Anberlin
Henry Ford Music Box Theater
Los Angeles
3-25-06
Interview with Stephen Christian by Jim Steinfeldt
Photos by Jim Steinfeldt
J.S. Where did you start writing your new CD ”Never Take Friendship Personal”
S.C. My father told me his old roommate used to write 2 science fiction short stories everyday and when he was done he would throw them away. It was just to get practice with creating characters. I was inspired by this and so I started writing everyday at least 12 poems a night. Maybe just a few words per poem. “Pillow good night” just a Haiku. I kept all of these writings and have a crate full of journals. They’re horrible. Phrases like “I like the wind it’s so pretty” I was just a kid trying to be intellectual. Previous to this I had been the 12 year old kid who jumps on his bed with a broomstick for a guitar. Now I still keep a journal and put down a line when it strikes me. Perhaps a comment someone makes that effects me. I write down what their comment makes me feel. That way I can go back and by reading it relive the emotion I felt at the time and it helps me write songs. A lot of times when you go through a life experience it isn’t as bad when you look at it down the road. So re-reading my journals I can revisit the emotions with the strength that they had at the time. I want to remember the emotion, be it harsh or inspiring. Hopefully in 20 years my kids will be able to look through my journals and see my successes and failures and say “I’m not going to do that—look at how that screwed things up for dad” or “This was where dad found his dreams or passions.”
I really wasn’t much of a musician in those early years but concentrated on the writing. Eventually I found my dad’s acoustic guitar and started getting into bands and did the singing. Singing is what I’ve always done. I didn’t start out writing songs with the early bands but when I reviewed my poems and journals I was inspired to start writing songs. I was excited to learn that Kurt Cobain kept a lot of journals with poems and thoughts and drawings before he started writing songs.
J.S. Tell me about the music writing
S.C. Joey Milligan does the majority of the music writing. Anything I do is just a 4 chord thing I come up with on my guitar. I’ll say this is a melody line—it goes something like this and he takes it from there. I don’t want to compare myself with John and Paul (Lennon & McCartney) but it feels like Joey and I have a similar chemistry in that I can collaborate with Joey so easily. He leaves things wide open for a melody line. It’s taken years for us to figure that out.
J.S. Do you have a video
S.C. We just came out with a video. Comes out in 10 days on MTV2 and it’s been exclusive on myspace for a week now and gotten great response. 15,000 plays in 2 days. Chris Sims is the producer. He does a lot of Hard Core bands and we are his first Rock band. The song is very emotive and talks about things that happened in the band. One of our members lost his 29 year old sister to cancer and left a 1 1/2 year old son. The experience felt like getting hit with a baseball bat. We watched the decay and no matter how hard we fought or cried or argued with the doctors there was nothing that could be done. None of us know when or where the end is. And out of that is where the song came from. Out of the frustration and hurt. We rented an abandoned hospital here in LA and placed the major scene in the operating room with a guy and girl and they’re friends but you don’t know what the relationship is. Other scenes, with the band, take place in the hallways. The punchy guitars and vocals take you along emotionally.
J.S. Where do you guys call home?
S.C. Orlando Fl. The center of boy bands. A bit touristy but we are actually from a small town near Orlando called Winterhaven. It’s a very small town with only 30,000 people and they don’t know anything about us. Orlando loves us. Orlando says Anberlin is the biggest band to come out of here in a long time but our actual home town doesn’t know we exist.
J.S. How long have you been on tour?
S.C. This is only our 8th day of this tour and we started in New Orleans. We typically tour about 10 months a year either recording or performing. I love this job, this career, meeting new people and seeing new places. I love that I can tell you what restaurant to go to if you are going to a certain town. I love seeing new bands. I just can’t see living any other life.
J.S. Do you feel you have fully formed your NEXT cd?
S.C. We’re about 1/4 of the way there. Our guitarist has about 15 songs we can pick from. He’s a machine and can crank out songs with his guitar and tape recorder. I however can’t work that way. For me inspiration has to be like a hammer. As a singer I have to wear so many hats. I have to come up with a melody line, a syllable line, lyrics with a poetry to them such as e. e. cummings and be inspirational. I go back to the Beatles model and think about a melody that will tick in people’s heads. It’s hard to do all that at once. You can’t just snap your fingers.
J.S. What do you like to read?
S.C. I love to read and there is so much I can learn from other people. Take it, digest it and spit it out in song. Glass to the Arson a song from our last album was based on Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World but in my way with my circumstances. The last book I read was Freakanomics which was a view on sociology in our world. I’m reading Tipping Point, a marketing book. I am so interested in things I now nothing about. I read Rich Dad Poor Dad. I learned if you don’t know about something, teach yourself, read a book. I knew nothing about bonds so I bought a book about bonds and learned something about it. I knew nothing about Blues music so I read a book about the history and got to know about the characters who created the music. When I started listening to the music it gave me a special insight to have learned about these songwriters before I heard their music. So now my favorite song is Buddy Guy’s “I Live The Life I love And I Love The Life I Live.” I listen to it 5 times a day. If you are naive about something just learn something about it. For instance Marenque and Salsa dances. I don’t know anything about it but why not just go out there and learn it. Life is worth living and experiencing. The ups and downs the successes and failures. So I just want to live it. The great thing about this country is that you can do anything you want. It doesn’t matter what class you are or the color of your skin or anything. You can do anything you want. Now there may be some limits. I’m not going to be president of the United States. I didn’t go to Harvard or Yale. I’m not interested in law. I play music. But I can still go out and try. I could try to be president of the United States. I’m sure if I put my motivation to it I could become at least mayor or a congressman. Why not. Life is such a gift, it’s so precious why not go experience it.
Show Review:
Anberlin played a great set to a full house at the Henry Fonda Music BoxTheater. The crowd, mostly in their teens and early twenties, sang along with every song. The lucky ones were able to crowd the stage and take photos with their pocket cameras and cel phones and slap hands with the band. Stephen Christian the lead singer performed like the seasoned pro he is, having been playing with his bassist and guitarist for about a decade. The rest of the band played with passion and created a terrific show. The excellent sound mix and lighting adding significantly.
All photos © Jim Steinfeldt.
um. I doubt it’s gonna burst. We’ve been thinking that about Seattle for over thirty years now. Even with 50K people leaving the Bellevue area last year, our house just went up over 100K in value. PS I was a real estate agent for nearly 20 years. Why would you want to live in a city where you can get a condo for 70 grand?
affordable housing
Not familiar with Seattle really, although I’ve read it’s expensive there too, but only one place is pricier to buy a home than San Diego now and that’s San Fransisco. Thing is, SF has a better job market so people can better afford to live there. We even pay more than the antional average for gas. It’s across the board — everything’s more expensive in San Diego. San Diego is recognised as having the highest cost-of-living to earning ratio in the nation now. Maybe that will change and get better, I don’t know. But for more big companies to come here and improve the job market the economy has to be more reasonable for its labor pool.
People are already starting to get less than they’re asking for in real estate here. It’s not like in 2000 to 2004 when a listing went up and immediately 3 or 4 buyers out-bid eachother and drive up the asking price.
Paying 70 grand for an apartment is reasonable. They were going for that here in San Diego 15 years ago or so and wages were not that much less then for the majority of the people who work. Most people who are self employed like me have noticed a significant rise in their pay scale in the last 4 years but it hasn’t quadrupled like the price of houses have here. Plus, historically most jobs had better health care packages than they do now so if you got sick you spent less money and had better care, so you missed less time at work.
Unless it’s a really safe short-term investment why would someone want to spend almost $2000 in mortgage on a condo when the only thing they’d really own is the “air space” between the walls and not the building or the land? And they can also raise the association fees on you over time.