Don’t call these guys a supergroup, or else two of the larger members -- guitarist Jeff Bellew and bassist Dirk Lemmenes -- might give you a superwelt up the side of your head. It is true that it’s not every day that ex-members from three popular bands -- The Crucified, Focused, The Blamed -- come together to form a group. The debut album is super, but this isn’t a supergroup.

“We’re just a bunch of guys playing music,” says Dirk. “I don’t know what was so super about any of the bands we were in before.” These musicians are not taking their past laurels and banking on them to bring in cash. Their former groups, predominantly of the hardcore variety, have little to do with the current direction Stavesacre is going in. “I don’t want people to think we’re gonna sound like The Crucified, but I also don’t want people to think that we sound anything like the Cornerstone show we played last year,” laughs vocalist Mark Soloman. “That was awful!” (referring to a short set of the three Stavesacre demo songs performed prior to the Argyle Park/Circle of Dust set)

It’s humble beginnings like this that may keep these guys down to earth. Prior to this first show, and even prior to being an official band, the guys just got together to play. “It was just something fun to do,” admits Jeff. “(A band) just wasn’t the plan at all. I’ve known Dirk for forever and a day. Obviously, we’ve known Mark for a while, and Mark was roommates with Jeremy for a while. It was just a mutual friend thing. We decided to just get together and make some punk rock. And, after playing together once, we just thought it would be more fun to do something a little more challenging. After the first couple times (they dropped the first tune they wrote), I think it really started to click that there was some special chemistry.”

“I agree,” says Dirk. “Jeff used to babysit me when I was kid. We’ve gone to church together, and I’ve known him forever, and he’s the one who kinda got me involved in music. We’ve always talked about doing a band, and it just never seemed to fall together, and then when he moved away to play in the Crucified, it kind of hindered the whole band thing. And then I was in Focused. Mark and Jeremy and I were just friends who decided to play music together. Me and Jeff kind of have similar tastes in music.”

“And we’re bigger than Mark and Jeremy,” says Jeff, “so we just forced our opinions on them (laughter).” According to Mark, the tune “Suffocate Me” was the first tune where things really clicked. “When that was going on, the whole time, we were like, ‘Well Lord, whatever You want.’ We all had peace in our hearts about it. I don’t have constantly anything in the back of my mind, saying, ‘Slow down,’ or whatever. We’re just kind of taking things at whatever pace that God provides, and whatever pace that we can manage. We’re just praying that He would lead us, and show us the difference between the two. People kind of tend to have a little more energy, sometimes, than God intended. I really knew, I think, that things were kind of rollin’ when we finished that one song, and were kind of settled into a place to practice, things just started rollin’ from there.”

It’s cool to see a band form with no agenda and then to create music that wasn’t bound by prior expectations. “We knew what we didn’t want to do,” says Mark, “and we knew some of an idea of what we did want to do. And we just sort of tried to work to balance it out and get it to a place where we felt comfortable with the music that we were playing and writing. There are definitely influences, you know, but I would say that we wanted to try to come up with our own sound. Not to sound like all deep and revolutionary, or anything like that . . . but, when people compare it, they might compare one song to somebody; but, as a whole, we wanted to go for something that people couldn’t listen to the album and go, ‘Oh, these guys sound just like so & so.’ We purposed to stay away from that, but stay within the kind of stuff that

we like.

“There’s like a soft side to it, and there’s a hard side. I’m 26. I’ve been playing music since I was 15. I’m not into screaming and yelling every five seconds and running around. I want to see if there are other emotions that are available to the music that we play. We didn’t try to go, ‘Okay, what’s gonna please the Crucified fans? What’s gonna please the Focused fans, or the Blamed fans.’ It was just like, ‘We’re really not too concerned about it. We’ll do what feels right, and God, bless us whatever way You want to.’ If the Crucified fans like it, that’s great, and if not, there is like 1,000 other bands that sound like the kind of stuff that they want to hear, so they can listen to them. And there’s some pretty good bands that are doing it.”

“This is one of the first bands that I’ve been in that has written a lot of the songs by just jamming together,” explains Jeff, “one guy’ll just spill out an idea and start playing. A lot of the early songs were done that way. I just love that.”

“It wasn’t like The Crucified, or Focused, or The Blamed,” adds drummer Jeremy Moffett, “with expectations of a certain sound, like, ‘Okay, we’ve gotta have a fast part here. We gotta make this hard,’ and stuff. One of our songs, ‘Burning Clean’ -- Dirk wrote that song 3 or 4 years ago, or something. All our songs, like our taste in music now, has been stuff that’s really been in our hearts to write and play. We’ve finally been able to start writing and playing.”

“There were definitely no expectations,” adds Jeff. “Like, on the harder stuff on the album, all the way to the soft, there was never like, ‘Do you think this part’s too mellow?’ or something. It was like, ‘Great! If you like it, it’s beautiful.’ It just kinda came out, and I think the album just has a wider range than a lot of the projects that a lot of us have been involved in so far.”

“We didn’t want to sound like a bunch of different things all mixed together, either,” counters Mark. “It seems that lately groups are playing something one minute and another thing the next, and it just doesn’t really gel. No one can ever really feel comfortable listening to that. We were looking for whatever emotions we could communicate. For us, there are emotions in the Christian life that are a lot more powerful than just being angry. There’s that fascination that I’ve been guilty of myself -- being angry. Showing the world, ‘Hey, we’re not a bunch of comatose people,’ or whatever. You know what I mean? We don’t act all flowery; but, at the same time, there’s righteous anger. There’s all those kinds of things. For us, we wanted to get across some of the desperation a person might feel. Maybe a peaceful feeling, like when you’ve gone through a valley and you’re up on a hill and you can look back at the valley. That’s a good feeling. We just learned to be a little more realistic, and provide a more honest picture of all of us. Not try to feel anything for anybody else. It’s just what we are, what we feel, and some of the things we’ve gone through. There’s plenty to write about.

“Lyrically speaking, the album is more personal than anything I’ve ever written. What I feel when I hear the lyrics on this album . . . I’ll never feel that hearing an old Crucified record. That’s sad, but it’s just a reality. And part of that isn’t because I didn’t care about the music. It has nothing to do with that. It’s just that I didn’t write about stuff that was real to me. I wrote about the Lord -- He’s real. But it’s one thing to sing about all the bad stuff in the world, and ‘you need God.’ You can do that in your sleep, man. But when it comes to writing about all the bad stuff in me, and all the stuff that shows me how bad I need God, then you’re starting to peer into some painful places. I was just committed to the Lord to write the best I could in the time we had. We were finished with that album seven months after we got together. You figure i

t out.

“But some of the lyrics, dude... My favorite song on the album ‘Burning Clean..’ God gave me those lyrics six hours before we did the song, before I tracked my vocals. I had written all these other lyrics; spent, like, days writing them, and all this stuff, trying to get just the right words and all that. I got in there, sang it, and the guys hated it. But, that was God’s will, because He had something else to say. And that song, man, that’s from my heart. It goes out to me, to my band members, and to all these other bands -- and to the kids that listen to it. Kids and adults now -- for those of us who are 26 and peering up higher.”

With the history behind this group, coupled with the trends in modern rock, it makes one wonder just who the Stavesacre audience will be. “I don’t even know if we have one,” confides Mark. “I’m terrified that we’re gonna go on the tour and no one’s gonna like us. We don’t know what to expect. We’re just kinda going out by the seat of our pants and whatever happens, happens. We like our music. We like what we’ve done, and we’re thankful with what we’ve been given, and that’s enough for me. It was great to have Crucified fans who would travel 500 miles to see you, even after they just saw you the night before. I don’t expect that, but I just hope the people that do listen to us dig it, and get something out of it -- if anything, something good to listen to while they’re driving home from work. I do want to say, in light of the lyrics, something that we didn’t notate in the album. I’ve been reading some excerpts of old C.S. Lewis stuff. I mean, that dude was just a poet beyond what anybody knows, and there’s some brutal paraphrasing from some of his work in the middle of ‘Threshold.’ So, don’t give me any credit. I think the dude was amazing, and I wanted to at least show some respect. As far as the Stavesacre audience goes, I don’t know. I’m not worried about it.”

“I think the Stavesacre audience is kids just like us,” supposes Jeremy. “They’ve listened to punk rock for a long time, and they’ve moved into hardcore or whatever . . . thrash music. And now they’re at a point where they’re ready to appreciate different types of music. Stavesacre still has really aggressive parts, and you can definitely see all of our punk or hardcore backgrounds or whatever you call it. The fact that we listen to more alternative or easy rock, or whatever kind of music you want to call it, is definitely apparent. I think that there’s a lot of kids out there exactly like that, who are into and can appreciate more than just the one dimensional side of hardcore music. I think those are the kids who are gonna like us.”

Is this like the person who ditches their Blue Oyster Cult albums to start listening to Neil Diamond or something? “I don’t know if it’s that bad,” answers Jeff. “I know that’s where a lot of us are coming from. We’re tired of being locked into something that’s so one dimensional. I know that when I listen to the bands that I used to like, like hardcore bands and stuff . . . I can still listen to them, because there’s some sort of emotional, or some sort of attachment, just because I know them so well from when I was younger. But, if I hear something new that’s right in the exact same school, it just doesn’t reach me anymore, because I don’t have that connection to it. It’s so one dimensional. I need something that has a little more depth to it. I think there’s a lot of people out there like that.”

“I don’t know if we want to present ourselves as some real mature kind of music,” questions Dirk. “It’s not like thirty-something people are gonna be into it.” “It’s not like they’re gonna be playing us at dinner parties or anything,” adds Jeff. “Any kid into aggressive music is gonna like it,” says Dirk, “but I think some of the kids that are strictly into the hardcore/punk stuff might not like some of the mellower songs and stuff. I think people who don’t know a whole lot about the bands that we used to be in are gonna be able to appreciate us right away. I think the older fans might not like us right away, but I think there’s definitely gonna be something that they can relate to.”

So, okay, Stavesacre is a separate entity than the three bands it came from. What are the individuals in Stavesacre going to do differently with this band than they did with their last? “Succeed,” quips Jeff. “Make a living. Do more than one album.”

“Grow together spiritually,” adds Dirk. “Keep each other accountable. Lots of spiritual stuff for me. Not that Focused wasn’t. We just didn’t hang out enough outside of the band, just growing with each other. It just kinda became the music scene pretty much. And it’s not that way with this band at all. We get together outside of practice all the time -- Pray together, hang out and go to movies, all that kinda stuff. I think we’re all definitely friends first. We have a great time together and we like similar music. It just happens that we all play instruments and we’re in a band together. But we’re all really good friends first.” “The biggest thing that I will do differently,” says Mark, “is approaching things on a daily basis with God, and being real with the Lord, and in my relationship with Him. That would be the root of it all. God loved the Crucified. He used us in a mighty way, in a lot of different ways, in a lot of different instances. But there was always something lacking -- whether it was a commitment from a person, or whether it was a relationship between a person and the Lord. It was like there was always something holding it back. I just think that approaching things a little more realistically and a little more seriously is gonna make all the difference. I don’t just mean approaching the music more seriously, I mean approaching my relationship with the guys in the band, and my relationship and responsibility to them as a brother in Christ.

“There was a lot of stuff that just kind of got swept under the rug with The Crucified. I pray that doesn’t happen. I don’t want that to be us. At the same time, there were a lot of unbiblical expectations put on The Crucified that I’m not going to accept. People tend to make up their own concept of what righteousness is, and it usually doesn’t have anything to do with the Bible. They usually can’t find anyone to live up to it, and they usually don’t live up to it themselves. We do that. We as Christians do that. We set up things that seem right, and for all intents and purposes, may seem right. But the truth is, that we come up with these things that just aren’t based on Scripture. And whether it seems right to you or not really isn’t the issue. It’s whether or not you can back it up with Scripture -- in context, and read the whole of the Word, rather than reading into part of the Word.”

“One example is the whole assumption that a Christian band is supposed to be a ministry. I don’t know where that came from, but that’s a really good example of it. To say that ‘A Christian band should use every opportunity they have to preach the Gospel and try to get people saved...’ Okay, to say that sounds perfectly cool. Only problem is that it’s never that easy. There’s a difference. Like, your relationship with God. Your number one priority is to bring glory to God, to honor and obey God. That’s number one. Number one is not to be an evangelist, number one is not to be a preacher or a teacher. Number one is to be pleasing in God’s sight. Everything comes after that. “There are some who are called to be preachers, some are called to be teachers and evangelists. But in that list, Ephesians 4:11 says: ‘And He gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ till we come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.’ That right there is Scripture. No where in there does it say, ‘Some prophets, some evangelists, some musicians.’ Musicians is not in there. It’s just a trade that a person learns how to do. If a person in a band is called by God to be an evangelist, that’s a whole different subject; but that’s exactly why you can’t generalize all these bands and say, ‘Hey, MxPx doesn’t do altar calls . . . they must not be serving God!’ That’s nonsense. It’s not biblically founded and it’s not coming from a person who’s listening to God. It’s coming from a person’s opinion, and what they’ve decided a Christian band should be.

“If the Lord puts on my heart to speak the Word, woe unto me if I don’t obey. But, if He doesn’t, and I still preach, woe unto me! I’ve spoken at a couple of the shows that we played. I thought, ‘Man, I’d better say something. These people are expecting me to preach, and they’re gonna think that we’re not walking with the Lord if we don’t.’ That is totally wrong motives. And you know what? You’re not gonna say anything that’s gonna help anybody. All you’re gonna do is speak a bunch of nonsense, most likely get tangled up in your words, and confuse everyone. But when the Lord is flowing, when the Lord puts it on a person’s heart to speak, if that person is a Christian, they won’t resist. They’re just gonna speak it. That’s when you know the difference. That’s when people get saved. That’s when people get saved for real.

“I can’t tell you how many times we’d gone into other towns, preached the Gospel, maybe somebody got saved, but I never saw ‘em again. I have no way of following up on what is accomplished. God is a God of order. Churches are set up because God sets those churches so that people who become saved have a place to go to be accountable, to grow, and to be under leadership. So, if a band is just blowing through town, preaching the gospel, and bails out, and has no way of offering any follow-up, how can you consider that a ministry set up by God? So basically what I’m talking about is just this whole self-righteousness. It’s not biblical, and I’m not gonna accept it, I’m not gonna feel guilty. I’m just gonna do what the Lord tells me to do. And that’s the way my brothers in the band feel. We’re gonna obey God, and not anybody else.”

Sounds like a lesson or two has been learned along the way for these guys. From Mark Soloman’s perspective, he appreciates the fact that people enjoyed and got a lot out of The Crucified; but it’s a past he’d rather forget. And, in some ways, he already has. “As far as I’m concerned, my life just started a couple years ago. The Crucified was part of our lives. It was terrifying and totally gratifying all at the same time. The best point of all the Crucified experiences that I had, regarding shows, was the last one (C-Stone ’95). I was just a different person at that show than I was at any other Crucified show.

“(Prior to that) I was promiscuous -- fornicating, and experiencing all kinds of stuff. I was a fornicator, man. I was a manipulator. I messed around with some drugs. I did a lot of stuff that was bad. I hurt a lot of people’s feelings, and I hurt a lot of people -- probably beyond what they are capable of forgiving. Even if they may not hate me, they probably won’t ever trust me again. That’s just the way it is. That’s just the way things went. That’s the way I lived. I was totally self-centered, and totally inconsiderate of other people most of the time. That stuff lasts for a while, but eventually it comes back and gets you -- it got me. I wrecked my whole life and the Lord put me back together. And that’s why, when people talk about The Crucified, I don’t even really want to go there, because that wasn’t me. That’s not me right now. I guess only time is gonna prove that. Cont'd on page 31

“I understand that people like that music, and that it meant a lot to a lot of people. I have a hard time comprehending that -- at least fully -- because it didn’t mean all that stuff to me. That’s what kids need to see. They don’t know the bands. You don’t know me. You don’t know any of those bands unless you know them outside of the music in their own lives. You don’t know ‘em. You’re getting one side, and that’s it. Maybe that side is a little more honest sometimes, but the truth is you can’t base anything on a record. Take what it is, and you leave it at that. Don’t go assuming too much. It’s dangerous. I think that applies for everybody too, like pastors. Pastors are always talking about how they struggle with stuff, and people are just like, ‘Oh, that’s really good to know.’ And they’re like, ‘But, I don’t really believe him.’”

Whether or not Stavesacre ever succeeds at making a living or not, they’ve already succeeded at one thing that is a prerequisite to growing in God’s kingdom -- honesty and repentance. As unpretentious as the modern rock/punk image is, nothing is more powerful than honesty that doesn’t hide. This can speak volumes more than a planned sermon from the stage. At other times, this band’s ministry might be something “as little as showing up on time for a gig and having a good attitude when things go wrong, and being professional,” says Jeff.

“You’d be surprised at what promoters will say to a band that shows up on time and acts like professionals. Our pastor was saying the other day how sometimes the biggest part of your ministry could be if someone comes up to you and asks, ‘Are you a Christian?’ Because obviously they were seeing something in you that was different. There’s a big difference in that and telling someone, ‘Hey, don’t do that around me, because I’m a Christian,’ and they go, ‘Oh really? We didn’t know.’ That’s what you don’t want. Most of us, that’s what we end up doing.”

Some may wonder if Stavesacre is compromising. After all, their producer was the guy who did Alice In Chains and White Zombie. How could they work with him? (Which is exactly the kind of accusations the band faced in some of its mail) “Working with him was a blessing,” counters Mark.

“We got to pray together every day before the sessions. That itself was a witness to the other people that worked there. We got to work things out when we had arguments, which we had plenty of, because Stavesacre is four people who are slightly opinionated. And a lot of times our opinions differ. That’s why the album’s called Friction -- one of the reasons why, at least. It was such a liberating experience working with real equipment, in a real studio, with a real producer that really knows what he’s doing.”

Jeff bellows in agreement, “Every band I know takes CD’s into the studio. Like, the bass player has his couple of CD’s that have the bass tone he wants and the guitar player has a couple. Well, half of the CD’s we brought, this guy did! If you’d say, ‘I want that guitar tone,’ I’m pretty sure he’s gonna get it for you, because he’s the one who got it for them.”

Besides the “Supergroup” title and the “compromising by working with that producer” accusation, the only other criticism the band wanted to address was the notion that the beginning of Stavesacre had something to do with the ending of Focused or The Blamed. Not so. “Stavesacre wasn’t the cause of any of those bands’ demise,” explains Dirk.

“Stavesacre was actually just thought of as each one of us was moving on. There are five separate bands that came out of the demise of Focused, so that’s kind of an indication that everyone there wanted to do something different.”

“It was really cool,” adds Jeremy, “because we were all so amazed knowing that it was God’s will for this, because everything was working out perfectly -- not only with ourselves, but with the other people we were doing projects with.” If only every new group could start with such ease.

With that question cleared up, there can be only one lingering thought left in the critical mind of us all: “Just what does that name mean -- Stavesacre? Surely there must be some shrouded meaning behind it all.” According to the band’s explanation, there is a definition to the name, which is exactly what Jeff stumbled upon. “Jeff likes to read the dictionary,” explains Mark. “I’m not kidding. He reads the dictionary.”

“I read a lot in general,” defends Jeff, “and I always look up the word I don’t know. I never just pass ‘em over, because I don’t like to assume. I don’t like to shun knowledge. I don’t like to be dumb. Words have always been a cool thing to me.” “He saw the name,” continues Mark, “liked the way it looked, liked the way it sounded, and that was it. It has no deep meaning. But I’m just waiting for the time when people have decided what the deep meaning is.”

Who would’ve guessed that a band formed out of The Blamed, The Crucified, and Focused would be named after a flower? Sounds more like a super groovy band than a supergroup. As much as you might enjoy this band’s music, just remember: don’t use that “super” word around these guys. Chances are Dirk and Jeff are bigger than you.