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So, as you all know I am a rather huge fan of Anberlin. So I thought I would look into arranging a follow up with them when they came back to Canada in early January. I’m not going to lie, it was such a dream come true to meet them and their show that night was insane! Even if I didn’t get to see the ending! (I could still hear it.)

I have an Anberlin tattoo and Manda kind of made me show him because I was way too scared to myself, and he absolutely loved it. A huge part of music is connecting with your fans, and Anberlin loves their fans and their fans love them. This interview is definitely one of my favorites. I really love the way this man thinks about life and just everything. He is also totally jokes when it comes to the random questions!

(When I got back and told pretty much everyone about it, I obviously had to mention that I know how to make an entrance…and an exit. Not only did I fall getting onto their tour bus, I fell inside and I fell off the bus! Yep. Had to tell you!)

Also, to everyone who wanted to know about The Feel Good Drag…I really honestly did plan on asking him about why that song has been on every record…but I forgot!! I’m sorry!!

"OH that is hideous…I’m gunna do that!"
- Stephen Christian: Anberlin.

We’ve already done this, but could you please introduce yourself and what you do for the band?

Okay. I’m Stephen Christian and I sing in a band called Anberlin.

So we’ve all been listening to the new album and we love all the songs, but one song that we have a major music crush on is Breathe. So could you please tell us about Breathe and how you feel about it?

Breathe is a song that I actually wrote that chorus to quite some years ago but I never really found a fit to it on any other Anberlin record because I just didn’t feel like it matched especially like the driving force of give or take or the kind of darker theme of Cities so I thought that New Surrender would be the perfect time to bring it out and see if people would like it. The thing that I thought was cool about it was that my brother said that he thought it was about finding true love and then someone else wrote us and said that they’d finally broke off an abusive relationship, and I think that’s what you wrote the song about. And it’s funnier because I just didn’t write it about that at all (laughs) but its cool that people kind of interpret it into their own way, so out of that I feel kind of the lyrics are so broad, so specific about letting go and moving on. But for me, I actually wrote it about the war. Because I was thinking one day about the war and watching the soldiers come back and the problems they have to deal with and stuff like that, but I was thinking, one: these guys are trained to kill and then they come back and then everybody expects them to fit into society like be good little boys or like, go be a librarian, you know…like as if that’s gunna…and then I was thinking like, we have no clue like we can vote as Americans to go to war. We have no idea what war is all about. Our president doesn’t know what war is about. Clinton didn’t know, yah know? No one really knows about it. so here are these guys, like how traumatic it must be to go to war, bullets fly by your head. Your best friend dies right next to you. I mean, it’s gotta be insane. So I was trying to empathize with them and try and get it from their about like coming home. Its like, ah man I can finally breathe, I’m not about to die. I’m okay, but it’s still on the inside I’m still hurting. It’s a rough world out here. It’s just cool that I wrote it about that, but other people can kind of derive different messages and meanings about it. so that’s awesome.

What other artists are you inspired by and what, if anything to you take from that inspiration that applies to your music?

I love tons of bands. Like anything from John Coltrane to Jeff Buckley and Morrissey. There is just a wide variety of people that I am inspired by. And I try not to steal their stuff…because that would just be stealing (Laughs) but as far as being inspired, I like the story telling of Morrissey. I like Mick Jagger how he just controls the crowd. And I love…I think Paul McCartney just has this amazing voice and the melodies that him and John Lennon produced during The Beatles time, like all that is just so phenomenal to me. So I think you take little aspects of different bands no matter how broad the genre is and kind of just like piece yourself together.

I love that you actually mentioned someone controlling the crowd, because my next question has to do with your crowd. The first time I ever got to see you live was last October…

Where at?

The Phoenix in Toronto.

Okay! Ooh wow! That was a good show.

That was a great show! I was so thrown off by that!

You and me both. I walked on the stage and was like, ‘What?!’ (He sort of jumped back a bit when he said that.)

I know right!? I came home and was like, ‘You should have seen his face!’

I was so…I had no idea. I was thinking like, is there somebody going on after us?! There has to be some huge band going on. I had no idea!

I was surprised because to be honest with you, I was the only person I knew until I told the girls at the site about you guys, who knew who Anberlin was. I’m from a very small town and just no one knows. So it threw me off. So I was wondering what it felt like to walk out and almost not even need to sing because the crowd knew every word and was not afraid to sing it back. So loud!

Yeah. See we’re used to that in some places like in Australia and some places in the States. But not in Canada. Because our first three records were kind of like, import records here so it was really hard to find and not til we signed with Universal that we actually had a good deal, like our CD actually came out in Canada…it was a novel idea! But yeah, that show in Toronto was completely off-putting and I was just so shocked. I was like, what are you guys doing here? Why?!

That was phenomenal. It’s overwhelming. Like I don’t think... not that I’m into any drugs or anything, but I cant imagine any drug that would be a greater adrenaline rush than just walking out and hearing people singing along like that.

Well even I loved that everyone sang back, and I’m not even part of the band! I was just like, Wow that is awesome! I wanna high five every one of you!

Like, I don’t think…like we absolutely feed off the crowd. Like if you went in there tonight and said, “Okay we’ll just all make a pact no one move tonight. No one in the crowd sing-along, no one move. All just look at them.” I guarantee you it would be the worst show. We’d mess up. I would stand there like, ‘what?!’ because we absolutely feed off the crowd. So if the crowd is in a rampage, I’m probably going to hang off a chandelier or I’m going to break something or punch someone. (He is actually making the movement of throwing something or punching someone!) (Laughs)

Throw somebody off the stage!

(Laughs) There ya go!! So we absolutely feed off the energy of the crowd! So Toronto was definitely one of those shows that it was like, (um he started to babble and kinda freak out to show excitement!)

The last time we talked you said if you could re-write any song it would be Alexitymia. I just wanted to know what exactly you would change about it?

I just feel like the verses were absolutely amazing and the music was great and the choruses, even though the lyrics were great I just didn’t feel like it fit the song. so I felt like I could have done a lot better chorus for that song. I would love to go back and re-write that chorus and get a do-over.

You only get one!

(Laughs) It would be Alexitymia for sure.

Jens note: I happen to think the chorus is phenomenal. In fact, I have it tattooed on my arm! Which Manda made me show him after!

The last time we talked I actually mentioned that The Haunting meant a lot to me, and you asked me what exactly it meant, but I couldn’t answer. But honestly it just means so much. So I was wondering what it means to you.

Um, The Haunting is another one of those songs I wrote back in 2002. I was just on my friend's bed actually and I was just playing around with a guitar and I was kind of…it started out…it’s multifaceted. One, I have a huge fascination with Joan Of Arc. I just think she is one of those people in history I look back at and I’m just so in love with the mystery and how her saint-hood, and how she came about and she is just so inspiring to me. And so I feel like that was one aspect. Then when I was in college I shared a room with my brother, we both went to the same college and it was so cool because we shared the same bedroom and his bed was across the way and we would just sit there for hours and talk about god and mysteries in life and theology and philosophy and stuff like that. So the whole song was written to my brother Paul. Like the closer I am to you the closer I am to finding god because I love my brother absolutely with all my heart. It was just awesome because even though we are so different, like I have faith, I’m a Christian and he doesn’t. It was awesome that every time we would like, get to know each other we would find out something. Like I found out something about myself through him, or he found something about god through me. So it was just an awesome time in my life. I think that kind of … Paul…like it says in the song…my brother's name is Paul. It says “Paul says that you stifle him,” because he is just so befuddled by the thought of god and stuff like that. So that is mainly what the song is about, when you find someone, you find a friend…it’s not like, ‘oh my god does he like you? Oh my god does he like her?’ kind of thing. But when it’s beyond that and it goes into a deeper level of friendship where its almost like a love relationship. It’s like a ‘dude I care about you more than any of my other friends, you are like my family,’ when you find those people, and I only have three in my life that I’m that close to, but when you find them that is just so powerful. And I feel like the chorus is more about friendship than it was ever about love. Like, we could find god together.

Jens note: I think Stephen was actually telling me about Cadence...

There is always going to be someone who isn’t a fan, so what, if anything do you take from criticism?

Oh man! Criticism is fine with me. I mean…because I don’t feel like…there is not one band in history that didn't have critics. You know? I mean like, The Beatles…people hated The Beatles! People hate Led Zeppelin. And these are like, two huge, probably the biggest bands. I mean like, I know people who don’t like The Rolling Stones or U2. I dunno, I think there is always going to be critics, but the fact of the matter is that at the end of the day when you rest your head on your pillow you have to remember that you put all your heart into the music you make. But the fact is that I have never seen, in all my travels around this world, I have never seen a monument constructed to a critic. I’ve seen monuments, I’ve seen museums and galleries and the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and all these people, but I have never seen the critic part. You know what I mean? I’ve never seen like, ‘Oh he was a great critic! He used to belittle bands!’ (Laughs)

Best bully ever!!

(Laughs) Yes! Best A-hole of all time! I’ve never seen that! So for me, at the end of the day it’s just, who cares about critics? They’re going to be forgotten and hopefully you can remain in the hearts of man and hopefully when you’re sixty your grandkids are like, ‘grandma, what kind of music did you like?’ and you’re like, ‘oh let me show you some of the bands I liked. Here listen to this band, this song really brings back memories.’ It won't be like, ‘oh tell me about that one guy who hated that one band that you like!’ You’re just like, ‘What?!’ Who cares about that guy? And then what does that guy tell his grandkids? ‘I used to hate bands…so much! And people would be, you’re so cool for hating bands!’ well alright, good for you!

(At this point Manda and I were laughing so hard because he was actually doing the voices!)

But there was a great quote by Theodore Roosevelt that you have to check out. Just Google ‘Cold and Timid Souls, Theodore Roosevelt’ he did this whole thing and I tried to memorize it one time, but it’s like huge. It basically stated, basically just try. And even if you fail, at least you know in the back of your head that you aren’t among the cold and timid souls that never…they don’t know the victory and how sweet it feels of success or how bad failure hurts and what you can learn from that. So for me that’s always kind of been my mantra you know, I gotta try. I gotta go out there with all my heart and I know I’m investing my heart and soul into this and really, what does a critic have to do with my life. And that’s that!

You’ve said that you don’t want to write the next ‘baby I love you song’, and you don’t. so what are you hoping people take away from songs like Alexitymia, Soft Skeletons and Burn Out Brighter?

Man, all three of those have way different messages. I think the first one, Alexitymia really dealt with the basic fact that sometimes your family has a way of stepping in the way of your dreams and hopes, and even though they are the greatest thing, hopefully everyone has a wonderful family…I know many people don’t but, you know that hopefully you can kind of look beyond your family and go ‘you know what, I can make my own paths and I can make my own decisions and I will take what you taught me and I will move right along’ yah know? And I think a lot of people get so down on themselves and that’s where the ‘downcast eyes’ comes from. And then Burn Out Brighter is about a plane crash and about the last thoughts that go through your head. You hope that people listen to it and go ‘oh yeah, I need to make a difference while there is still today because I don’t want to die knowing in the back of my head that I just lived so selfishly. My entire life was all about me and what I wanted and what I wanted to do,’ and life is just way too short to only care about yourself. And the third song you said was...?

Soft Skeletons.

Well that song is actually about a really horrific case I read about in Nevada where this twelve year old girl committed suicide by hanging herself because her father sexually abused her. And I was so mortified and every fiber in my body ached to hunt him down and just strangle him to death. I felt like, twelve years old you should be talking about Barbies and how stupid they are or what cute boy looked at you, you know? Not suicide. Not at twelve. Good god!

That song actually made me cry the first time I heard it.

Aw that’s awesome. Well no not awesome!! (Laughs)

We know what you mean!

It’s awesome that it moved you. But I felt like I was trying to gather…man, I remember even singing that song and how I wished that I could be the one to help…heal…I would love to just rewind time and track that girl down and hug her. And then of course strangle the dad and beat him to a pulp, then revive him and then beat and strangle him and then revive him and then tie his face to the front bumper of a car and then his feet to another and then reverse real fast then sew him back up, revive him and do it all again.

(I need to point out that while he was saying this, he was doing the actions that’s why we were all laughing!)

So um, that just killed me. And what was cool about that song was that I explained that to the producer Neal Avron and he allowed me to just sing the whole song in just one take. So that if you listen to the last twenty seconds of the song it sounds like I’m out of breath and I’m cracking and my voice is breaking, it’s because I was just so moved in the moment and that was all just done at one time so there was no room for a breath. But I felt that it was so much better that way. It was so much more powerful instead of all pretty and melodic…all smooth, all Backstreet Boys. I wanted to be grimy and gritty and like, I know I will never know you, you’re obviously not with us anymore, but just know that with all my heart I wish I could have been there.

I love that song, like, it’s a horrible subject but it’s such a good song. And you can definitely hear the intensity in it.

Yeah. I think that is one of the songs that is sorely overlooked on this record. Not many people talk about it, and it bums me out!

We recently received a package from To Write Love On Her Arms and it had a bunch of stuff featuring Anberlin. We also got an email from the Pick Up The Phone Tour, which you are also a part of, and I was wondering why you think it’s important for everyone to know about these organizations?

Well, not just To Write Love but I feel like Pick Up The Phone and To Write Love are anti-depression and anti-suicide and that is awesome and I love the people that get involved with those organizations. But I feel like it’s more than that. I think people need to find a cause no matter if its with this, or Habitat For Humanity or the soup kitchen in your own community. Just get involved. I don’t care where just get involved. I like its our responsibility as humans to love each other and care about each others needs. And not be so egocentric. Anberlin is very involved with charities and stuff like that. We are very involved with this one called Faceless International that takes trips around the world fighting human trafficking and fair trade coffee in Guatemala. We’re going to the Ukraine to work at an orphanage and we’re going to L.A to help homeless. On a broad scale, I feel like every band because of the platform because of the fact we can do an interview and people will hopefully read it that we would get a chance to encourage people. There are some great websites, dosomething.org and also idealist.org are two great website where you can just type in your zip code and it will give you a list of things in your community that you can get involved with. And you don’t have to be an entertainer. There are positions for fourteen year olds to go read to kids at the YMCA after school so that they can learn how to read and get an education. Sometimes these are single parent families and they cant afford the daycare or they can't afford to read to their kids after school and we don’t want those kids to get caught by the wayside. So there is so much in your own community that you can get involved with. So whether you work with Faceless or whether you work with To Write Love, that is awesome. Do whatever you want, but just get involved.

We like to do a lot too!

Good! Do it! Every little bit helps! I have this vision, if I could get on a megaphone and tell every single human I the world, if everybody would just help one person, just pick one, this whole world would be a changed place over night. Like, what can I do for you? Or what can I do for you? Man this whole world would just take on a whole new outlook!

Okay, so you know about the random questions...

Yeah!

If you’re up for it?

Yeah absolutely!

Okay so what was your favorite dance craze?

Dance craze! See I could never dance though...

Manda: Okay, watching people do it!

Watching people?!

Manda: Yep, even just watching people.

I think…okay you guys are going to think I’m really weird but I love booty dancing! I think it’s the most hysterical thing I have ever seen! I just think, wait am I watching National Geographic right now? What is this? It is some trifling funny. I love it. (Laughs) Booty dancing. I wish I could do it. How fun would that be?! (Laughs)

Just do it tonight on stage!

I’m gunna do it. just drop down. Drop it like it’s hot! (Laughs)

(I feel you should all know that he actually started to try!)

You should! Just feed off of the crowd's reaction to that!

I’m gunna. I’m gunna be like, ‘alright everyone…booty dance! Everyone in this entire crowd, booty dance!’ (Laughs)

If you were a Carebear what would the picture on your tummy be?

Oh, a coffee mug! The power of coffee and ADHD!

What fashion trend, male or female absolutely confuses you?

There are several. I don’t get the neon with the gold chains. I can see that going away real fast! (Laughs)

How did it even come to be?!

Someone was looking through an eighties catalog and saw it and was like, ‘OH that is hideous…I’m gunna do that! I’m gunna find some hot purple and wear a gold chain. Wow that looks great!’ (Laughs) it will be going away real soon!

If you had to be one age for the rest of forever, how old would you be?

I think twenty-three was awesome. Twenty-three was a great year. So I would say twenty-three. Cause you’re not young and you’re not old. I would say eighteen but then no one takes you seriously. (laughs)

I’m twenty-two and no one takes me seriously now!

Aw, one more year!

I was hoping for this year though.

Nope, next year! Sorry! (laughs)

Out of the rejected names for Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, who would you be out of Biggy-Wiggy, Jaunty, Shifty, Scrappy...

Wait, wait, wait, Jaunty?! Wait what’s Jaunty?!

It’s like, cheery or happy or something like that!

(Laughs) Okay so, Biggy-Wiggy, Jaunty...?

Biggy-Wiggy, Jaunty, Shifty, Scrapy, Sleazy or Struty?

...I like Sleazy!(Laughs) That would be like a dude that’s…I’ve never met a dude that’s a…well no that’s kind of creepy! (He is mumbling something about sleazy the dwarf!) …okay, wait..do it again. Biggy-Wiggy, Jaunty

Shifty, Scrapy, Sleazy or Struty?

Struty’s cocky! So scrappy I feel is like James Dean, so I’m going with Scrappy!

You don’t want to be Biggy-Wiggy?

(Laughs) I feel like he is like…wow dude, you’re big! So he is a big guy, and he has a wig too?! That’s double! That’s horrible! You’ve got a fro and you’re a big guy! So I’ll go with Scrappy. I like it!

That’s awesome!

Good! Well thanks guys. I appreciate it!

We would like to thank Stephen from Anberlin for taking the time to talk to us again. Check out Anberlin at their website www.anberlin.com or their myspace www.myspace.com/anberlin.

To check out Faceless International, To Write Love On Her Arms or to find something in your community go to www.facelessinternational.com or www.twloha.com.

Also check out: www.dosomething.org or www.idealist.org.