Christianity, the Grammys and Decemberadio
by Stace
I am pretty excited right now. I just found out that my new favorite band received a Grammy nomination. The band is called Decemberadio, and I could not be happier for them.
As an "on-air personality" (sounds so pretentious, I know) my job is to play the hits. As the network music director, my job is to find the hits. It’s a lot harder than it sounds.
I think it was April 2006 when one of my smaller-label reps called me and asked if it would be possible to bring in this group, Decemberadio. They had generated some buzz at the Gospel Music Association’s convention earlier in the month, and he thought it would be a great opportunity for the band to get some face time with our station.
I take artist meetings with a grain of salt. I probably get 50 CDs on my desk a week and numerous e-mails. With my crazy schedule on the morning show, and trying to schedule music, handle meetings, etc., my day can get pretty frazzled. But, as a self-described music geek, I also love, and am ultimately all about, the music. So I really make an effort to make myself available to the artists and at least hear them out.
My first impression of Decemberadio was that they were very Southern Rock. That kind of threw me for a loop. Contemporary Christian radio is not really known as a Southern Rock thing. Their look sort of paid homage to the Black Crowes and Lynyrd Skynyrd, certainly not the clean-cut look of a Jeremy Camp. But since I’m a fan of the Crowes, I thought this could be cool.
I was blown away. Decemberadio is straight-up Southern Rock. The boys can wail. As I was sitting in the comfort of our little radio station’s lounge, I found myself harkening back to the summer nights of my teens, where the air was warm and the tunes were hot. I felt like I was back in rock radio, a genre that was both comforting and familiar at the same time. I felt a true kinship to these longhaired Virginia boys.
After their mini-set, we kicked back for a bit, sharing stories of bands we admired. I wasn’t surprised, musically speaking, to find that Led Zeppelin and the Black Crowes were at the top of their musical heroes list, but I was a bit surprised to hear a Christian band talking about how much they loved those rock gods. Listening to Decemberadio left no mystery as to where their hearts lie, and listening to their music left no mystery to the fact that they were rockers.
And so, a whole new can of worms was opened. I have often wondered, in my year and a half of working for a Christian radio network, why it was that we had to be pigeonholed. Why does there have to be a choice to either be a rocker or a Christian? Decemberadio answered it in the simplest of forms: You don’t have to choose.
The cool thing about Decemberadio is that they are breaking down the stereotype of what being people of faith can be. And whether you’re Christian, Buddist, Jewish or whatever, the point is the same. Living your beliefs and making art out of what’s real to you is what great art is all about.
