Interview :: Shane & Shane

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Shane & Shane about their musical development over the last 16 years, their Worship Initiative project, and their latest major-label release [aptly named] The Worship Initiative. While both Shane’s were on the line, Shane Barnard took the lead answering the questions.

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conversation has been minimally edited for the sake of clarity

Ryan: Back in August of 1999 I moved to Lubbock, TX. My very first weekend on campus, I saw Shane Barnard play for the first time at Southcrest Baptist Church. Musically speaking, what have been some of the big growths and changes that have happened since then that define where you’ve been and where you’re at now?

Shane B.: There have been so many and it’s kind of hard to see when you’re so close to it because there are so many hundreds of things that have influenced and changed that. I would say, mainly, back then I didn’t have any kind of history in music at all. So, when I started to play right around that time I was just brand new. Not even a couple of years before then I had the first thought: “I need to sound good.” That was a foreign thought because I never grew up singing, there was no music in my family. So, I think the main thing that’s happened has been developing some patterns and finding things that I like. I think that [I’ve discovered] the beauty of simplicity. Back then I just sort of freaked out most of the time, musically. “How loud can I scream? How fast can I strum? That always equals better.” So, I think [I’ve developed] a little more of a musical taste since then, and that’s been a really big difference. The way that I’ve grown I’ve developed an appreciation for a simple groove that’s just right on and a simple vocal that’s not in the rafters.

Ryan: I’ve followed along with the Worship Initiative project since you launched it last year on Kickstarter, but I wanted to ask you about what the real impetus was behind wanting to do that. I understand what you’re trying to do, but were you seeing something out there as you were interacting with people that said “wow, this is a real need” or “there’s a real gap”? What was the driving force?

Shane B.: The closest encounter we’ve had to that is that we did a songwriting class for 5 years. We would walk with young artists and worship leaders in college by meeting up at our studio 12 at a time each semester. And we’ve always met with worship teams and artists along the way as we travel, but having a close-up, week-by-week relationship with these students we saw a huge need for discipleship. That combined with a passion and a conviction as we would go through the Scripture and see what Jesus has asked us to do in making disciples.

So, we looked at our lives and thought that making as many Gospel-centered disciples as we can from here on out until we die is probably a really good thing. After all those years of getting into the lives of these students and we started to find out that for most of them a lot of their hope was caught up in what people thought about them, what the future would bring, what kind of success they could have. At the end of the day, if you asked them what their passion was, it was pretty far from the person of Jesus. But until [we die to our self] nothing ever really happens. So, within the music community as a whole, the harvest is white.

There are tons of people – thousands upon thousands of people – within the music community at church: players and strummers, people who have been classically trained in piano jumping into the band, lots of worship leaders getting started – maybe a firefighter who kind of leads worship and goes to a small church… There’s this whole group of people that maybe think that preacher is the one who needs to focus on the Scripture and do the teacher thing and I’m just the singer-person. So, we’re trying to call that out a little bit and consider what we are called to do Biblically as musicians.

Ryan: You obviously have a passion for teaching, behind the scenes. As you are on the stage or as you are recording, how much do you feel it is your role to teach theology to the church through worship?

Shane B.: A lot. (laughs) A lot our role. We’re totally into that. When we first started the Worship Initiative it was like: stage one, let’s do the 100 songs that the church is singing. That’s pretty much what we did – barring any song that was way off. And then we surrounded those songs with Bible studies to point people to the Scripture. So that’s where we started. People want to learn the song “Oceans” so we did that to get them in and once they are in we can begin pouring into their lives.

I think a lot of songs to come, that’s what we’re after. Theology inside of our doxology is it. We have the chance of a lifetime to inform people of who God really is inside of music. That is at the top of the priority list, for sure.

Ryan: As you were going through that process, were there any songs that you didn’t agree with theologically? Did anything not make the cut because of that?

Shane B.: Nothing comes to mind. We didn’t come across a lot of those songs in the very top of the list. There are a few where here and there we would change a lyric and just hope that nobody sees it – because a little change can make a big impact.

Often we get the question of “do you lead a song by a certain ‘camp’?” because when you’re leading that song, you are sort of embracing that group and sending people there and the teaching may be kind of off. That is a genuine concern. It’s hard to find the line of that even when we look at our hymn writers. The guy who wrote “It is Well” went off the rocker at the end of the day. Do we throw out the song “It is Well” because his life and his theology suffered later after that?

So, it’s hard to find the line. I think we have a responsibility as pastors to say, “this is true.” We don’t have to push people into any camp. If there’s a song that is Biblical truth put into music, we’re probably going to embrace it and say this is a great song to get behind. We understand the concern and we’re not really trying to endorse a camp, say Hillsong or Bethel, but really just get people into a place where they can get discipled in truth. But also we want to wrap some truth around those songs. So we’ve gotten our three favorite writers at Desiring God to write Bible studies around every song. So you get songs that are beautiful and metaphoric like “Oceans” or “You Make Me Brave.” Some of these songs could mean a variety of things so we just wrap some truth around it and equip worship pastors with that truth.

Ryan: So, when you’re recording these kinds of songs, how do you maintain the authenticity of the experience of worship in the studio say when you’re on the 26th vocal take of singing “Alleluia”? How do you translate that live experience into the recording process and keep it engaging to the listener?

Shane B: We did 100 songs in a little over a month, but we didn’t sing them [at that time]. I would say that probably 70 out of 100 were super enjoyable and the other 30 were really difficult to get through. We did it just like a worship band, though. I would get in early, come up with an arrangement, and then we would just play it through as a band. Because we were capturing everything on video, we had to play it. There was no “punching in” or “punching out,” we had to play it just like a band would play it. So, that was kind of a cool part because we were kind of like a church band. On Sunday morning there are no start-overs or do-it-agains, you just play the song.

Then, over the course of the next six months, it was mostly really sweet for me. I would come up to the studio most every day that we were in town and crawl into my little vocal booth that used to be a bathroom and put a lot of reverb on my vocal and I would just be tracking alone. We have a computer in there so I can mirror the computer in the control room and I would just get a good mix. In trying to get a vision for 100 songs, I knew I had to make it enjoyable. So I would set up a rough mix of the song, I had good reverb, it would sound like I was in a cathedral and I would just try to have a devotional experience.

Some of these songs I had never even come close to singing before, so I would literally have to learn the song. So, I would sing it through like fifteen times just trying to get the hang of it. But it was actually very sweet. I mean, I cried maybe 20 times just in this little room by myself singing these songs to Him. I didn’t know how it would go, but we did twelve full records in not even a year so it was just a steady pace of tucking inside a little room for several hours a day and trying to think about the Lord through these songs.

Ryan: Did you do anything different to adapt your production process on the official label release that just came out?

Shane B.: We were a little bit more choosy on the songs to take the time and really think about it. On the first hundred songs, the first thirty came really easy. The second thirty was kind of difficult. And the last thirty was nearly impossible to figure out which ones we were going to do. This time we had more time leading up, so there were about five songs that we knew for sure [we wanted to do].

I would say our favorite song on the record – I think it’s the second song – is “Seas of Crimson.” A new Bethel CD had come out and Shane was listening to it while we were recording. We already had a set list and Shane was pushing for a few songs, including this one but it was way out there and it was hard for me to wrap my mind around it. Their new record is so artsy and creative and it took probably a year for them to make it. And the song wasn’t produced in a corporate worship manner at all, so it was hard but he thought it would be awesome. So, we gave it a shot and it ended up being, by far, our favorite song on the record. So some of it just happened on the fly like that.

Audio Adrenaline: Sound of the Saints

Release Date: March 4, 2015

Bands change. It’s been hard for me to accept that, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized it’s true. From Dio-era Black Sabbath to Van Hagar, bands not only change their personnel, but also their sound. I was both excited and intrigued when the band reformed a few years back with one of the greatest vocalists ever (Kevin Max) as their frontman. I was much more skeptical this time around as a whole new group of musicians took up the banner of a group with over two decades of history.

If you were to hand me a copy of Sound of the Saints and tell me, “name that band,” there’s no way that I could do it. This does not sound like any of the previous iterations of the group. And though we are aware that bands change, it’s only fair to go into this record eyes and ears open to the fact that you’re going to be getting something else. What you’re getting is a really solid, radio-ready record full of great hooks and fantastic melodies.

The album opener, “Move”, has gotten my 6 year old amped for soccer practice and inspired him to showcase his ninja skills against the mighty foe of our living room couch. No wonder it’s being used by NFL network, MLB network, and WWE. It’s fantastically well-crafted and is one of the band’s favorite songs on the record. The lead single, “Love Was Stronger”, is straight forward if not heavy handed but it does a great job of drawing the listener in and inviting them to sing along. “Miracles” and “World Changers”are also among the top tracks on the record.

The title track, “Sound of the Saints”, is notable as it was co-written by founding lead-singer Mark Stewart. What’s interesting is that this track represent the farthest deviation from the band’s original sound. Its folksy, camp-fire sound is echoed on “Spirit Burn.” “Saved My Soul” sounds like something that would have been well-suited for former vocalist Max.

This band means a lot to me, personally. As I told new lead singer, Adam Agee, the band’s bloom record really introduced me to “Christian Rock” music – and in going back and listening today, that album holds up surprisingly well. That’s the kind of record I want to hear when the name Audio Adrenaline comes to mind. But even the sound of that version of the band went through stages. bloom (in my opinion) was a great example of that trial-and-error finding its perfect spot. They repeated that sound, in large part, on the follow-up Some Kind of Zombie. But after that, their sound leaned a lot more toward the center and away from the edginess they had once offered.

One thing, however, that has continued to bother me, I think is worth mentioning. The original band never shied away from their Christian message, but their songs were rarely “on the nose.” They took more of the teen angst and uncertainty and inserted a Christian worldview into it. This record, however, is nothing if not explicitly evangelical… and that’s fine, I just think that it really shrinks the potential audience – especially folks like Agee and myself who discovered Christian rock music through the band.

Still, this record is perhaps the logical next step of melding mainstream CCM with a rock edge. As I mentioned, this record is well-suited for Christian radio, especially the likes of Air1. In fact, I would say that it is better than the vast majority of what is out there in this category – but it’s still hard for me to call it Audio Adrenaline, and it probably always will be.

P.S. listening back through the band’s catalog and hearing Mark Stewart’s voice get weaker and weaker with each record is so thoroughly heart-breaking and makes his brief appearance on their previous record all the more sweet.