The guys of Bad Christian recently spoke to BreatheCast about a number of topics not often broached in Christianity. In part one of their interview we spoke of Christians cursing, in part two Michael Gungor's comments, and now they talk so called "Christian bands."

Over the past couple of years members of known or formerly known Christian bands have come out to denounce their Christianity or even deny they were even a Christian band at all. Most cite themselves being young and having their ideas and thought process change as they became older. One such extreme example is Tim Lambesis of As I Lay Dying. He became an Atheist and while struggling with his demons attempted to put a hit on his wife. He is now serving jail time for his actions and claims he has come back to the Lord.

Another such example is Dave Bazan of popular '90s Tooth & Nail Christian band Pedro the Lion. Bazan was one of the more poignant and deep Christian songwriter's throughout the '90s as his music will influence many artists to come, including Toby Morrell and Matt Cater of BCP and Emery. He was a guest on the show and shared that he was no longer a believer, but an Atheist.

Chris Dudley, keyboardist of popular Christian metalcore band UnderOath, was also a guest on the show, and he revealed by the time the band disbanded not everyone was saved. In a recent non-Bad Christian Podcast interview Mike Herrera, frontman of longtime Tooth & Nail punk band MxPx, also expressed he was no longer a practicing Christian.

(Photo : Facebook: Bad Christian)

BreatheCast asked BCP about Christian music and whether their experiences in Emery have opened them up to see masquerading Christian artists, or if the bands they toured with had solid faith from the beginning, and if they were still believing.

"If you have a band with five Christians...more than a 50 percent chance all of them won't remain," replied Carter.

Morrell chimed in, "It's actually really difficult. There's people who won't go on our podcast that we're friends with that don't want to talk about it. 'Never talk religion and politics.' If you say anything outside of mainstream Christianity, you are black balled." case and point would be Gungor.

He said if you are a Christian artist you can not even question anything. He also said while there are people who are fake and make money off of it, it is mostly not the case.

"People want Christian people to be a certain way, trust me, it will exist," Carter said, referring to the habit of responding to the demand of the music rather than changing the culture. Carter also admitted that it is not necessarily easy to weed out the true Christians and the "fake" Christians because if they went to a bar and had a conversation after the show you would not be able to tell the difference.

"Obviously what you put on stage is performance. The way people act is not real," Carter said, "The people who seem to be the most Christian, the behavior of a total non-Christian band is pretty much the same."

He said there are obviously bands that do drugs and are heavy into drinking, but Emery has stayed pretty grounded throughout the course of their careers although the opportunity to stumble has always been there.

Perhaps some of these bands did not have the right set of believers surrounding them, maybe their faith was not strong enough to fight temptation, or just maybe they made the choices out of their own volition and growth.

When Kevin Max was on the podcast, he was asked similar questions by BCP regarding "sex, drugs, and rock & roll." His former group DC Talk, along with TobyMac and Michael Tait, was arguably one of, if not the biggest, Christian acts of all time. They did this unashamed, but surely there had to be some sort of stumbling block?

(Photo :DC Talk Michael, Toby, Kevin )

"There were a lot of people looking for holes in it..." Max said, alluding to the band perhaps participating in drug use or meeting girls back stage, "We tried to keep a very high level of social awareness and be real to ourselves and keep each other accountable."

"We were pretty squeaky clean, and we took it seriously," as Max knew that if DC Talk was going to stand for such a huge statement in Christ, they needed to be legit. They even wrote the song "What If I Stumble" to show they were flawed human beings just like everyone else.

He said they were working so much and doing projects all the time so there were not a lot of distractions. The group had a road pastor to get everyone together and help break any tension and meet in scripture and prayer.

Whether this is the case for other Christian bands or not, the importance of staying grounded in your faith no matter what sort of pedestal you are on is important, which is also something not lost on the guys BCP who are aware of themselves having a platform.

"Some of the stuff we said is probably wrong, and we don't want to be presented in a way where everyone needs to listen to us because we are the smart the guys. We are pretty convicted by a lot of the things we say," said Joey Svendsen.

Thanks for reading our three part interview with Matt, Toby, and Joey of Bad Christian. Be sure to read part one here and part two here.
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