An Interview with Confession of Faith, January 2000.
An Interview with Confession of Faith, January 2000.
Confession of Faith is one of the most unique bands I've ever heard. By combining elements of Celtic folk, gothic, industrial mechanisms, voice samples, experimental noise, heavy guitars, acoustic guitars as well as visual art and poetic lyrics in two full-length albums so far, this is a band that dares to be different and pulls it off.
Ballistic Test > Who's in the band?
Joshua Hinck > As of recently it has primarily been two of us. Myself; Joshua Hinck and Joseph McDonald. There is a third who has worked with us in the past and did some music on our newest album, Matt Cooper.
How did you meet?
Joshua > We met in 5th and 6th grade. Joe and Matt started out as arch nemesis, viaing for control of the brainiac room, where the "High Achievers" had class; I had math occasionally with them.
When did Confession of Faith start?
Joshua > It started when myself and Matt left the band that I had founded with another guy. We, or at least I was tired of doing covers. That band was called "All The President's Men",and had started out with exclusively original songs and then faded into covers. It was the summer after our 8th grade, so I think the year would be 1992. We had been young classmates at one time, and became friends and then music began.
Do you have any previous experience in other bands?
Joshua > Just that band I mentioned in the previous answer. Joe really, I don't think, had been in any so called "band". We all have had music since very young.
Is anyone from Ireland?
Joshua > No.
You guys have a really unique sound, so much that I have trouble of thinking of a band to compare you to. So what bands and non-music things have influenced your music?
Joshua > I really enjoy many forms of art, and much has impacted me. Our adolescence was filled with The Cure, as well as Bahaus, The Swans were played often. I still enjoy these bands as well as more so called early "Goth" bands, but my taste has widened as well to include; Leonard Cohen, Beck, The Pet Shop Boys. Much more... there is beauty in all humans and art as an expression has elements that are great in all art. Some only for the intent and drive to create. We used to cut class in High School and go toke dope and listen to The Birthday Party as well as Lycia, although we all received high grades, but that was helpful. I rely enjoy the art of Jean Cocteau, a French artist of the early to mid 20th century. He approached many mediums and styles and I think was quite exceptional. I enjoy the media art of Bruce Nauman, a Wisconsin born artist that makes video presentation and sculpture as well as other mediums does he use to express. Some of my most favorite artists I have linked from my site to certain sites that I have found to display their artwork.
Do you find that having such a different, non-commercial sound makes it hard for people to get into the music?
Joshua > I really don't know. I will persevere with life and art until I am dead. People will hear and experience my art at some point and if they don't I still will continue. I know for certain that art is valid and lends a semblance of meaning to my life.
Do you play live shows? How have they gone?
Joshua > Yes, we have played infrequently and far between, with that changing soon. I use digital slide shows and the more antiquated slideshow as well as lots of smoke. I will soon extend myself into digital video and projection of it. Some have gone well enough, and others better, but most oftenly I feel myself in the art and therefore it goes more than most moments. We've played from places like Gay Rights at a college bar(not knowing that that would occur, but not caring and finding it fine) to a State wide Battle of the High School Bands(that we won) to a show where they had planned for 13 bands to play, so we played nearing the end of the, too long show, where the crowd proceeded to yell us off the stage but not before our keyboardist, at the time, picked up his keyboard and started dancing, that was funny. We opened for Noxious Emotion when they came through here many years back. Many more. We played twice at our friends work. It was a Christmas party and a summer blast. He worked at a house caring for the retarded(to use that word) where we were very well received as well as the shows being fun and the crowd dancing: which usually doesn't happen.
When I read your lyrics off "Children of a Dying Sun" and "Still Born", you have quite an expressive vocabularly, unusual structure and a penchant for metaphors. Do you have a degree in english literature / poetry?
Joshua > I have no such degree nor really care to have a degree in anything. I use language as a medium that seems somehow to be the most frustrating and maybe rewarding...no just frustrating.
What literary authors and poetry writers are you into?
Joshua > My favorite author is Hermann Hesse. A German writer from the 20th century. He was a pacifist during both WW's, not that that may be the best recourse, but that he did know his beliefs, even if I don't or even if he didn't. He wrote novels such as Stepponwolf, Beneath the Wheel, Gertrude, The Glass Bead Game. I enjoy the Russian poet Yevgheny Yevtushenko. The German Poet Rainer Maria Rilke. The French Poet Arthur Rambaud. Kafka, Camus, Nietztche, Kierkegaard, Thomas DeQuincey-Confessions of an English Opium Eater-, Sartre. The Americans Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker. Many more, this list is already tiresome.
Your songs seem to deal a lot with emotional issues in a melancholy, sombre way. "What Happens Then" off the "Still Born" album particularly strikes a raw nerve. Have you guys had to deal with a lot of trials and tribulations?
Joshua > As being human, haven't we all.
There is some harsh language on both of your albums. How would you respond to someone who thought that you were contradicting yourselfs by expressing Christian beliefs in one song and then profanities in another?
Joseph McDonald > It's really interesting that a few Anglo-Saxon words can irritate so easily. The language that you use ("harsh") seems to me much more aptly applied to words that communicate hate, disrespect, or scorn; one can easily use language to degrade without resorting to the "impolite" curseword. If someone views our lyrics as hateful, I would suggest that there is some miscommunication. As for contradicting the "Christian Message" (which could perhaps be distinguished from the message of Christ), I suppose some argument could be made from the angle of someone being offended to the point where the viewpoint of the artist is obscured to such an extent that its original meaning is warped; but this assumes that one is attempting to convince or persuade in the first place. I don't believe that our lyrics are peppered with gratuitous "profanities", or that these words are employed in an attempt to shock; perhaps they are meant, nonetheless, to provoke, as all text worth communicating should do. On the "profane" note, also, it strikes me that "to profane" is the opposite of "to sanctify"; in my personal opinion, using the name of Christ as an epithet does a good deal more to profane something holy than does the use of another word for excrement to mean something foul.
Most "profanities" in English are, as I have alluded above, descended from the Anglo-Saxon people; when conquered by the Normans their polite words became impolite. Polite terms such as "urinate" are simply the Norman word for the selfsame bodily function termed "pissing" by the Saxons. Not really something to get overly worked up over, if you ask me. Actually, the late great Anthony Burgess has an extremely interesting chapter on English cursewords in his 1985 book A Mouthful of Air; the rest of the book is fascinating as well, and I'd recommend it to you (or any of Burgess' work, for that matter; you might especially enjoy Kingdom of the Wicked, which is basically a fictionalized account of the Acts of the Apostles).
Finally, though, to each his own. I have noticed that you seem to eschew the use of off-color language in your correspondence and your publications, and that couldn't matter to me less than it does. In this, as in everything, "let everyone be justified in their own mind". Frankly, there are larger issues than this one. A direct prohibition from Christ might set the matter in a different light, but this is of course not the meaning of "do not swear". It is interesting, though, that something probably widely regarded by most Christians (not Jehovah's Witnesses) as a positive (i.e., swearing an oath on the Bible in a judicial setting) does in fact seem to fall under this direct prohibition. [Editor note: Joshua writes the lyrics but Joseph answered the question as well]
Joshua >What the **** are you talking about; are we not all contradictions? I feel that the social mores of this culture will not constrict me especially when it pertains to self expression. What are swear words even? Some words that some people(for whatever unknown reason) think are bad and should not be used especially by someone seeking Truth. I think that is crap. For people to get hung up on certain words they usually miss the point of the art entirely. Life is what it is, and isn't there more for people to do here than dictate what individuals can and can not say; i.e. treat others with respect, live in tolerance with others' beliefs and life choices. Sure we can take them aside if they have wronged us and try to work out the situation but I think Christ wouldn't get his Christian Coalition Panties in a bunch if he would've heard a swear word(except for using the Lord's name in vain...perhaps). It seems more likely that when so called "Christians" point out everyone else's mistakes and claim that they are wrong and bound to hell, showing no respect for the free will in all of us or for the beam in our own eyes, there I think Christ would find the real profanity. I choose to use certain "curse" words because I find that unlike most words, they can fit into any syntax of any sentence: extremely versatile. Plus when I use "swear" words instead of other words it won't sully and depreciate the meaning of the non-curse words I do choose to use. Take Love for instance, very over used and very much misunderstood( not that I understand it ). If we only used it to express what the true definition means instead of saying "I love this hot dog" or some bullshit it would retain its meaning and actually mean something. I can curse and over use these certain words in many varying ways and then in poetry use words that I don't as often speak with... I at least feel they hold more meaning, if only to my self.
But then there are songs like "Crowd" which I find to be spiritually meaningful and evidence of why you chose to name your band Confession of Faith. What would you like your listeners to get out of your music?
Joshua > If someone could get out of my art what I get out of other's art. That would be as best as it could be. Whether it makes you feel uneasy or refreshed or unsettled...just to feel something.
Your website and mp3.com page display quite a few works of art. And I really enjoy the colour schemes you used for your 2 album covers. Is the art a side thing or your main focus?
Joshua > Art is what I am for. In my meager way. I like to find new ways to express myself, and it, I find, is too constricting and or assaulting to be locked inside of one medium. I am already locked inside of my body as my soul. Seeking freedom on some days.
Current and future plans for the band?
Joseph > To do more than we have done. To do what we have done better. More live work; we're looking for a berth in the Convergence VI festival in Seattle this Spring/early Summer. If that works out we're speculating about doing a mini-tour of sorts between here (Minneapolis) and there. We're always working on new material; probably we'd have something out in Summer 2000 or so. As we do everything ourselves there is always some tension between doing music and everything that that entails and the promotion / distribution end of things; we've been receiving some good support from some radio stations and magazines, and hope to work further with that. I don't think we're really looking to get signed (but then again we've never been asked).
Joshua > Current plans are to play around here in the Twin Cities and book ourselves a 4-5 show tour out west this early summer. I will be purchasing some digital video equipment in the not too distant future, so I can make video collage and sync it to the music or vice versa. Promoting ourselves, which seems to be only my lucky job. Produce more art at a more rapid pace.
For more information about the band, to view some of their artwork and to hear some audio samples, visit their web page at: