The Turning - Interview with RKT Records' The Turning

(l to r) - Jeff Goff (bass), Jeremy Little (drums), Jacob McGinnis (vocals, guitar), Matt Warren (guitar)

MQ: How do you see technology affecting what you do?

Matt: Technology is a double-edged sword for the music industry. There are now microwaves with MP3 players on them. Everything in the world can play music now. But, there are also so many more opportunities for people to get music without paying for it. I think [the technology] is awesome. We have totally utilized as many tools as possible. MySpace has been phenomenal. It is a free website that we've used to market ourselves and gather a fan base.

Jeff: And keep in touch with our fan base.

Matt: - And communicate on various levels with fans - post videos, so on and so forth. It's awesome. It's scary, because we're in a culture that doesn't value the arts as much as, I guess, it used to. Some people are just taking art for free. So, it's tough. Technology, like I said, it's a double-edged sword. There's a lot of advantages - recording an album. What you can do in someone's house now as opposed to having to pay almost one hundred thousand dollars to do a recording on all this vintage gear. But now, you can do it on your home computer and get a pretty good product. There are a lot of great things about it and a lot of scary things about it.

MQ: Did I read where you were finishing Don Miller's 'Blue Like Jazz'. Do you want to talk about that?

Matt: It was a book that was kind of in and out of our lives for a couple of different reasons. Our road manager read through it and was like, "Hey guys - you should check this out." We didn't think much about it. My wife led a Bible study of women at our church in it. We didn't think much about it. Then eventually, we ended up with Rocketown and Jim Chaffee who is working with Rocketown and he manages Don Miller. He's like, "Guys, I'll give you copies. Just read it." So, we finally ended up with copies. I was floored by his honesty and very non-spiritual approach to Jesus. It kind of broke down a lot of walls. I think, unfortunately, the church misses a lot of the things that Jesus held dear. A lot of things he focused on was feeding the poor and ministering to widows - these very relational things that somehow the church has missed in some occasions. Not to be negative - but the fact that Don went to this very secular - almost pagan - campus, set up a confession booth and said, "I'm sorry as a Christian - I'm sorry for this ..." - as opposed to it being a place where the kids were coming to confess their sins. I think the church has made some mistakes in the past and misrepresented the message of Christ. I think some of the stuff in the book is so encouraging. Just to find the heart of Christ in the word of God and to really examine that what He's after may not be exactly what the church has told us Jesus is passionate for. Jeff, you had some different takes - maybe?

Jeff: No, I would agree with a lot of what you said. I really enjoyed his openness to life and relationship and religion and politics and how everyone seems to have this stronghold over their lives of things that they're supposed to think or supposed to feel. I really enjoyed the way he talked about "everybody thinks that they're the main character in their own movie and that everyone else is a supporting cast" ... and never taken the chance to think, "Well, maybe I'm a supporting cast in someone else's movie" and really trying to delve into other people's lives and seeing how you can help them instead of them just helping you. And just about breaking down and not being selfish natured which obviously humans are all completely selfish natured, but just really breaking it down and seeing how you can help other people. That's one thing I really liked about the book.

MQ: You want to talk about growing up? Maybe first jobs? Compare and contrast with what you're doing now.

Jeremy: At 15, I did the walk to work thing and worked in a barbecue restauraunt back in the dish room. You want to talk about nasty, dirty dishes. There's nothing like a barbecue restaurant. And then I sold guitars for a while and waiting tables for a little while and finally having a little luck with this band.

Jacob: We all grew up elsewhere. Jeff in New Orleans, Guatemala, Texas, and Matt came from Minnesota. We all came from different areas and in the elementary range is when we got together.

Jeff: The three of them went to high school together actually.

Jacob: In middle school we started meeting each other. We really grew up together. We grew up as a group of friends, and Matt and I were great friends doing different things of our own as far as music goes. It wasn't until college that we actually came together. I grew up across the street from Jeremy - he moved in.

Jeff: A mutual friend introduced me to Matt. Actually, a drummer that he played with for three years and we ended up working together. He gave me Matt's number and was like, "Hey man, call Matt up. I think you'll have a lot in common - a lot of musical interests in common." We kind of got together at that point and started playing.

Matt: Back when I was growing up in Chattanooga, my first job was there for a guy who went to our church that owned a construction business and built houses. So, I went and I cleaned up job sites and water-proofed basements for a summer. I didn't want to do that very long after that.

all: laughing

Jeff: I bagged groceries at a grocery store. That was my first job in Chattanooga when I was seventeen.

MQ: Going back to playing locations, is there maybe a locale or venue that you really like playing or one you don't want to revisit?

Matt: We've played some really cool places.

Jeff: We've played some pretty weird places, too. (laugh)

Matt: Specifically, we've played on the courthouse steps of a small town in Missouri. That was pretty unique.

Jacob: - with a billion mosquitoes!

Matt: Lots of mosquitoes that night...

MQ: Is there anywhere you'd love to play?

Matt: Yeah. They are all pretty lofty though!

all: laughing

Jeff: I would like to play out in L.A. somewhere. Somewhere out on the west coast. I want to go to the beach over there and play a couple of shows.

Matt: We need to tour Hawaii.

MQ: I'll see what I can do.

all: laughing

MQ: Throughout this process, who would you consider a mentor - whether it's on the music, spiritual, or personal side?

Jeremy: Anywhere from Jacob's father - who was our pastor for ten years and still a very big part of our lives with some communication training that we're kind of working through with him right now - to my own dad who has just always been that solid backbone.

Jeff: My father has been a very big mentor in my life. I'm not actually a lot like him characteristically. I look like him - but I don't act like him. He's just a very solid person. You know, when you're growing up, you may not want to consider your dad your mentor, but the older I get, the more and more I see how much he has impacted my life and how you know he's made me into the man that I should be.

MQ: I was wondering if we could talk about this statement I had read from you guys: "A few years ago the band had a state of the union meeting. Around this time I was watching some extras on the Lord Of The Rings DVDs." You go on to talk about Tolkien's catastrophe and the moment after the catastrophe - and what you do with it. Do you guys want to expound upon that?

Matt: Yeah. I think there was a time for the first couple of years we were playing music together that we weren't very directed, ministry minded, very focused. It was a pretty expensive and time consuming hobby at the time and it wasn't getting anybody anywhere far. Jeff had committed to move to Nashville and he was like "Guys, I've got to go pursue music. Matt This is what's in my heart." And we had to at that moment decide, "Are we going to stop this and give up playing the game or are we going to commit to the plans we feel like God had for us and have some faith and take a risk and pursue it full time?" So what felt like a blow with Jeff moving towns, ended up being the pivotal moment in our careers where we said, "Okay, lets quit jobs, and sell houses, and leave family. We don't know what it is going to look like yet, but we're going to go to Nashville and we're going to pursue music full time and pour energy and emotion and effort into trying to make our career out of music." And watching Tolkien, you know, I remember going to the midnight showing of the 'Lord Of The Rings' stuff because I wanted to be the first person to see this movie! It was so impactful. The journey and the story is so awesome. It seems like where character is made in the moment of a catastrophe - what he does right after that. That is the measure of a man, the measure of a character - is how they deal with some of the worst moments in their life. What could have been one of our worst moments - the demise of us playing music together - we turned it over to God. We let things be in His hands. He directed us to here and He's been directing us since.