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Are you ready to give up, everything?

On the verge of releasing their most daring album to date, theTRu managed to chat with Kalel, the bass player for the popular rock group Pillar. The album is called The Reckoning, the tour is just around the corner and now is the time to read what we talked about.

How are you doing today?

Good. Staying at home today

Cool, taking your last few deep breaths before heading out on a whirlwind tour. . .

A.k.a. helping clean the house and watching my kids.

There you go. That's how it always ends up.

(laughs)

So how excited are you about the new album release?

Man, we're really excited. There's a lot of work that goes into making an album and that release date just creeps up on you.

Are you doing anything special to prepare for this release?

You know what? We've been preparing for a while now for this one. More just getting mentally prepared for it. When new albums come up, things get really busy and hectic and we're just trying to stay focused, get grounded and spend time with our families right now. Once it comes out, we're gonna get real busy with the tour and it's going to be a whirlwind, like you said, so it's just really good to get grounded now.

Very cool. I guess the big question about the album is... What are we reckoning with?

Us personally... Everybody has some things that are not finished, that aren't closed. Issues. Maybe problems they've had with other people, with God. You know, anything. And really, to move forward in life, you have to kind of analize where you are at. Settle a few things. Close the book on them. So you can move forward with your life and open the next chapter.

So is the album themed around that idea?

No, just the one song really. We don't really write theme albums where we have a theme in each song and everything is focused in on that. But when we wrote that song, "The Reckoning," it just sounded really tough and we just liked the whole concept. We thought it represented the album, but it's not necessarily the theme of the whole album.

Okay.

You know, we've been together as a band for almost nine years. You go through nine years and you have your struggles and your tough times and you get. . . I don't want to say burned out, because we love doing this, but you know, sometimes it gets hard. And we just thought it was a great title. The Reckoning. You know, let's clear everything up and let's just move forward. It just kind of represented where we wanted to be as a band.

Just to say, bring it on...

Exactly.

So you guys went with a harder sound. . .

Man, I would say that you'll hear some people say it's a harder sound and you'll hear some people say that it's a softer sound. To me, it's just about everything in between. It's our most daring record for sure. We definitely experimented and went in a lot of new directions. You know, we have a couple of the hardest songs that we ever wrote and a couple of the most, you know, ballad-type songs that we ever wrote and just about everything in between.

Okay, that's pretty cool.

I can honestly say that it's very hard to pick any one song from the album and say that this song represents the whole album. The songs are so diverse, that you really need to listen to the whole thing. . .

Take it all in. . .

Yeah, to get the essense of it, 'cause every song is really different. Each song is so unique.

So the lead single, that you picked, is "Everything."

Yeah, that's the first single that's been out right now. Christian rock radio and active rock radio mainstream.

Doing pretty well for you?

Yeah, we just liked the concept of that song, like, to just give up everything to follow God. To do whatever, to be able to really do that and you'll get the greatest rewards.

So what have you personally given up to follow Christ?

Man, I've followed Christ for so long. (laughs) For me, I've just known that my calling has been to music since I was little. And I've stuck with it and a lot of times it's hard to do that, you know? I have a wife and kids and a lot of times I'm gone for most of the year to fulfill my calling. I do love playing music and stuff, but sometimes it's really hard to be on a bus and to be away from your family that much.

Do you ever take your family out on the road with you?

Um, every once in a while, they'll come out. It's really rare, though, 'cause my wife's a nurse and I have two sons. With one son, it was kind of easier, but now with two sons, it's really hard to take the family out on the road.

How old are your boys?

I got a two year old boy and one who's just about a month old.

Yeah, my boys are four and two, so I'm with you.

(laughs)

Yeah, it's a trip man, my two-year-old - he's actually about two and a half - he's at the age now where I took him out once recently by himself. It was his first trip without his mom there and it was really tough, 'cause he likes to get up at about 6 o'clock in the morning.

(laughs) Yeah, they're on a crazy time schedule. . .

(laughs) Yeah, but I think I'm gonna probably do it again, just to give my wife a break.

That's noble of you.

Yeah, and he loves it. He has lots of fun coming out onto the road.

I'll bet. So, you guys put a video together for the song "Everything" and it's up on your site.

Did you get a chance to watch it?

Yeah, it was pretty well shot. I was wondering about the significance behind the tractor...

(laughs) Yeah man, right now you can only see it on our eCard which is linked to from our Myspace or PillarMusic.com. This video was a lot of fun. The band actually started in Hayes, Kansas, which is western, the middle of nowhere, Kansas, not too far from where we shot the whole video. You know, Rob, our singer, is from Plainville, Kansas and it was a few years we were together there. When we got signed, we ended up moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma but we just wanted this whole album to kind of embrace who we are - just a bunch of guys from the midwest. You know, it's throughout the album art. We did all that. We took all the photos here in Tulsa. We wanted the first video to be shot from where the band actually got started. Down on the farm...

Pretty cool video.

It was a lot of fun too, it was with all family and friends. Tha base for the video was at Rob's brother-in-law's house. We parked the bus there. Our fans all met us there. All the tractors and trucks were parked there and we shot in locations all around there. And Rob actually drove that tractor. I don't even know how to drive a clutch in a car, but he was cruising that thing down the street. . .

(laughs)

Yeah, I tried to learn clutch. I just couldn't do it, man. Had to have Lester drive the truck that we were in.

(laughs)

That's pretty cool. So there's a line in the chorus that says, "Everything has meaning. Everything we see."

mmhmm.

I know that a lot of people try to make clear distinctions between "sacred" things and "secular" things in life - especially in music. What's your outlook on that whole debate.

Oh, um. I honestly think. . . First of all, just so that it's clear. We're all Christians in the band and we're proud to say that we're Christians. You know, we're not going to hide it and say, "Oh, we're a bunch of Christians but we just like to play music." We're a bunch of Christians and we're in a band and we all follow God and we hope that our music reaches people. But at the same time, I don't think there should be a Christian market, you know. To me it's just like a bubble and at the end of the day all it does - slapping "Christian" on everything and hyping it up so much as "Christian" this and "Christian" that - it alienates the people who we're trying to reach.

Right.

I think Christian music is for Christians. To feed them. Help them. Pump them up. Get them excited. Let them have something great to listen to. But then at the same time, everyone's called to minister and to reach out. You know, the Great Commission. And our music is definitely a tool to help people reach out. We really feel strongly called to do that. When Christians try to take it for themselves, it makes it really hard to reach out. Non-Christians will see all the Christian music and say, "Oh, that's Christian music." Christians tend to make such a big deal about it that they feel like they can't listen to it. Or it's too stupid for them to even want to listen to. I think it's kind of lame, myself. I think there should be worship music which is for worship, but then you get to rock music. There shouldn't be a difference between Christian rock and rock music. You don't hear about Buddah Rock or Hindu Rock... No other religion has their own music catagories. If you're a Christian, we're only on stage for like an hour. If you're listening to our album, it's only like an hour. Our ministry really takes place the other twenty-three hours of the day. It's who we are as people. How we interact with people. That's how I feel about it.

Interesting.

And at the same time, we're totally not ashamed to tell everyone that we're Christians.

I think also on the flipside, some Christians might miss out on some music that can really speak to them, because it doesn't have a safe "Christian" label on it.

Yeah, I mean, there's bands out there who have Christians in them that you may not even know. But you can see it in the lyrics or if you got to meet them firsthand and talk to them. Buy you know what, at the same time, people need to do what's on their heart. If God's placed it on their heart ot listen to Christian music because mainstream music maybe, I don't know. . . I know that there's certain bands that I used to listen to when I was younger and I would just feel angry. It wasn't all mainstream music, there were just certain bands that I listened to and I just remember how angry I would feel. So I had to stop listening to it, but I still listen to mainstream music because I'm a musician, it's what I do. And there's a lot of great music out there.

Definitely. So, you guys were on Flicker and then on MCA for a while and then back at Flicker. It's kind of a confusing situation, what really happened there?

Yeah, we were... MCA Records was one of the longest standing mainstream record labels out there and they basically bought us from Flicker Records, which was the indie label we were on at the time and they were re-releasing our second album Fireproof. Around the time the record was supposed to be coming out, Universal - I believe it was Universal who had MCA - ended up shutting the whole label down. So it was pretty bad timing, you know?

To say the least. . .

(laughs)

So they ended up moving us and a handful of five other artists or so - Mary J Blige and some others I don't even remember - over to Geffen Records, which is another Universal label. And for people who don't know music, that's a pretty bad deal.

Yeah.

Honestly, the people who signed us at MCA were the president and the vice president, the top dogs, who loved us, believed in us, and came out to see us. They all got canned and fired. So we got moved over to Geffen, where nobody knew who we were. And the record business is very, I don't even knnow what to say, prideful, kind of? You know, those agents like to find the bands so that they can say, "that's my band that I found." So none of those guys had had anything to do with us and nobody [at Geffen] really cared about us. So we actively pursued a way to get out of the situation since they didn't know who we were and they didn't care. When we got out of that deal, we just went back to Flicker.

Are you going to take another shot now at the mainstream, then? Does it even really matter what label you're on anymore?

It really doesn't matter anymore. And a lot of that's not really "can we take a shot at it?" Most of it's out of our hands. Actually, Flicker just got set up in a great situation, lately. They were recently bought - they were basically an indie, small label, with a small staff who just worked really hard. They just recently got bought by Provident, which is owned by Sony. So this new record is actually being released on Provident and Sony Red and we'll have the biggest amount of support behind this album than we've had for any other album we've ever put out.

Well that works. . .

Yeah and with that kind of support, it doesn't really matter what label you're on. Your music will get out there. At the end of the day, if you have good music and good songs, it'll get out there.

People will find you on MySpace or something...

Yeah, they'll find you nowadays anyway.

So the tour starts up in about a month, The Days of the Reckoning Tour. Did you guys have any say in naming your tourmates?

Yeah, we actually did. We always. . . management definitely has their suggestions. And we have bands who we're friends with. And at the end of the day, you want the tour to be fresh and you have to try to pick bands that maybe you haven't toured with a whole lot and a package that would be appealing to the fans.

It seems like a pretty good lineup for you. . .

It's probably changed, I don't know when you got the last update. There was some weirdness happening lately. Some of the bands we had to switch around because of some factors that were just out of the band's control.

Okay, well, I have, Kids in the Way, Day of Fire and Showdown listed here.

Yeah, Kids in the Way just switched out with a band called Decyfer Down.

Oh, okay, that's a real good fit for you guys. . .

I guess Kids in the Way has really wanted to work with a producer named David Bendeth who actually mixed our whole new album, The Reckoning. He's a really good guy, but the thing was that the only time he could work with them, was during our tour. So it was either, they use him or they do our tour and they really felt like they needed to invest that time into their new album. So, they told us and we made one phone call to a band who we really, we just recently saw them live and really liked them - the guys in Decyfer Down and we just asked them if they wanted to open up the tour and they said yes, so. . .

Yeah that should work out well, because they have kind of a middle america rock sound to them as well.

Yeah, we're really excited about how the tour turned out. It's really gonna be just a nice rock tour.

Very cool. So, here's a quick fun question for you. I've noticed that in a lot of the publicity shots, you're wearing a Maylene and the Sons of Disaster shirt. Is that an album you're really into right now?

Actually, those guys. . . I don't think their new album has come out yet. I think they're working on it. We're just really. . . we're fans of the guys. They're really good guys. We met them this last spring when we were on tour with P.O.D., Maylene and The Chariot and those guys are just great and they had cool shirts. And if they weren't busy in the studio this fall, we'd probably take them out on tour too. Maybe next year. They're just very good friends of ours and they have cool shirts.

(laughs)

So what are you listening to these days?

Man, what am I listening to. I know, uh, we usually get lots of CDs from fans or labels will just send us boxes of CDs. Lately, honestly I was listening to a little bit of Decyfer Down just to get a little more accustomed to their music for the tour. The label just sent us one of their new ones from a band called Nevertheless. They wanted us to listen to it and see if we liked it - I think they're pretty good. The new Jars of Clay record is really good. You know, I also just flip through the local radio stations just to see what's on.

Cool. Is there anything else that we missed?

There is one thing, I guess. There's two versions of our CD coming out on the same day. There's the regular version which hopefully people will be able to find for like ten bucks. And then there's a special edition version coming out the same day for the people who just want a little more, you know? It comes with a DVD that has like two hours of content. There's about an hour of us performing this year at Cornerstone 2006 with just some great camera shots and some great audio. And then there's another whole hour-long section where we do a song-by-song. Basically, each of us talks about how the song was written, the meaning behind it, how it came about, if there's any stories behind the song. And we just go through each song one by one. And it has a section where we kind of show the fans and musicians how to play each of the songs. Just kind of give some tips about each of our instruments. It's really cool, I haven't seen any other bands doing something like that. It's the special edition version, it's got its own cover that's all black.

Cool. . .

And on our website right now, you can go and watch a ten-minute trailer of that DVD just to get an idea of what's on there.

Very cool. So that will probably be, what, about fifteen bucks or so?

Yeah around fifteen or so.

Well thanks for your time. Hope you have a great day with your boys and your laundry and whatever else you're up to.

(laughs)

For more information, visit PillarMusic.com - MySpace - PureVolume
Buy the Standard Version or Special Edition of The Reckoning

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