Relient K has another
big force behind it
Sean Moeller - June 8, 2005
There's a fine balance that has to be attended to when intermixing the spirituality of a higher power with rock 'n' roll that isn't damningly mother-approved (in this case Father-approved) and meant exclusively for the church retreat camp crowd ---- those poor souls forbidden from listening to anything that even closely resembles the devil's music.
Singing about grace and redemption and meaning the capitalized version of "he" every time it comes up in a lyric has a certain stigmatism attached to it that can make it poison to those who'd rather worship away from the stereo. Few bands have been able to sound attractive enough to the nondenominational that they'd bob their heads hard regardless of content.
But Canton, Ohio-based pop-punk band Relient K has more than found its happy place in the discriminatory world of music and pop culture, with its latest release and first on monolith Capitol Records, "Mmhmm." It's wholesome, for sure (no cursing, innuendos or undertones), but it's sneaky about it. The Christian messages are cloaked, making them messages just like any other. It's a less obvious record than the band's three previous releases have been. Or so it seems from the outside. But lead singer/guitarist Matt Thiessen says his faith is more evident than it's ever been.
"I feel like the spirituality content is even more potent on the new record. I think it might be more hidden, but there's more of it. And I feel that that's the way spirituality can be," he said from the band's tour bus as it neared Atlantic City, N.J., a place where he admitted he'd mull playing a little roulette. "Stuff doesn't have to jump out at you all the time. It can be in the grain."
This, the band's fourth full-length, was latched onto quickly, selling 51,473 copies in its first week last November and debuting at No. 15 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. It's well on its way to joining "Two Lefts Don't Make a Right ... But Three Do" as the group's second consecutive album to be certified gold. That 2003 album also garnered a Grammy nomination for modern rock album of the year. Just off a huge arena tour of second-tier cities with mega punks Good Charlotte and Simple Plan, the 7-year-old band's set to tap into a whole other niche of fans when it plays all the nooks and crannies of North America on the dehydrating, two-month Vans Warped Tour.
"We're looking at the Warped Tour and we're shaking out of our boots," Thiessen said of the long drives, longer days and being in unfamiliar surroundings. "We've never done Warped before. I'm not even sure if we were asked to do it last year. We're not really scared, but we just want to be really respectful of the festival and not make anybody mad. We kind of feel like the freshmen, so we want to be real cool and slip in the back door."
Over the years, Thiessen, bassist Matt Hoopes and drummer Dave Douglas have toured with God-fearing Switchfoot and they've shared a long-distance admiration for what tattooed Washington state punks MxPx have stayed true to for more than a decade. On "Mmhmm," the band received guest vocals from recently born-again Superdrag singer John Davis to go along with some of the biggest and hookiest choruses Thiessen's ever written. They're the kind that Bowling for Soup has made a recent living off and the sort that Rivers Cuomo has been trying unsuccessfully to capture since Weezer released "Pinkerton" all those years ago.
"Switchfoot have always been big brothers to us," Thiessen said. "We all feel like we belong in the same place. And with MxPx, I've always liked how they've kept doing what they do. They aren't afraid to rock, but the subtlety's there, too."