to do
• 14:48
  that publicly for my patrons, for people who I feel safe with, and
• 14:50
  so people who care enough to kind of come be part of my little thing.
• 14:54
  So it was like two years that those people spent watching me. I
• 14:58
  did like thirty or something episodes of these live stream writing sessions where I would
• 15:05
  get in front of my camera and on the other side of this computer or
• 15:07
  in here in my studio and for ninety minutes, two hours at a time,
• 15:13
  hundreds of hours I spent basically just sitting out and just commentating my way
• 15:16
  through writing all twelve songs. So I was somewhere in that process. But
• 15:20
  as a result, since I kind of announced it that I was gonna start
• 15:24
  writing it, by the time it was coming out, people were like that
• 15:26
  I thought that came out like years ago. I was like no, no,
• 15:28
  no, no, no, I just announced I was going to start
• 15:31
  it, and anyway, so I've learned some lessons about that. But so
• 15:35
  I was finishing writing it, it is now done, it is recorded,
• 15:37
  is out. You can finally hear it. And I feel like I'm still
• 15:41
  getting to know it because I have just been out, you know, I'm
• 15:45
  touring the record, and but it's I mean, that's essentially what it's about.
• 15:52
  It is about kind of going back to kind of see where am I
• 15:56
  at this point? What are the things I wished to bring with me?
• 16:00
  How do I not do the typical thing of making going from one fundamentalism to
• 16:03
  another fundamentalism. I don't want to do that. I don't want to be
• 16:07
  reactive and say like, oh, I'm completely open to everything except the thing
• 16:11
  you know that I had just finished deconstructing or whatever, like I don't want
• 16:15
  to be like that. I want to I don't want to miss anything that's
• 16:18
  that's right, true, good, or beautiful. And and so that's kind
• 16:22
  of the ground the record covers. And one great thing about it is that
• 16:26
  I was able to pull my buddy Josh Moore, who's a m cadman's with
• 16:30
  me, and he's been a friend for for for so many years, for
• 16:34
  more than you know, twenty years. He's been such a great pal and
• 16:38
  a collaborator, and we made the Stockholm Syndrome Record together, which was a
• 16:44
  record of mine that came out an fil years ago, and then we made
• 16:45
  the Control Record and a handful of records we made together. And I've always
• 16:48
  been very proud of the work we've done together. And he's such a great
• 16:52
  friend, one of my dearest friends, and I pulled him in to produce
• 16:56
  it. He did an unbelievable great job. He and a guy named Dave
• 17:00
  Dukenberg who's a guitar player in Houston, and it was the three of us
• 17:03
  kind of collaborate on the production. And the way I made it, I
• 17:07
  was trying to kind of even in the sound of it, to have it
• 17:11
  sound like kind of thought through and then kind of deconstructed and put back together.
• 17:15
  And so the way I recorded it was, I got in here and
• 17:18
  basically had like two mics and I would stand in front of them, and
• 17:22
  I would do acoustic and vocal kind of takes of each song and then send
• 17:26
  those to Josh, and Josh would create sound all around those acoustic vocal.
• 17:33
  I wanted to record it like Dylan would have recorded time that they were changing,
• 17:37
  like just acoustic and vocal kind of live, and then Josh essentially just
• 17:41
  kind of produced all this amazing sound all up around that. And that's actually
• 17:47
  what the Specifically what I did is I like played and sang it, and
• 17:49
  then listened to that performance and played the guitar again on its own to double
• 17:55
  that, and then sang it again on its own to double bat. And
• 17:56
  then I sent that to John you're not copying paste, which sometimes that's what
• 18:00
  people yea when they are doubling, right, yeah, right yeah, And
• 18:03
  then I performed at a second time both And I think the reason is,
• 18:07
  and this is really insider baseball, but I think the reason was I saw
• 18:11
  this amazing documentary about Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge over Trible Water, which is one
• 18:15
  of my favorite records, and there's a documentary that I think it's kind of
• 18:19
  hard to find, maybe it's out wider now, but it's called The Harmony
• 18:22
  Game, and it is such a tremendous documentary. Anyway, they talk about
• 18:27
  the way the producer engineer who made those early records and made all those records
• 18:33
  with them and helped develop their sound, was describing how they how they made
• 18:37
  the sound of Simon and garfuncle on records, and what he said was they
• 18:41
  would stand there and sing. They would have the music, and then he
• 18:45
  would have M. Paul Simon and our Garfuncle stand on two sides of one
• 18:51
  microphone and sing it simultaneously together on a microphone like one performance together. Then
• 18:56
  have each of them double it on their own um to double each of their
• 19:00
  voices separately from each other. And then that sound was the Simon and Garth
• 19:03
  uncle sound. That's how he got it, like and interesting. Yeah,
• 19:07
  I don't even like podcasting with Cullen like that. I can't imagine produce one
• 19:11
  of the greatest albums ever. We've tried it, and it's the most awkward
• 19:15
  thing ever if we should look at each other or not. No, exactly,
• 19:18
  Yeah, you know, you know, kind of going off of that,
• 19:21
  my dog is going to be in the podcast, just like last time.
• 19:23
  That's great. She's gonna be letters letters. Yeah. What I was
• 19:27
  getting from it was like John Lennon's style of vocal doubling. You know,
• 19:33
  that's back when they had you know, only four tracks for the most part,
• 19:37
  and so his vocal doubling would have to would have to be pretty creatively,
• 19:40
  you know, kind of spliced in there. Yeah, but he did
• 19:42
  it very much the same way. Yeah, just without the technology where you
• 19:47
  know, you could have you know, four parts essentially one on one single
• 19:51
  chat. You know what's so fascinating too is to me so I love that,
• 19:56
  and I love that. I love Elliot Smith. I mean, I
• 19:57
  love the vocal doubling tripling sound. I just love it because you can sing
• 20:02
  it live and leave it when it's done right. It's son right. Yeah,
• 20:06
  there's sometimes where it's been done that is awful. It can be,
• 20:08
  that's absolutely true, but like it enables you to leave all the imperfections and
• 20:12
  all the humanity in there and then when you double it and then maybe even
• 20:17
  triple. Some of the songs on the new record are like four or five
• 20:18
  vocals all singing unison, like Thief in the Night Is. I don't remember
• 20:22
  how many vocals we did, but he had me sing it the same way
• 20:26
  a bunch of a bunch of bunch of times while listening to the other takes.
• 20:30
  So it allows you to do that. There are so many artists who
• 20:32
  I love who have really leaned on that sound, and I did that on
• 20:36
  my mocking Bird record. All the vocals on Mockingbird are doubles like that.
• 20:38
  But Eliot Smith. I mean that was his sound, like you know.
• 20:42
  And but what's crazy about John Lennon Bringing up John Lennon, he that was
• 20:48
  certainly a big part of his sound for all like Plastic Ono Band and all
• 20:51
  those solo records. But when you go back and listen to the Beatles,
• 20:53
  the early Beatles stuff, it sounds like a doubled vocal. And the reason
• 20:59
  is because John and Hal would sing in unison a ton and they both early
• 21:03
  on like that. They sang so similarly that it sounds like one doubled vocal.
• 21:10
  And they were able to accomplish that even performing all those records live,
• 21:12
  which they did. I mean they, like you said, like they had
• 21:15
  four tracks, and so they had to there were no overdubs. You couldn't
• 21:18
  do that. The technology didn't allow for it yet. So whatever you want
• 21:21
  on the record, you had to be able to do it pretty much live.
• 21:25
  But they had that kind of double vocal sound and it's I love it
• 21:27
  so and it was a way for me to keep those live performances I was
• 21:32
  doing here. And but yeah, so I got to work with Josh and
• 21:34
  I just think he's an absolute genius. I just think, and this is
• 21:38
  the first record of mine in twenty years of solo records that I don't have
• 21:42
  a production credit, So Josh Moore is the sole production credit on the record
• 21:48
  because I just stood in here and did guitar vocal performances of all the songs
• 21:52
  and did all that doubling and then sent it to him, and he really
• 21:56
  on his own. I was like, man, surprised me. I trust
• 21:57
  you. I love you, like I don't really know where we're going with
• 22:00
  this one. I don't know what what what you're gonna hear, what your
• 22:03
  instincts are, but I trust your instincts and what he came up with.
• 22:07
  I was so thrilled. And then he brought Dave Stuckenberg in to play guitar
• 22:11
  and sing background vocals, do a bunch of other Dave plays a bunch of
• 22:12
  instruments. But what those guys did as I was getting these tracks back,
• 22:15
  I mean, it was just losing my mind. And so Dave and I
• 22:18
  co produced, but Josh produced it. So that's going to be an interesting
• 22:23
  experience of sending a track that you had just recorded and then just being like,
• 22:30
  I don't know what's going to happen with this. This is like my
• 22:32
  baby, but I don't know what's going to happen right right, It's almost
• 22:34
  like, you know, like sending a kid to this college. It's like,
• 22:37
  all right, I've done what I can. I don't know what's going
• 22:41
  to happen to you, and don't send them to Christian College exactly. Well
• 22:49
  here, so here's a really interesting for anybody who wants to like get a
• 22:52
  real sense. Like here's a great example from the record. So there's a
• 22:56
  song on the record um that's called God in Drag and it's essentially a song
• 23:02
  which you can't play in Tennessee. Now I hear, yes, I would.
• 23:06
  If I'm being paid to play it, then I would get arrested.
• 23:08
  If I'm playing it for free, then apparently that's okay. But anyways,
• 23:12
  you can't make any money off of it, I think is the But so
• 23:15
  God Drag is basically the song itself is just me. I always I'd like
• 23:22
  to say that no one deconstructed before Jesus did, because he's got that great
• 23:26
  like you've heard it said, but I say unto you. So he basically
• 23:29
  what he's saying is like, here's the way you've understood the way that all
• 23:32
  this works. But let me say this to you and tell you that maybe
• 23:36
  this is how it works, and maybe you have to rethink your relationship to
• 23:40
  this whole thing and how all of it works and the way you're doing all
• 23:41
  of it, because maybe everything you've heard you've understood completely backwards and upside down
• 23:48
  and incorrectly. So you've heard it said this, and this is the way
• 23:51
  you've tried to keep the law, this is the thing within you try to
• 23:52
  do to gestures about yourself. Here's maybe how it actually works. And so
• 23:56
  I've always loved that little that little kind of literary mechanism of the you've heard
• 24:00
  it said. But I say into you, I love that so much.
• 24:03
  I love the way that Jesus uses it in those parts of the Bible,
• 24:07
  and so I always wanted to take it out for a spin and kind of
• 24:11
  see what I could do with it, that little thing that you've heard it
• 24:14
  said, I say to you. And so God in Drag is my attempt
• 24:17
  to do that. And it's basically me trying to take all of the dense
• 24:19
  complexities of all the toxic theology that I grew up believing and kind of turn
• 24:26
  it on its head and basically have five verses, five long, dense verses
• 24:30
  of you've heard it said, but I say into you, or you've a
• 24:33
  lot of you've heard it said, and then like here's just and it's like,
• 24:37
  you know, there's like twelve lines per verse, and then the chorus
• 24:41
  is just but I say into you, You're beautiful and free. And then
• 24:47
  two more long verses of I you've heard it said, and all this incredible
• 24:51
  like stuff about predestination and stuff about hell, and stuff about women and gender
• 24:55
  and stuff about but I say into you, You're beautiful and free. So
• 24:59
  it's like and the way it was recorded, it sounds like a folk song.
• 25:03
  It just it's like the most folk song of all the stuff I gave
• 25:06
  Josh. And if anybody wants to know what Josh did to this record,
• 25:11
  like the way his mind works, go and listen to that song. And
• 25:14
  here's what you're gonna hear. Almost the whole song is just me playing it
• 25:21
  like Dylan in front of a microphone. There's nothing to it, acoustic vocal
• 25:23
  in a room, in this room. And then I didn't really know what
• 25:29
  At the end of the song, I break into this little chorus that I
• 25:32
  kind of imagined in my you know, in this little fictional narrative that I
• 25:36
  had made up, I kind of imagine Jesus kind of saying this thing at
• 25:40
  the end of saying like, if you're really listening, you'll hear the melody
• 25:42
  that I You'll hear the thing I'm trying to tell you if you're really listening,
• 25:45
  and it's that you're beautiful. You're like God and Drag. You're dressed
• 25:48
  up like the real thing, and you're beautiful. But it kind of it
• 25:51
  kind of falls out of time. It just kind of becomes this free time
• 25:55
  floating kind of and and so when Josh sent it to me, he was
• 25:59
  like, I just finished Godden Dragon and I worked really hard, and I
• 26:00
  really hope I hope you did what I did. And so I was really
• 26:03
  anxious and I put my headphones on and I hit play and I was listening
• 26:07
  to I was like, dude, I'm so like Josh, he's pranking me,
• 26:10
  because it's like it all it's just me. He didn't he didn't do
• 26:14
  anything to it. He didn't do anything to it. And I listened to
• 26:15
  the whole song and I'm like, there's nothing here. He added, literally
• 26:18
  nothing. It sounds just like it did when I sent it to him,
• 26:22
  until I'm paying you to do something, Yeah, if I'm thinking per track,
• 26:26
  can I have some of that money back? But but then though it
• 26:29
  gets to that last like chorus, whatever that B section is at the end,
• 26:33
  and dude, all absolute hell breaks loose. It is he orchestrated like
• 26:41
  I mean, he did it all in computers, but he orchestrated like a
• 26:44
  essentially what would be like a forty piece orchestra with like bells and timpanies and
• 26:48
  drums and horns and strings and woodwinds and and compose this whole giant thing to
• 26:55
  go along with it, and then ran all of that through this crazy bit
• 27:00
  rhythmic filter. There's no way to describe the sound of it. It's so
• 27:03
  chaotic and insane. And it comes in and takes over and becomes this whole
• 27:10
  other song and then all at once just stops. It's just me on my
• 27:14
  little cusa guitar just to finish the song upy myself. And it's like,
• 27:17
  if you want to understand, it's such a great example of it's such an
• 27:21
  extreme example, so it'd be one that people could really get a sense of.
• 27:23
  Like what I sent Josh what Josh did that will tell that song will
• 27:27
  tell you everything. And it's like my favorite thing. Every time I listen
• 27:30
  to that song, I can't wait. And when it gets to that last
• 27:34
  twenty seconds to the song and that all that insanity happens, I just like,
• 27:40
  and my wife will know, Like when I when I was proofing all
• 27:42
  the tunes and listening to the mix and stuff, she always knew when I
• 27:45
  was listening to that song because she'd look over and I would have this crazy,
• 27:48
  big, giant like cheshire cat grin on my face, like I giggle,
• 27:52
  like like I didn't hear myself doing it, but like I'd be like,
• 27:55
  oh, like every time I listen to it, because it's nuts and
• 27:59
  it's so good. So yeah, he turned it into a day in the
• 28:03
  life do kind of it totally departs and it comes back. So anyway,
• 28:08
  so Josh is amazing. He's one of my dearest friends, and it was
• 28:11
  a blast, you know, to work on that stuff with him. Anyway,
• 28:15
  So we've talked a little bit about the music production of this new album.
• 28:19
  I'm kind of curious around like the writing and just like the lyrical content.
• 28:23
  Pas there's parts of this where it feels like is Derek Webber Christian again?
• 28:29
  And and I'm like thinking, like this guy really wants a double Award
• 28:33
  again, and so got to make yourself eligible for the awards. Just one
• 28:37
  more? Just one more? Yeah, Yeah, Well, so I'm curious
• 28:42
  around that, like there are parts of this where and I know, like
• 28:47
  your journey the last couple of years have like shifted a little bit, but
• 28:51
  I'm curious kind of like where you feel like you're at given your processing through
• 28:56
  this album. Yeah, No, it's it's a great question. I appreciate
• 28:59
  you saying it's. Some of the early response that I was intuiting was that
• 29:03
  there are people who had been following me who maybe came in more recently,
• 29:07
  like came in from Fingers Crossed Forward, which was kind of like where I
• 29:11
  started to kind of pull the thing apart a little bit, right, And
• 29:15
  that's what they kind of were familiar with, And they didn't really know the
• 29:17
  Cadman stuff. They didn't really know the earlier solo records that were really much
• 29:21
  more kind of evangelical Christian forward, and they heard this record some of those
• 29:26
  people, and I heard some kind of some disappointment that it was like way
• 29:33
  too Christian for them and then I mean, to be fair, it has
• 29:37
  at least one fuck on it, and so I don't know how Christian a
• 29:40
  record can be. It's I mean, it was the one. It was
• 29:42
  I was the one record that showed up on the I mean, you can't
• 29:45
  even say vagina in a Life Way book, So wow, do you know
• 29:48
  that for a fact that you did? You tell Rachel held Evans in her
• 29:52
  first book said vagina and it got pulled from Life Way. That's right,
• 29:55
  dude, Well yeah, that's that needs no comment. But yeah, anyways,
• 30:00
  but like it, my record was easy to find when I was trying
• 30:03
  to see if it was like doing well because it was the one record on
• 30:06
  the Christian gospel charts with the big red, explicit E sign on it.
• 30:08
  So I just scrolled while I found that. But it was interesting because and
• 30:12
  that's but the thing is like that tension is right where I want to be.
• 30:15
  That's why that's my sweet spot. Like I hate categories. I hate
• 30:21
  the Internet is a world devoid of nuance, and it's like a place where
• 30:27
  people feel as though they must give answers to questions for which there are no
• 30:33
  short answers, and they try anyway and it gets everybody into trouble and it's
• 30:37
  terrible. It's like everything's just so reduced and simplified. So yeah, it's
• 30:41
  like I try to just be as honest as I could. I mean,
• 30:45
  the record ends with a song called I'm Still Here, and it's kind of
• 30:48
  saying like I still really care and I still am curious and I'm but but
• 30:53
  what I will say and I went into the record with this and I came
• 30:56
  out of the record with it, and that is that one thing that I
• 31:00
  have found that I'm committed to and I think is extremely important is my uncertainty.
• 31:04
  I think that like I'm very committed to my uncertainty. I'm permanently uncertain,
• 31:10
  and I think you have to be. And here's the way I probably
• 31:11
  said it when when I talk to you guys last but just in case people
• 31:15
  didn't hear that one what I specifically were at. What I mean about it
• 31:18
  is that when it comes to things that are invisible like God and things that
• 31:23
  are unknowable like the future, uncertainty I think is a great way to go
• 31:30
  because you just can't be certain about those things. You can you can have
• 31:33
  suspicions and you can have opinions, and you can have you can hypothesize about
• 31:37
  it, but you cannot be certain about invisible, unknowable things. And uncertainty
• 31:41
  is not even the enemy of faith, it is the prerequisite. And so
• 31:45
  like, I went into the record with a lot of uncertainty about this stuff,
• 31:49
  and I wanted to explore it, and I came out of it with
• 31:52
  my uncertainty intact, which is what I hoped for. And I think that
• 31:59
  what I hope is like my social media spaces, my God knows, my
• 32:04
  my house shows that I do, and like just in general, I want
• 32:07
  to very consciously hold space for people, regardless of where they are. And
• 32:13
  I kind of kind of steward a little group of folks over on Patreon,
• 32:17
  and it's really important to me that those people all feel safe and welcome.
• 32:22
  I want people to feel welcome and safe on my social media spaces and even
• 32:27
  and especially if they're coming from a more evangelical background. I mean, I
• 32:30
  was in Cadmen's Call for ten years. I'm still in Cadmen's Call. As
• 32:32
  it turns out. It's like Hotel California, but like because we do because
• 32:36
  we just played two shows at the Rhyman like a month ago, I remember
• 32:39
  talking about that and the last episode it was yeah great, yeah no,
• 32:43
  And I love those people and they're my and that's still a big part of
• 32:46
  my life and all those songs are part of what makes me me and how
• 32:51
  I got here and here is a good place, and so like, I
• 32:53
  don't I don't wish to lose any of that, and it's all it all
• 32:57
  kind of belongs, but but like it's important to me to to hold that
• 33:00
  space, and so like I really it was important to me that folks who
• 33:05
  maybe just getting into their kind of audit of invisible reality, their presumptions about
• 33:10
  invisible reality, deconstruction, what are you're gonna call that? If they're just
• 33:14
  starting that, I wanted to help provide them with a little language that could
• 33:16
  springboard them in and that might make them feel less alone and going through it.
• 33:22
  But also folks who are like still squarely evangelical, like I care.
• 33:25
  I have so many of my friends and family that's where they are, and
• 33:29
  I respect them and I care about them, and I'm fascinating. I want
• 33:31
  to hear their stories more than I ever have. I want to hear their
• 33:35
  stories. I want to hear anybody's story. Who can as long as you're
• 33:37
  as long as the fruit of whatever you're believing is showing kindness and it's showing
• 33:45
  like beyond tolerance. I mean, I you know, if whatever you're believing
• 33:50
  is making you unkind and hateful and bigoted, I'm not interested. But if
• 33:54
  it's making you kind and patient and all the fruits of the spirit, ironically,
• 34:00
  then I'm all ears. I want to hear all about it. I
• 34:02
  don't really care what it is, including evangelical Christianity. I want to hear
• 34:07
  all about it. If you if your evangelicalism is making you kind and loving
• 34:10
  and it's getting you into it's making you ruin your reputation in order to love
• 34:16
  people who are complicated in the eyes of society, I want to especially the
• 34:20
  church, I want to hear all about it. I want to hear everything,
• 34:22
  how you got here, what keeps you here, and so like That's
• 34:27
  kind of where the record landed, is like I'm not ready to I don't
• 34:31
  want to walk away. I'm not looking to walk away from anything. I'm
• 34:35
  not walking away from anything like I am where I have always been. I
• 34:37
  am moving forward. I'm looking at the world. I'm describing it for you.
• 34:40
  And this is what I see. And and I've Dave Bazon, who
• 34:45
  surely you guys have talked to. I wish we have, Like I'd like
• 34:50
  to get him on the damn Podcast at some point. Well, I would
• 34:52
  love to help with that. But I mean we are we are all ears,
• 34:55
  okay. Well, the point being that, like I have heard day,
• 35:00
  I'm Dave is a pal, but I'm a much bigger fan than a
• 35:01
  friend of his. And I'm I He's I just think he's that's that's literally
• 35:07
  the opposite of Cullen. Cullen is a much bigger friend than he is a
• 35:09
  fan of me. Very true. I don't I don't ever listen to any
• 35:13
  of us, well said, But what I what I heard Dave say that
• 35:17
  I really liked is like he's like, this is like my language, these
• 35:21
  are my references, this is I've I've been in this space almost my whole
• 35:23
  life. Of course, I care about it like I care what happens to
• 35:27
  it, and I care about my friends who are still in it. And
• 35:29
  I'm not certain that it's wrong, and so like not, I'm not going
• 35:34
  anywhere, like I'm not looking to I'm not I haven't left anything, Like
• 35:37
  I'm right where I've always been. And um, I think that's challenging for
• 35:40
  people to hear who see you as someone who has who is an absolute heretic
• 35:45
  about it, or who has absolutely left or who's all on the other side
• 35:47
  of a thing. And that's okay with me. Like I've never had any
• 35:51
  problem being disliked or misunderstood by people. If anything, I I'm nourished by
• 35:54
  it. So like, you know, I if they're so if people tell
• 35:58
  me that they think the G's hypos is a little too Christian for the atheists
• 36:01
  and a little too atheistic for the Christians, than I think I've succeeded.
• 36:05
  You know, That's always been my sweet spot. I love I love that
• 36:08
  topic. Though. The the idea of uncertainty is exactly as you said.
• 36:13
  You should never be certain about something that you can't tangibly understand you fundamenta right.
• 36:19
  So in talking with my evangelical friends, I mean they almost like they
• 36:22
  give me like the side eye, they give me the like they're scared for
• 36:27
  me, or like what's going to happen to me after in the afterlife or
• 36:30
  whatever or whatever it is. And I'm okay with the uncertainty. But because
• 36:36
  they're not, because they're not okay with it, it makes me wonder,
• 36:38
  Am I am I like wrong for believing right that I don't? Right?
• 36:45
  Really? No, like okay, Yeah, but I think that that's a
• 36:50
  topic. That's that's that's wonderful, the brush, and it should be a
• 36:52
  much more established topic to discuss in in the Christian world in general, because
• 37:00
  yeah, yeah, that's how we spread more more understanding and more love amongst
• 37:02
  one another and less right vision and hatred. That's right. And I receive
• 37:07
  and I've heard that same thing from a lot of my evangelical friends too,
• 37:09
  and I receive it as as an expression of care. I mean, I
• 37:13
  hear what they're saying, and that means a lot to me. But I
• 37:16
  also understand that from me, I can have a different opinion. For them,
• 37:22
  eternity is staked on the answers to these questions. It is not for
• 37:24
  me. That is not what I believe, And so I don't believe eternity
• 37:29
  is staked on how I respond to this and um, and I understand that
• 37:32
  they fundamentally disagree with that, and that's why they feel the way they feel,
• 37:36
  and they respond the way they do, and and in every way that
• 37:39
  that they can, I understand that they are trying to express to me that
• 37:43
  they care deeply, and I that I hear in that I receive. But
• 37:47
  yeah, like I don't know. I just the thing that bums me out
• 37:52
  about the kind of deconstruction movement movement or like the kind of Christian progressivism,
• 37:57
  And I mean, I love it. I think we need more granular categories
• 38:00
  to talk about everything. I absolutely do. But I also kind of feel
• 38:05
  like it's done. The thing that we love to do and that modern post
• 38:09
  postmodern people love to do by way of the Internet and every other place that
• 38:13
  they can, which is to like draw a hard line and divide as far
• 38:16
  as you count on two sides of it. And that is just not true.
• 38:20
  Gang, It's just not true. Like like my friends who are squarely
• 38:24
  evangelical in terms of their core beliefs, when we talk about the stuff and
• 38:30
  we talk about where they have doubt or where they have had conflicting experiences life
• 38:37
  experiences or whatever, it is like we're so much more the same in terms
• 38:42
  of we're just kind of like landing on one side or the other of a
• 38:45
  thing. And I get that the stakes are high. They're high for me
• 38:46
  too, But it just bums me out that the thing has been codified in
• 38:52
  such a way and that there's been these now there's these categories to it,
• 38:54
  and this hard line's drawn where you're kind of on one side or the other
• 38:59
  of it and feels kind of like we've got our flags down and we're kind
• 39:01
  of defending our castles. And I hate that because because so many of my
• 39:07
  friends it's like, because it may, it makes, it makes, and
• 39:12
  this is a good this is a good point to bring it back around.
• 39:14
  Mason. What you said before about the record and how Christian is it or
• 39:19
  whatever is like it makes folks who are uncertain about their spirituality and their faith
• 39:27
  or previous faith to them at that moment or whatever. It makes them like
• 39:30
  feel self conscious and unwilling to go back and even consider that maybe some of
• 39:37
  this is good, and maybe Jesus really knew some things, and maybe he
• 39:40
  was an incredibly significant figure and and maybe we can grapple with the spirituality and
• 39:46
  the miracles, and but maybe there's like things I really shouldn't miss back there.
• 39:51
  Maybe there's a reason, maybe there was something he was tapped into and
• 39:53
  that this whole early movement was tapped into that I really need to learn for
• 39:58
  like the benefit of my life and my immediate world. But people who are
• 40:02
  on the other side of some deconstruction or whatever they want to call that,
• 40:06
  they're just they're like scared or unwilling to go back and even consider it.
• 40:10
  And in the end verse is true. People who are who are you know,
• 40:15
  still on one side of that in terms of their beliefs about eternity or
• 40:17
  heaven or hell or whatever it is, like, are terrified to let to
• 40:22
  crack the door open to a little bit of doubt and deconstruction. And sometimes
• 40:27
  like that can be the best thing for you, and it's like it it
• 40:30
  can strengthen even the faith that you now have to go ahead and consider and
• 40:36
  really fully feel all those doubts and all that. I don't know, man,
• 40:39
  I because like my thing, I remember when I was first going through
• 40:43
  it, thinking like one or two things is going to happen either at the
• 40:46
  end of this, I'm gonna I'm gonna determine that for me and based on
• 40:50
  what I can know or think that I can know, based on what I've
• 40:53
  got to work with here, that maybe, like Patton Oswald said, like,
• 41:00
  maybe it's all chaos and they're just that's that's the best explanation. It's
• 41:04
  just absolute, pure chaos, and we have to just try to be as
• 41:07
  kind as we can to each other. Or maybe there is something going on
• 41:12
  and there is something behind all this, But like, if it's not real,
• 41:15
  I need to know, it's important for me to know what I can
• 41:16
  know about that. And if it is real, it's important for me to
• 41:21
  know whatever I can know about that. But so the only risk is in
• 41:24
  not doing it. And I feel like there's a lot of my Christian friends
• 41:28
  who are who see the kind of this deconstruction I'm using air quotes if you're
• 41:31
  just listening, as like a slippery slope, and so they're unwilling to do
• 41:35
  it because it's become such a big like movement or big category of all these
• 41:39
  people, and it's like they hate that so much, and there they have
• 41:45
  so much grief and sadness over their friends who have deconstructed that they're unwilling in
• 41:49
  their own private experiences with their own spirituality to even consider some of that.
• 41:53
  They just won't they just won't go there. And that makes me really that
• 41:57
  that saddens me that people on both ends of some extreme are unwilling to even
• 42:04
  take baby steps back towards the middle to even find out what could really be
• 42:07
  there and to surgically detach the baby in the bath water on both ends is
• 42:14
  the most important work we can be doing. And so there's a song on
• 42:16
  the new record that's called some Gods Deserve Atheists. And what I always say
• 42:22
  about that song when I play it, because I've been playing a bunch of
• 42:23
  shows, is like, here's my invitation to you, and that is that
• 42:28
  it is always worth your time, your energy, your grief in a lot
• 42:31
  of cases to find, identify, root out false gods, and to destroy
• 42:38
  them, to kill them. You must you must do this. And it
• 42:42
  was a great and you have to you have to never stopped doing it.
• 42:45
  In fact, even and especially when you think you found a real one,
• 42:46
  you have to continue to try to disprove and kill it. And the one
• 42:52
  that you cannot manage to kill might be a slash the one maybe I don't
• 42:57
  know. I'm uncertain about it, but it was a great quote in the
• 43:00
  introduction of a John Shelby Spong book. It was not Spong who said it,
• 43:02
  but someone else in the introduction I quote it too often to not know
• 43:06
  who said this, but he said that if if a god can be killed,
• 43:09
  they must be killed. And I think this is kind of part of
• 43:14
  the ethic that keeps us in llectually honest in our spirituality if we're going to
• 43:17
  try to have one. And so to me, it's like, you have
• 43:21
  to you have to kill false gods to hold that space open for a real
• 43:24
  God to come and occupy. And even that song, I admit in the
• 43:30
  second verse of it that in all likelihood what I'm doing is killing the God
• 43:34
  that I have made up of everything that I got wrong about God. And
• 43:37
  if that's the case, i have to be an atheist to that god.
• 43:39
  If there is a real one, there's no way I'm ever going to find
• 43:42
  him otherwise. And so, Yeah, one of the things I'm really interested
• 43:49
  in hearing your thoughts about is the difference between certainty and conviction, Because as
• 43:57
  I'm hearing you talk like, there are things where like you just you get
• 44:00
  animated, you get passionate. You can hear it in your voice, and
• 44:02
  I'm like, Derek is convicted about that, but maybe not certain. Yeah,
• 44:08
  I'm like, there seems to be a difference there. That's one of
• 44:12
  the things I wrestle with a lot. Where As I've like gone through my
• 44:15
  like faith journey, all my politics and everything, where I get to a
• 44:19
  point where I'm like, I don't know if I'm certain about this. Yes,
• 44:22
  maybe maybe I'm I don't, I have no idea, but I feel
• 44:24
  convicted about this, Like when I see a person who lives two miles from
• 44:30
  me have his his neck stepped on and killed, and then a worldwide revolution
• 44:35
  happens because of it, uh, speaking of George Floyd. Yes, when
• 44:39
  I see that, I don't I don't know if like I'm certain about if
• 44:43
  that's wrong or not. But I feel convicted, Like I feel like that
• 44:46
  that feels wrong, and I feel like I should be a part of something
• 44:51
  that makes some sort of change, right, So that that like I'm curious
• 44:54
  about, Like when you see something like that happened, you're like embroiled,
• 44:59
  Like you're just like, I don't want that to ever happen again. Is
• 45:01
  that certainty or is that conviction? And what's how do you think through the
• 45:06
  difference between that? Yes and no? I love that because that is an
• 45:09
  absolute nuance and that is all that is what is so essential, especially when
• 45:15
  we're talking about things like this, Nuance is so important and like that,
• 45:17
  like breaking everything down into it, into its complexity is so important. So
• 45:22
  here's I would say. Um, First of all, I love that language.
• 45:25
  I think words matter. We really need to think about the words we
• 45:28
  use, and I think and so I love talking about the difference between uncertainty
• 45:32
  or certainty and conviction, because conviction makes it sound like it's it's more subjective,
• 45:37
  and I mean that in a good way, like a thing that I
• 45:39
  feel deeply, But I'm not saying that you must feel also deeply the same
• 45:44
  way. But I'm not even sure that's the way you're using it in that
• 45:47
  example. And so specific about example, here's what I would say, is
• 45:52
  I would only really or maybe I don't know what I would say because I
• 45:54
  haven't thought through it. But I've only thought through this when applied specifically to
• 46:00
  spirituality. And so what I would say is, when it comes to things
• 46:04
  that are invisible and unknowable, I think uncertainty is a great way to go
• 46:09
  when it comes to things that are knowable and visible, maybe not, And
• 46:15
  when you see such flagrant, systematic institutional injustice. No, I think you
• 46:22
  could be certain about that because you see it. You see it, you
• 46:24
  see the evidence of it. It's it's demonstrable right in front of you.
• 46:28
  And so nah, I'm okay with certainty when it comes to that kind of
• 46:30
  injustice. The way I would like think through it is like, so I'm
• 46:36
  a panentheist, and then there's pantheist, right, there's God is in all,
• 46:40
  and then there's God is all. I'm not willing to get into that.
• 46:45
  I'm not willing to get tear gassed by that debate. What I am
• 46:49
  willing to get tear gassed is to make sure that another black person doesn't get
• 46:52
  killed by the police. Right that that like that little there's a difference there
• 46:58
  in terms of that situation where it feels like one I'm like, I'm not
• 47:01
  certain, and I'm because I'm not certain, I'm not willing to get tear
• 47:06
  gas by it. But there's one where it feels like I'm so convicted my
• 47:08
  body is moved in such a way where I am willing to get tear gas
• 47:13
  to make sure that never happens again. Yeah, And to me, that's
• 47:15
  exactly that's why my immediate instinct when you said it was I think. I
• 47:20
  think what I would never say is you can't be certain about anything under any
• 47:23
  circumstances. I would never say that. I do like incessantly, I can't
• 47:30
  stop saying that when it comes to invisible, unable things, certainty might be
• 47:35
  your only uncertainty might be your only option. But you can hold that in
• 47:38
  a way that has conviction and faith and belief even but not certainty. And
• 47:45
  and that's an effort for me to have to hold space for all the different
• 47:49
  folks who might interact with that and that. But that's like a tight corner
• 47:53
  of thought that we're talking about when it comes to the kind of flagrant injustices
• 47:57
  that you're talking about, I really have no problem saying there are things I
• 48:01
  think that you can be certain about, and I think there are certain things
• 48:05
  politically you can say Nope, that is right and that is wrong. I
• 48:08
  just think there's and that because now we're veering more into ethics, and I
• 48:13
  do think there can be some absolutes, and I think that you can even
• 48:16
  see absolutes demonstrated across all of history and civilization, where people all over I
• 48:23
  mean, like you know, tribes who've God knows they've never seen the Constitution
• 48:29
  and or or the Ten Commandments, But there tend to be in civilized societies
• 48:34
  certain things that kind of come up and say, people only really survive and
• 48:37
  thrive under certain circumstances. And these are the things that keep us from destroying
• 48:43
  ourselves and our culture and the things that we love and care about, and
• 48:45
  those things tend to be constant, pretty constant across the board. To me,
• 48:50
  that says there can maybe be certainty in in issues of justice, I
• 48:57
  do think there can be. Like na man, there are some things that
• 49:00
  are right, and there are things that are wrong, and there are some
• 49:02
  things you cannot convince me could be right under certain circumstances. Ironically, that
• 49:07
  is the great argument, unfortunately handed to evangelicals. They have to be able
• 49:13
  to say, there are some circumstances where it is okay for baby's heads to
• 49:17
  get bashed against rocks. There are some circumstances where it is okay for half
• 49:22
  no for the entire population of the planet, including all animals save one family
• 49:28
  and pairs of each species, to be completely wiped out and destroyed. There
• 49:31
  are some circumstances where that's okay. There are some circumstances where a righteous man
• 49:36
  can have, due to no fault of his own, his entire family completely
• 49:42
  destroyed in front of him and be covered in boils just because I mean,
• 49:46
  like there are I don't. And that's a hard argument to make, and
• 49:51
  I'm not sure I'm cool with trying to make it anymore. So you're saying
• 49:53
  that they think that there are times where a unborn fetus is it's okay for
• 50:00
  that fetus to be killed. I'm gonna I'm gonna treat that as rhetorical because
• 50:07
  I think that's but Yeah, it's like they've become really hard arguments to make.
• 50:13
  And and yet I really do think that there can maybe I mean,
• 50:16
  as I'm saying it can't, there can be certainty and objectivity in issues of
• 50:21
  ethics and justice. I do I as I sit before you, that feels
• 50:23
  right in my gut to say that out loud. So to take that one
• 50:28
  step further, let's go. I have conversations like this with my students every
• 50:31
  single day I teach them a very conservative district. Kids or kids they have.
• 50:37
  They think that a simple answer is the correct answer, and there's and
• 50:40
  there's no other way around it, right, Um, so challenging. That
• 50:44
  thought process is always a difficult thing. And you know, I'm oftentimes talking
• 50:49
  to people who have very very very conflicting views with myself. Yeah, but
• 50:53
  I have to go in their direction in order to kind of start to reel
• 50:59
  them in a little bit and to kind of relieve that ignorance that they that
• 51:02
  they have naturally predisposed in them. Yeah. How or let's ask you this
• 51:08
  question, where in your life was that ignorance starting to kind of soften and
• 51:15
  your heart was softened? Like? What? What? What created that change
• 51:19
  in you? Specifically? I think it was relationships. It's really simple.
• 51:23
  It was relationships. It was like and there was a point, there was
• 51:25
  a point I remember a handful of years ago when it's probably actually on the
• 51:29
  Stockholm Syndrome record, which did kind of veer into the lane of sexuality and
• 51:34
  gender and it got into some of the like especially the way I was.
• 51:37
  There was some effort on that record and especially the press I did around that
• 51:40
  record to take the church that I would have identified at the time as a
• 51:45
  part of to task for the way that they treated the queer community. And
• 51:51
  and they're complete fumbling with how to respond to to to that community, and
• 51:57
  and I think that there and there was a point where I remember saying,
• 51:59
  like, if you don't have someone in your life who you care about,
• 52:05
  who is like and I don't mean a token friend, I mean like somebody
• 52:07
  who you care about, who you want in your life and you love,
• 52:09
  and who is gay, you probably shouldn't. You can have all the opinions
• 52:14
  you want about the morality of homosexuality or whatever, all that is that you
• 52:16
  know that the church loves to talk about. Have those opinions. That's no,
• 52:21
  I don't have any problem with that. I mean I do, but
• 52:22
  you can. I can't stop you. But if you're gonna talk out loud
• 52:28
  about it, if you're gonna go very public about that, and you're gonna
• 52:30
  make big especially if churches are in big institutions that are speaking on behalf of
• 52:35
  God, presumably are gonna make statements about that, you there must be a
• 52:39
  cost relationally for you that you are going to have to deal with, because
• 52:44
  even if it doesn't change your opinion, I promise you, it will change
• 52:46
  your posture, it will change your tone, it will change And for me,
• 52:51
  it was just like being in relationship with all kinds of people who the
• 52:57
  church, that we're at the business end of the churches judgment on so many
• 53:00
  things, and realizing, you know what these people it, the whole thing
• 53:06
  just started to unravel for me because I was like, I think, I'm
• 53:08
  I think that that if I've ever been on one side of this thing,
• 53:13
  I've been on the wrong side of this argument because I think, I mean,
• 53:15
  these are people who understand compassion and love for marginalized people, and love
• 53:22
  for in a way that my friends who claim to be right have never come
• 53:28
  close to understanding. More devil awards for you, And I know that was
• 53:31
  it right there? Yeah, man, but you know, And but because
• 53:35
  like most most of my friends, when I would hang with them and their
• 53:38
  communities, I was like, this feels more authentically like what church is supposed
• 53:44
  to be than any church I've been in in twenty years. And that's not
• 53:46
  even I don't even mean that to be a criticism of the church so much.
• 53:49
  It's just like, I think there's something fundamentally, I think that that's
• 53:52
  the kind of community you want to be a part of. Yes, that's
• 53:54
  right, because it's fundamentally taken care of and loving and holding space for people
• 54:00
  to be themselves. Completely and to be safe and loved and seen. And
• 54:05
  so for me it was like I think, and so what what it caused
• 54:08
  me to do was like, well, why is it that that the things
• 54:14
  that I have received, that I've just had to receive as true? Why?
• 54:17
  How did those things? Where? Where does it say that? And
• 54:22
  what did that mean? And let me really get in And it caused me
• 54:24
  to at least develop enough reasonable doubt to be which I think is easy to
• 54:30
  do when you start getting into Inerran scene, you start getting into the you
• 54:34
  know, just a lot of things about the way the English Bible was written.
• 54:37
  It raised enough reasonable doubt for me about those things to be like,
• 54:40
  you know what, let me tell you what this is as flimsy as some
• 54:46
  of this, the razor's edge that some of this stuff sits on, is
• 54:52
  not worth the absolute death of so many people who feel so squeezed to buy
• 55:00
  this culture and this these systems of belief about God. And like, there
• 55:05
  are people who are you know, whose lives are getting snuffed as a result
• 55:10
  of the way they are being treated by people who claim to be speaking on
• 55:16
  behalf of God. And like I was like, you know what, it's
• 55:19
  just I am at a point now where I have enough reasonable doubt about it
• 55:25
  that I'm I'm no longer willing to try and make that argument to myself and
• 55:30
  say, now I do think it's the whole, like you know, love
• 55:32
  this, love the sinner, hate the sin. Like I'm I'm gonna,
• 55:36
  I'm gonna be detached. I'm gonna be at arm's length. I'm gonna treat
• 55:40
  certain people who behave or believe certain things, behave certain ways, believe certain
• 55:45
  things in a way that basically just detaches and distances me from them and makes
• 55:50
  me other than them in a way that makes me feel morally superior or safe.
• 55:54
  And I finally realize, you know what, that's some bullshit, like
• 56:00
  because the like there, it's just there's not enough for the result for them,
• 56:07
  for the result in the world that comes out of the church, the
• 56:13
  institution of the church and the way it bears its weight on marginalized people especially.
• 56:19
  I was like, you know what, like the evidence is just too
• 56:21
  flimsy for me, And I'm so I'm just gonna I'm gonna stop trying to
• 56:22
  defend it. I'm just gonna love the hell out of people who I think
• 56:25
  are lovable exactly precisely as they are. I'm gonna stop being I'm gonna get
• 56:30
  off of God's pr team, and I'm gonna basically just see where that takes
• 56:35
  me. And I just realize, Wow, there's so much of this that
• 56:37
  I think that's It's why in the in the in the second verse of the
• 56:42
  song, I wrote that I confessed this in the second verse of the of
• 56:46
  a song on the new record that that same song again some of God's Deserve
• 56:51
  Atheists, where I said, maybe the trouble is I'm not reformed enough,
• 56:57
  if I'm not willing to stand hammering more theses up, questioning what doesn't belong
• 57:02
  the God that's made up of everything we got wrong. Maybe you were the
• 57:06
  one that How did they say it's reformed and always reforming? Maybe you just
• 57:10
  were all always reforming. That's what I'm talking about. Like people who say
• 57:14
  it's separate sempar refermendo like always reforming. It's like they you know, you
• 57:19
  talk a big game with that, but when it comes to actually continuing to
• 57:22
  reform, do you know what that might mean? That might mean questioning an
• 57:25
  errency. You know, like I hate to tell everybody, but like that,
• 57:30
  you know, Martin Luther was seen as an absolute heretic. And I'm
• 57:34
  not a fan of Martin Luther's by any stretch at this point, but he
• 57:37
  was a complicated character. But what I am saying is for a thing that
• 57:40
  seemed to pigeonhole me for many years and certainly did me no favors on the
• 57:44
  theological side, maybe it's the Maybe the thing I did wrong is I didn't
• 57:47
  take it as far as I should have. Maybe I failed to continue reforming.
• 57:52
  And maybe that's precisely what I mean. That to me feels like exactly
• 57:58
  what I'm trying to do, Like I have to be able to say,
• 58:00
  like, hey, everybody, like men did this. Men, Men did
• 58:05
  that. Men even men decided on the books that made up the cannon.
• 58:09
  Men decided on the contents of the apostle and nice and creed. Men did
• 58:13
  this. Men posted the ninety fives and turned uh, you know, reformers
• 58:17
  into Protestants. Men did this. We can men and women. I'm so
• 58:22
  sorry. I am so sorry. I've just said men so many times.
• 58:24
  For God's sake, people did this. People and so and therefore well,
• 58:29
  but most of them were men. Of them were men. Because there was
• 58:30
  the only people who could legally speak at that time, and thank god they
• 58:34
  were not there anymore. But the point being, it's like people did it
• 58:37
  and people can still do it. And so if you are a person and
• 58:40
  this is all my heroes, all my heroes at this point who speak great
• 58:45
  truth to great power in the deconstruction movement, I'm going to continue with that
• 58:50
  shorthand are folks who are basically doing exactly this work they are, they're they're
• 58:54
  attacking their theses up and they're saying, what if we need to go further?
• 59:00
  Like this is a great Biblical I hate to say this, but this
• 59:01
  is a great tradition, a great Christian tradition doing what we're what we're all
• 59:06
  trying to do with this, like literally calling it all into question all and
• 59:09
  this exactly when Jesus said, you've heard it said, but I say unto
• 59:13
  you, I swear to God, I think that's what he was doing.
• 59:15
  So anyway, I don't know, I just you know, I really read
• 59:17
  an album. I feel strongly about it exactly this day. You've got your
• 59:22
  ninety five songs. I got my ninety five veggietailed jokes. Cullen's got his
• 59:27
  ninety five of whatever it is and something he can come up with ninety five
• 59:31
  of something God knows, got ninety five problems? Yeah, hey, at
• 59:36
  least it's four less than jay Z. That's right, ninety five problems.
• 59:42
  I'm so sorry I missed that. I missed, I missed the what was
• 59:44
  I missed the gold in it? Right there? You got ninety five problems
• 59:47
  with the Catholic Church, ain't one? Yeah, Derek, we are there.
• 59:54
  We are going to talk. Either it's going to be your choice,
• 1:00:00
  okay, your top five most guilty pleasure artists, yeah, or your top
• 1:00:07
  five most hated artists. Which one are you going to choose? It's so
• 1:00:13
  tough, like, I hate this. You have to be certain on because
• 1:00:15
  you could physically touch any of these things. You're well, you're right,
• 1:00:19
  You're right about this. Um, I think I don't love either. They're
• 1:00:24
  both really hard and I'm not trying to be difficult about it, but there
• 1:00:28
  it's it is. It's difficult, and because because because I don't know that
• 1:00:31
  I have enough guilty pleasures to come up with enough to make a great list.
• 1:00:35
  I might even like songs will work even if there's like one song from
• 1:00:39
  one artist and you're like all right, that's the artist because of that one
• 1:00:43
  song. Yeah, I hear. That's so interesting. I don't know if
• 1:00:46
  I well, okay, so here's what I when I when you when you
• 1:00:50
  first said this, my first thought was what about um? Because I think
• 1:00:54
  all great criticism is rooted in great love and so I so, for instance,
• 1:01:01
  let me see if this gets even close. Like I there, you've
• 1:01:06
  never met a bigger YouTube fan or apologist really than than me. And yet
• 1:01:12
  I'm I mean, I have met Josh Scott. I don't know. You
• 1:01:15
  two might have to fight over, correct you two apologist? Nope, you're
• 1:01:19
  correct, I'm corrected. That is that is correct, Josh Scott is you're
• 1:01:22
  runner up. I am runner up, and if he ever cannot fulfill his
• 1:01:24
  duties, then I will step in. And yet I don't. I would
• 1:01:29
  tell you absolutely that I don't think they've put out a good record in at
• 1:01:31
  least fifteen years and maybe more. And in fact, I think they put
• 1:01:34
  out absolutely like almost unlistenable. I so, in other words, a band
• 1:01:38
  that I'm a huge fan of that I currently absolutely hate. And but see
• 1:01:44
  even that dude like this is tough for me because I love I'm like a
• 1:01:47
  hardcore, rational detail type, analytical type. So like, even in my
• 1:01:53
  mind as I'm thinking for examples for your questions, I'm talking to myself in
• 1:01:58
  and out of it in my head before I can even say that shit out
• 1:02:00
  loud. And you know, but anyway, I'm just saying, because you
• 1:02:02
  two is a great example of like a band who I absolutely love, and
• 1:02:06
  yet I think is I don't think has made a good record in forever,
• 1:02:10
  and I don't know if they've got another. I mean, they literally had
• 1:02:14
  to put every their record on everybody down our throats, our phones. Yeah,
• 1:02:17
  we're still talking about that. I know that was like what twenty twelve?
• 1:02:22
  It was. It was because I think I was in college. I
• 1:02:25
  think it was my first year. It was before. Yeah, I for
• 1:02:30
  sure it was, well, you know, so so guilty pleasures would probably
• 1:02:36
  be, oh, here we go, I got it, I got it,
• 1:02:37
  Okay, all right, get us with it. It would and I
• 1:02:39
  feel bad because some of these. And I'm not going to be that asshole
• 1:02:42
  and be a lego. I mean, I said this to you already,
• 1:02:44
  but I was about to say in a voice, but I actually said it
• 1:02:46
  for real a little bit ago. But I don't think there's any such thing
• 1:02:49
  as a guilty pleasure. At this point in my life. It's just pleasure.
• 1:02:52
  I don't I don't feel guilt anymore about this shit. But like again,
• 1:02:54
  it's about who would like people that would want to make you feel guilty
• 1:02:59
  for listening to that? Correct and I hear that, okay, So for
• 1:03:02
  me almost all of it would be like eighties nineties CCM stuff, So we
• 1:03:07
  would for sure be like Free Last. That whole record is a jam.
• 1:03:12
  I put it on bro It's so insanely good. Michael L. Smith,
• 1:03:15
  Go West young Man is a jam. It It's crazy. Stephen Kurs Chapman
• 1:03:22
  Great Adventure is a absolute jam. Dude, Um hold on, I'm not
• 1:03:29
  done, h You and my mom should hang out. We should, We
• 1:03:31
  really should. We're probably the same age I think you said times Yeah,
• 1:03:36
  may missing to that Mason. Mason's trying to really get you to hang out
• 1:03:40
  with this man. I know that's sweet. I'm into it. And then
• 1:03:44
  like obviously, Amy Grant, I mean, lead me on is not even
• 1:03:46
  a guilty pleasure. That's just one of the best records pop records has ever
• 1:03:51
  been made, along with um Heart and Motion. But um so for me,
• 1:03:55
  though you're getting exactly where I'm going, and it's like this, this
• 1:04:00
  is precisely like what was that? Oh, what was that Newsboys song that
• 1:04:03
  was so big? I was never like except not prepern No, it was
• 1:04:09
  one of their later ones. It was like early in their worship stuff.
• 1:04:11
  But it was like I remember hearing it and being like that was like the
• 1:04:15
  first song. Yeah, he's it's I was like, dude that, Like
• 1:04:19
  I don't care what we're talking about, Like like, have the dude from
• 1:04:24
  Um the Um, what's the Icelandic band who sings in Gibberish? Are they
• 1:04:29
  Icelandic Gibberish? Yeah? No, No, the dude even called he's got
• 1:04:33
  a language he made it's hope. I feel like, yeah, but isn't
• 1:04:39
  it like Joseph Smith? Like but it's like Joseph Smith, He's the only
• 1:04:42
  guy who understands it. Isn't that kind of one of those deals? Yeah?
• 1:04:45
  Anyways, what I'm saying is have him sing it, have him redo
• 1:04:47
  it, and their jams like it could be total. I didn't mean that
• 1:04:51
  his music gibberish. I meant do it in Gibberish. And I think he
• 1:04:56
  would be adept at that because he sings in a language that he made up,
• 1:04:59
  like for his twin, but like that he doesn't have. But like
• 1:05:02
  that stuff is a it's a jam. So like I like, if if
• 1:05:06
  you put on Free at Last, like take a few steps away from me,
• 1:05:11
  because I'm gonna be I'm gonna go into a different mode and I'm gonna
• 1:05:15
  I'm gonna jam. It's bro That stuff is so good. I think I
• 1:05:18
  covered it though I named it lay a handful of records, right, true,
• 1:05:21
  that's a few. Are Are there any like non Christian artists that you
• 1:05:26
  would like throw into them? Only? Not the only artists in music that
• 1:05:29
  I feel guilty about listening to our Christian artists. That's fair, Okay,
• 1:05:33
  Yeah, I only feel guilty about the Christian music that I still listen to.
• 1:05:35
  I don't feel guilty abou any the rest of it. And I'm so
• 1:05:39
  I'm revising my previous opinion on that. Let's imagine this. Okay, You're
• 1:05:42
  sitting in your car and uh, sir lots uh lie big butts and I
• 1:05:47
  kid not lie, right, Okay, you have your windows down, You're
• 1:05:50
  in the middle of a busy street. Yeah, You're you're outside of let's
• 1:05:54
  say like, um, like an elementary school. Yeah, and you're not
• 1:05:59
  gonna feel guilty in that situation. Oh I certainly would feel. Oh you
• 1:06:03
  mean if it was Sir mix a Lot. Yeah, Oh well no,
• 1:06:05
  I would be No. I'm not even sure that's legal to listen to that
• 1:06:10
  song within within a mile of entary school. But but yeah, and as
• 1:06:14
  you were saying that, actually guns are allowed closer than sir mix a lot,
• 1:06:17
  o, dude, because oh, sir mix a lot will do so
• 1:06:21
  much more damage arguably. But um, but what it made me think of
• 1:06:28
  is Journey. So that's yet, Like late at night, like night drives,
• 1:06:33
  when I'm like trying to you know, stay awake or whatever, I
• 1:06:36
  will put on Journey Journey's Greatest Hits. And it is such a tremendous collection
• 1:06:42
  Journey's Greatest hits. It's one of the best all time. I will put
• 1:06:45
  that on. I'll roll the windows down and I will. It's embarrassing,
• 1:06:48
  like because I cannot sing like see Perry, nobody can except for that one
• 1:06:51
  guy. But who's in the band now. But um, they found in
• 1:06:56
  that village somewhere and he's inclusive from Philippines or something. I got so good,
• 1:07:00
  what a gift. He's incredible. But anyways, like, that's what
• 1:07:03
  I will put on and I know every word. I will air guitar,
• 1:07:08
  every solo absolutely. What's your favorite song on that record? That greatest Hit
• 1:07:14
  record A Wheel in the Sky Bro, that's like a deep cut. I
• 1:07:19
  mean it's on the Greatest Hits, but that's a deep cut for the Greatest
• 1:07:21
  Hits record. Yeah. I need to I need to see a Derek Webb
• 1:07:26
  Cullen Mack karaoke collaboration at some point. Oh, Derek, I don't.
• 1:07:31
  You don't know this about Colin, but Culin gets like I mean, he
• 1:07:34
  will literally do Whitney Houston if he has to. I mean that Cullin's got
• 1:07:39
  this great, deep, booming voice on on podcasting, but when it comes
• 1:07:44
  to singing, that dude can get the falsettos you need. Wow, it's
• 1:07:49
  all chest voice still wow. Really, Yes, Culin is an incredible singer,
• 1:07:57
  thank you. Yeah, like all the you know, all the eighties
• 1:08:00
  like hair metal stuff, that's that's Colin's jam like in terms of being able
• 1:08:04
  to sing. Now, Colin doesn't like any of that music, but he
• 1:08:06
  could do it all. Wow. Wow. Yeah, we we should we
• 1:08:12
  should start a band, so this does do it. So I love I
• 1:08:15
  love all the songs on this record, but honestly, honestly, only the
• 1:08:18
  young dude. It's like they open it with such a deep cut, and
• 1:08:21
  I mean, I'm so sorry. You can you can take this out if
• 1:08:24
  it's a copyright violation, but I don't. We don't make nothing immediately.
• 1:08:33
  Bro. Wait, just so the vocal comes in, Steve Perry, here
• 1:08:39
  we go. Are you serious? Yeah, Colin can do that shit,
• 1:08:45
  I guarantee it. I'm just saying that that that has gotten me, that
• 1:08:50
  has saved me from driving off the roads so many nights. Dude, I
• 1:08:53
  just I don't have a voice the next morning. But that's Colin's your guy.
• 1:09:00
  I'm excited, dude. Yeah, we gotta, we gotta get together.
• 1:09:01
  Sometimes I want to get to the bottom of that. But I mean,
• 1:09:03
  I feel like we have to like twist people's arms. But like you're
• 1:09:06
  you're clearly you're coming out with like your guilty pleasure artists. You got Journey,
• 1:09:11
  you got you Two, you got the Christian music artists. Is there
• 1:09:14
  anymore that we can squeeze out of it? You know, like a little
• 1:09:16
  n I don't know. I mean it's like none of it would be I
• 1:09:19
  mean all the eighties hair metal stuff because that's why I grew up on.
• 1:09:23
  I played an endless cover bands, endless cover band, Cinderella, dockin Van
• 1:09:29
  Halen, obviously, define lever extreme. I mean, like I I I
• 1:09:33
  this was my this is what I cut my teeth on. I mean,
• 1:09:35
  I like all I did till I was nineteen years old was play in in
• 1:09:41
  eighties hair metal bands. That's all I mean, that's what That's how I
• 1:09:44
  learned to do this. And and look at what your hair is now exactly
• 1:09:47
  it's gone. Um just like I could go and I could get a guitar
• 1:09:53
  from the other side of the room and I could play you all the guitar
• 1:09:55
  solos on Van Halen one like I'm that is too why? Okay you you
• 1:10:00
  play Van Helen on guitar, Culin will sing Van Halen and you guys got
• 1:10:04
  literally a little runaway cover band. Ever bro Okay, we're gonna talk off
• 1:10:10
  the line about this. We'll do it, Okay, I'm into it,
• 1:10:14
  Derek, what do you want to plug? Obviously the album's out now,
• 1:10:16
  Jess hypothesis, Yeah, it's out. Yeah, plug plug whatever you want
• 1:10:20
  to plug. I know there's shows coming up. Yeah, plug what you
• 1:10:23
  want to plug? That's it. Well, So the new record, I
• 1:10:25
  would just love for people to give it, give it a shot. Um,
• 1:10:28
  it's out everywhere at Jess Hypothesis. I would love people listen to that
• 1:10:31
  Derek web dot com where you can kind of find everything. I am touring
• 1:10:33
  and we're still announcing summer shows and and they're all house shows, no pa,
• 1:10:39
  no lights. I sneak in and out some random living room in some
• 1:10:43
  suburbs somewhere, and it's it's so much fun. It's my favorite way to
• 1:10:45
  do it. Um. And Yeah, I'm just I'm gonna be out on
• 1:10:47
  the road kind of a ton and would love to for folks to come and
• 1:10:51
  hang out or I honestly just listen to the record would mean the world to
• 1:10:56
  me. I just I would love for folks to find it. Yeah.
• 1:10:58
  Is there some vinyl available or anything like that? Yes, we we have.
• 1:11:02
  Since the day the record came out, we've had the pre sell up
• 1:11:05
  on vinyl on the site and so um, yeah, we're doing two versions.
• 1:11:10
  It's gonna be four sides of one eighty grand vinyl. Um we're doing
• 1:11:14
  regor black and they're going to do like these really cool white splotchy vinyls.
• 1:11:17
  They're going to be more limited, but I make vinyl of everything now now
• 1:11:20
  that it's like affordable to do so as an indie. There's there's this rad
• 1:11:26
  vinyl shop in Austin that um a friend of mine runs that does like short
• 1:11:30
  runs and so finally we can all afford to do it. But yeah,
• 1:11:33
  they'll definitely be vinyl um and all that. But yeah, that's it.
• 1:11:36
  I just I would love for folks to go listen to the record. That's
• 1:11:39
  it. I want to keep it focused so people actually do it. I
• 1:11:42
  love that. But the real reason we brought you on was actually because last
• 1:11:45
  time we talked, there was there was something to do with your wedding dress
• 1:11:48
  line. That's right, the apparel thing that I the partnership I did,
• 1:11:51
  and I heard there was something new going on with this. Yes, what
• 1:11:56
  is that? I'm so glad you asked, because that there were some people
• 1:11:59
  who heard that thought that was a joke and they would like kind of ask
• 1:12:00
  me on social media and they were like thought, well, that sounds like
• 1:12:03
  it couldn't be And yeah, so it's one of those like two it's like
• 1:12:08
  too crazy to be not true. It's like one of those you know that
• 1:12:12
  it's like you being a Christian again, and it would be like that if
• 1:12:15
  that's what we were talking about, right, that'll be episode three that we
• 1:12:17
  do together. But yeah, So at first it was like, uh,
• 1:12:20
  you know, approach to do an apparel line for the you know, based
• 1:12:25
  around the whole wedding dress thing, and that was crazy. And here's the
• 1:12:28
  deal. So in order to now that I've got the Jess hypothesis out there
• 1:12:31
  and now that I've kind of been kind of taken some spot in the conversation
• 1:12:36
  about kind of the whole deconstruction and uncertainty thing, they have wanted to kind
• 1:12:41
  of get into it as far. And I thought this was so clever.
• 1:12:43
  When they came to me and pitched it to me, I wish I had
• 1:12:45
  like the boards I could show you because you won't believe it when you see
• 1:12:47
  it. But they came back to me and they said, Okay, now
• 1:12:49
  that you're kind of on the other side or this whole maybe like identifying with
• 1:12:54
  this whole certainty and the whole Christian faith thing, they thought this would be
• 1:12:58
  because it's like statistically this is the market needs this, So I thought it
• 1:13:01
  was super smart and clever. They're actually doing a line that's gonna be like
• 1:13:06
  the Yin Yang to the wedding dress apparel line that we've done together, and
• 1:13:12
  it's actually apparel for divorce. It's a divorce line. It's like it's like
• 1:13:17
  the dress that you would wear, like the black dress you would wear um
• 1:13:20
  two court on the day that the gavel hits the thing to make your soon
• 1:13:26
  to be ex jealous. Is it like black dresses or what like Like it's
• 1:13:29
  like black and dark dark dark routing, like dark navies and all these really
• 1:13:33
  be like purples and like all this Like so there's a whole line of like
• 1:13:39
  like the inverse of wedding apparel. It's what they decided they wanted. They
• 1:13:42
  want to be on both ends. I have a bed on every horse in
• 1:13:44
  the race at this point, you know it makes sense. Yeah, So
• 1:13:45
  they've got this beautiful like really it's like yeah, like it's it's it's cool
• 1:13:51
  as is. People are gonna really flip, I think, and it's smart
• 1:13:56
  because like you want to get them on the way in and the way out.
• 1:13:59
  You know, you want to hit your tolbooth both directions, and so
• 1:14:01
  the smart wedding apparel companies are gonna get you just keep that email for about
• 1:14:05
  ten years and your golden your golden you're gonna repurpose that. Dude, statistics
• 1:14:11
  will say seven would be about there. You go, Yeah, that's seven
• 1:14:14
  years. After seven, you could probably them off your list. No,
• 1:14:15
  don't pay for it. Yeah, anyway, that's yeah, thats that's brilliant.
• 1:14:18
  That is absolutely brilliant, does it. I heard that there was also
• 1:14:23
  like a deal where you could like go to like your local Ace hardware.
• 1:14:26
  You could also pick up like a like a set of like lock cutters,
• 1:14:29
  Like like what is it? What is that what they're calling block cutters?
• 1:14:31
  Boltcutters? Yeah, yeah, and it's for like wedding rings, right because
• 1:14:38
  that I've got to mention if they don't, if they're not on top of
• 1:14:41
  that, because that it imagine if you get the garment with like some commemorative
• 1:14:45
  bolt cutters, Yeah, that can get that ring right off that. So
• 1:14:49
  like like like you know, like your wedding, you get the you know
• 1:14:53
  you you you both like cut the cake and then you slam at each other's
• 1:14:56
  face. Here you cut your you cut your ring and you throw it at
• 1:14:59
  the other you throw the other person, and and and the one thing that
• 1:15:02
  they're doing as like when we launch this thing that I think is really smart
• 1:15:05
  is anybody who comes in on the front end. If you want to go
• 1:15:08
  ahead and pre purchase when you're purchasing your wedding kind of apparel, if you
• 1:15:13
  want to go ahead and pre purchase the potential divorce apparel. It's like sort
• 1:15:16
  of like a pre nup appare Then you get this crazy like deep discount,
• 1:15:21
  like you get like this fifty percent off, And for them it's like,
• 1:15:25
  what's the you're making money at that point? Chance of divorce? Yeah,
• 1:15:30
  and punch cards like if you've gone through, if you've gone around this ride
• 1:15:33
  more than a handful of times, it gets cheaper and cheaper the longer you're
• 1:15:36
  in the club kind of deal. Donald Trump should be your first uh,
• 1:15:40
  your first duty. He would be getting closed for free by yeah anyways,
• 1:15:44
  Yeah, well he needs because he's got a five million dollar thing that he's
• 1:15:46
  got to pay. So I've heard feel like there should be a package deal
• 1:15:49
  where you can buy Twitter uh with with this too, because that or get
• 1:15:54
  a blue check mark because that seems to be like right in line with with
• 1:15:58
  this group of people, the Blue Check right right in your market. I
• 1:16:00
  just lost mine, and um, yeah, you're right, you're right about
• 1:16:03
  that though. Yeah, it's so so it really the the I mean,
• 1:16:06
  it's it's endless the possibilities. But I think they've really got an interesting spot
• 1:16:11
  in the market that they're going after. And I'm I'm just kind of pleased
• 1:16:14
  to be brought along. I'm just it's I'm just I'm always honored, you
• 1:16:16
  know when when somebody who does good. But I feel like you do need
• 1:16:19
  to make maybe like a Derek Webb divorce song. Then I think I made
• 1:16:25
  a whole I think fingers Cross might have been almost a whole record. It's
• 1:16:29
  almost a whole album. It was a tale of two divorces. That record,
• 1:16:31
  it comes, it comes complimentary with the dress Center. Yeah, that
• 1:16:34
  would be cool. Oh, it's like you too and the iPod. It's
• 1:16:38
  like we will force fingers Crossed onto you when you receive the garment, it'll
• 1:16:43
  gets play from the pocket or something that's perfect. That is the way to
• 1:16:45
  do it well. So we're looking forward to a good about it. I
• 1:16:48
  feel good about it. Yeah, I understand, so keep your eyes peeled.
• 1:16:51
  It's great. As as profitable as the wedding industry is, I feel
• 1:16:56
  like the divorce industry should be just as profitable. Why can't it be?
• 1:16:59
  I think is the question. The question we're asking is why can't it be?
• 1:17:01
  Why couldn't it be? You know what I mean? We're not we're
• 1:17:04
  not causing, then we're not cheering about it. But if there's money to
• 1:17:06
  be made, I mean, you know, why couldn't we have some of
• 1:17:11
  it? So yeah, yeah, I like it. I think it's brilliant.
• 1:17:14
  Thank you for I think it's I think it's a multi million dollar idea.
• 1:17:17
  Again, I can't take credit. I'm just being pulled in as a
• 1:17:19
  partner. But I'm excited about it. So we'll see. We're excited for
• 1:17:23
  you. Hey, thanks, thank you. We love it. We love
• 1:17:27
  it well, Derek, thank you so much for chatting about the new album,
• 1:17:30
  Jesus Hypothesis. Everybody needs to check it out. Get the vinyl.
• 1:17:33
  Uh if you're able to get the vinyl, and then if Derek happens to
• 1:17:38
  be in your city, just show up to a house, a random house,
• 1:17:42
  and who knows what. Maybe somebody's making some cast roll, and you
• 1:17:45
  get a little cast roll, and you get a little Derek web show in
• 1:17:49
  the midst of it. I think that's just great. But go check out
• 1:17:53
  Derek stuff and then obviously check out the divorce Workpa. It sounds great.
• 1:17:57
  Thank you the divorce apparel. Oh my goodness, it sounds so great.
• 1:18:00
  But anyway, thank you so much for Chatty and Derek. It's always a
• 1:18:03
  pleasure. We're gonna get you back on. I'm sure we'll do the most
• 1:18:08
  hated artists at that point, going for three. We're going for three.
• 1:18:11
  We're going for three. Well, we'll basically try to make you like an
• 1:18:14
  honorary co host at that three. Yes, I would love that. Thank
• 1:18:16
  you for that. I love it too. For that. You're still killing
• 1:18:23
  us. You're still killing