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Here’s an article I wrote for Relevant Leader - a niche ministry publication by Relevant Magazine for leaders. Maybe that’s obvious:

I am a signpost. I admit it. It goes entirely against my job description, but time and again, I end up resorting to what comes easiest. Hence the signpost.

I am supposed to be a guide. I am called to be one who is on the journey with the community I lead. Instead, I usually just stand and point the way, showing the correct direction to go. I will just catch up with you all later. But for now, I will just let you all go ahead and experience what God has for yourselves. If you need me, I will be right here, pointing the way.

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Luckily for us, music is John Reuben’s primary obsession. At the same time, that also means that when things like NBA2K enter the picture, we go through spurts where we don’t hear from the creative force of Reuben’s hip-hop/pop approach.

We caught up with John recently to discuss his lack of updates and we found him in a period of writer’s block. That still didn’t keep him from letting us into his world through the hilarious and vulnerable and, as always, it’s just good to hear from the man himself.

SA: How many of these interviews are the same one right after the other?

John Reuben: I think early on every interview was the same because people just saw me as one guy. But over the years, you make enough music and people will ask about different things as far as what is behind the music. So I get very different types of interviews. I’m not sure if it’s that way for everybody or for whatever reason, for me…

Read the rest of the interview here.

From a small town in Florida to national stages with mainstream bands like Saliva to the artist roster of Tooth & Nail, the guys of Since October have taken the journey most rock bands hope for and they’ve done it on the backs of hard rock and persistence. Personal demos emailed to producer Travis Wyrick (P.O.D., Disciple) opened the door for the quartet and they’ve never looked back.

Since then, they continue to tour both in Christian and mainstream scenes and hope for success in both venues. So it was quite amusing to catch vocalist Ben Graham headed for the golf course. It was hardly the place I expected to reach the band and yet it’s just another example that Since October is a band that will continue to do their own thing, no matter what those around them are saying.

Read the rest of the interview here.

Tomorrow at this time, I will be nearing McCarran - the airport of choice in Las Vegas, NV. I will be traveling with my wife, Lindsay, as we escape for a few days for our second anniversary. Should be an exciting time of losing money, losing my blindingly white skin and losing the concerns of the church, websites and deadlines. Hope you all are well and I will check back in when I get back. (Posts will continue to run while I’m gone - gotta love the timestamp option!)

They’re still standing after all this time. A career birthed on the melancholic introspection of Adam Duritz, the band’s strong live show, vulnerable lyricism and strong musicianship has led Counting Crows through their share of hills and valleys, hits and misses and time in and out of the spotlight. It might have been Mr. Jones who introduced them to the musical world, but they quickly made themselves at home without his help.

While there have been a few singles or live releases littering the void, it’s been six years since the last proper studio release (2002’s Hard Candy) from Counting Crows. So it shouldn’t be a surprise the band’s latest, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings, is also their most thematic and thoughtful - an album intended for vinyl with two distinct sides and tones.

Guitarist David Immergluck tells us all about what happened during the down time, what happens on Saturday nights, working with Gil Norton again and what makes the band proud yet humble.

SSv: The whole theme of Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings as sin and regret… was that a whole band idea or was that Adam’s brainchild?

David Immergluck: It was definitely an Adam thing. He has his own feelings about Saturday night sins and Sunday morning regrets. You’ll have to talk to him about that one. My week consists of different days. [Laughs] My definition might be different than Adam’s although we tend to agree on a lot of that stuff.

You can read the rest of the interview here.

Wanting to update the archives here a bit by linking to some of the various interviews I’ve done recently for Soul-Audio - the Christian music site we launched on April 1st. Here are some recent conversations I had with Thousand Foot Krutch, Bebo Norman and Third Day.

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