Interview - downhere

This interview was a long, long time in coming: after protracted email tag and a computer crash on his end, downhere drummer Jeremy Thiessen was finally abducted by me, the intrepid journalist, at a festival a couple months after the band's sophomore album, So Much For Substitutes, was released through Warner Bros. Records. Read! Read, I tell you! Think of the children!

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sd: So the new album is out in stores, and you guys played a whole bunch of songs from it.
Jeremy: We've had a really positive reaction to it.

sd: Do you think it's gonna affect people more than the self-titled debut record did?
Jeremy: Gosh, I don't know about 'affect'. I think this album is a better representation of who we are. With the first record, people came to our shows and were like, "Wow, you guys are a lot more rock and roll than I thought - I like it!" So this time around we think we can represent live what the album is.

sd: So you don't consider yourselves a 'worship band' with 'rock tendencies'?
Jeremy: We're a rock and roll band! Worship is very much a part of who we are, but it's not necessarily a part of what we do.

sd: You signed with Word or whoever...didn't that label go under?
Jeremy: Yeah, Word is now Warner Brothers' Christian division.

sd: So [label president] Barry Landis is your boss!
Jeremy: He is. Barry Landis is a great man.

sd: He seems like God put him in a place where has a lot of power, and can get peoples' music into a lot of stereos.
Jeremy: Barry was actually mentored by Bob Briner, who wrote Roaring Lambs, and he's really passionate about what he does.

sd: So what was the highlight of this year for you guys so far?
Jeremy: I would say the new album's release. We're really excited about this record; we've been working on it since the beginning of December('02), so it's cool to have it out and finally be able to play the new songs.

sd: Where'd you guys come from before here?
Jeremy: We played the Skydome last night, actually.

sd: WHAT? With who??
Jeremy: Just us, actually; we played after a Jays-Expos game.

sd: No kidding!
Jeremy: Yeah, it was great. We played in the outfield.

sd: What kinda gig is that? Where'd that come from?
Jeremy: It was a great gig; Athletes in Action were putting on 'Athletes In Action Day'.

sd: Who won the game?
Jeremy: Expos did, actually. [BOOOOOOOOOO - ed] Both those teams are great this year.

sd: Jays have a lot more offense; their pitching needs some help though. Where are you guys headed from here? Back to the States?
Jeremy: Yeah, we head back to Nashville tomorrow, actually, and then we do a five-day tour in the southern states...it's basically nuts. We do a bunch of festivals this summer, and we all have either close friends or siblings getting married this summer, so we gotta take some time off for that.

sd: I read an article where you talked about how you'd been living in Nashville for like a year now, and that the city had 'sunk in'; Martin did the interview and said how he felt like he was living in Christianity Central - do you feel like that? Like there's so much of the same there that you have to get out on the road?
Jeremy: That's a good question...I think Nashville, the South, is just...it's the Bible belt. It's like Abbotsford, and the lower mainland of British Columbia: you don't ask people if they go to church, you ask them where they go, so it's cool to be a Christian, but a lot of it's very surface; it doesn't get very deep. I can see where Martin was coming from - we're from Canada, where it isn't 'cool' to be a Christian.

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[downhere]