Nathan - Luckily I have been blessed to be in a Christian home pretty much all of my life. I got saved when I was eight years old by my father. I've been raised in the church and blessed to be surrounded by an amazing family. But I think it made me too comfortable with staying within the family and not going out of my comfort zone. I think that with any ministry, you should be stepping out of your comfort zone. With us being in a band, and being in these kids' lives for even an hour a night, it's really something that will make you nervous. I want to leave knowing that we had a positive effect on them. In a way I feel like this is us going out of our comfort zone.
Dan - I grew up in a Christian home as well and made a decision to follow Christ and was baptized by my dad as well when I was nine. But I kind of had crazy teenage years, like you were saying. It's kind of a cliché' but whatever. Whenever I really decided to follow Christ and make it a true walk, the biggest thing I found was hope in knowing that this life is not all that there is. It's something that sounds really depressing but I feel the same way that the apostle Paul did when, in Corinthians, he talked about being torn because he wanted to go be with Christ, but he knew he still needed to be here. An even though he was torn, there was still that passionate hope that came from knowing that we are all aliens to this earth and this is not all there is. That was the biggest thing for me. No matter what happens, there's that eternal hope in Christ Jesus. That goes right into the ministry aspect because we're here for a purpose. We love music and we love making the best music that we possibly can, but ultimately, as Christians, our job is to make a difference in people's lives for Christ. One of the biggest things I've learned is that if you can really make a difference in one person's life, you've done your job. When Christ talks about a farmer having a hundred sheep and he loses that one and he goes out and looks for that one. Not putting that much focus on quantity ... making it about one. After shows is huge for us because we love talking to fans. A lot of times you end up talking to 50 people about nothing, but if you can just talk to one person about something of substance, putting Christ's name in there more than other band's names, it's really connecting. It's not about "Oh we played in front of 20,000 people tonight. Aren't we great?"
Kim - Who writes the music?
Dan - All of us do.
Ben - Dan and I do the groundwork with the music and the lyrics and then we bring it to Tom and Nate and they write their own parts pretty much.
Dan - The basic idea is that we write it, but the arranging and completing we all do.
Kim - Do you sit down and just write or does God tug you on the sleeve and say "Dan - write"?
Dan - We've had both. For this record we had about 30 song ideas but some of them just weren't clicking. So there were days that Ben and I would get together and say, "You know, we need to write. We're gonna write in this key or this timing and just do it." It was really tough. There were other days and I would come in and he would say something like "Hey dude, I was singing this tune in the shower". Whether we feel like God is telling us or no, it's us needing to do it. When we show it to Tom and Nate we're fortunate that nine times out of ten they pretty much like the basic ideas. If they don't then we know it's just not working. Then all four of us sit down. There were some days when it was really tough. We had to hash through it since it's our job. Those were the days that, at the end of the day, you're like "Wow ... that was awesome", but during it it can be grueling. Before, when it wasn't our job and it was just a hobby, we would just write when we felt like it. We would end up only writing five songs a year like that.
Kim - Is there anything that you want the world to know about Forever Changed or yourselves personally that we can close this up with? I know that your dinner break is over and you need to get in there and sound check.
Tom - Actually I've got one. If Chuck Norris reads this, we really want to meet you! Please contact us. We love you and want to meet you to give you big hugs!
