Chevelle taints their Christian testimony with "Vena Sera"
Samuel Van Eerden
April 05, 2007
The Christian music industry is notorious for claiming secular artists as "theirs." Back in 2003 in an Entertainment Weekly interview with Evanescence, vocalist Amy Lee said of the band's album "Fallen:" "We're actually high on the Christian charts, and I'm like, What the f*** are we even doing there?" She got her wish, as the Christian retailers quickly pulled "Fallen" from their shelves. A similar fate met the hard rock group 12 Stones, who got taken out of many Christian stores because they used vulgar language in an interview. Scott Stapp, lead singer for the hit (but now defunct) band Creed, proclaimed his Christian faith on many occasions, but just last week settled with an Adult Films company so they would not distribute an explicit tape of himself, Kid Rock, and several "groupies."
We should not be so arrogant and foolish to assume that just because we are Christians, we'll never sin, and never hurt our testimony, but it should pain us when people who have publicly claimed the name of Christ turn around and defame it by their actions.
Add metal/alternative rock group Chevelle to the list. Originally marketed through a Christian label, Chevelle quickly took off as a huge success with their popular single "The Red." That album, Wonder What's Next, ended up selling well over a million copies, and was listed as the number three best-selling CD in the Christian market in 2003. The Gospel Music Association (GMA) compounded the band's success by bestowing them with three dove awards. How did they band respond? The following year the 3-member act released This Type of Thinking (Could Do Us In). On the disc, 2 songs included profanity, and a particularly edgy anthem was included on the album soundtrack to the movie "The Punisher." I didn't appreciate the irony of one of their other song's lyrics, either: "God, You are sovereign, We are the salt of the earth. . . ." Apparently Chevelle responded more to the world's praise than the praise of the Christian market. Oddly enough, in their review of "This Type of Thinking," Christianity Today did not even mention the swear words.
Now, three years after that album, Chevelle has released their latest: Vena Sera. Hitting shelves on April 3, vocalist Pete Loeffler has said the title means "Vein Liquid," to represent "the blood of the band and the work we put into the album." The result of all this "blood" and "work" is being called the band's best-crafted musical output yet. 44 minutes of fine-tuned guitar licks and passionate lyricism. It just goes to show then, that "Vena Sera" is the farthest removed (spiritually speaking) of all their albums to date.
Not only is "Vena Sera" on a level with secular counterparts in terms of musical quality, they sound just like them in terms of their words. The song "The Fad" rages "I got the violence" over and over again, and mixes a 'mild' cuss word in between a string of morbid and nonsensical phrases. The next song "Humanoid" speaks of a tortured soul, and 'colors' the emotion with harsh profanity (s* and f*). It's hard to believe a band made up of self-proclaimed Christians could sink so low as to put such language into their songs. Chevelle has always rejected the claim that they are a Christian band, but they have called themselves "Catholics," and taken the name of 'Christian.'
The last song on "Vena Sera" is called Saturdays and it contains the following lyrics: "We've lost the minds we came to know, like cattle out in the cold. We begged for months, we begged to know, show kindness never found." I suppose they're looking in the wrong place for kindness and love; trying to find fulfillment in the secular, instead of reaching out to the Lord who's name they claim.
In a January (2004) post on the band's website, we find the following entry: "In the meantime, I am watching Cops and Paris Hilton on Fox Television and drinking a bottle of tequila that Rikki surprised me with. I deserve this. I worked a long time for some lazy nights in Jenee's bed. "'Drink up...happy hour is now enforced by law'."
It really is a shame, and it is a lesson to the Christian Music Industry to try and be more discerning about who they tab as "Christian." Let a band make that stance for itself, don't make it something it never claimed to be. The lines are already blurred between the Christian and the secular when it comes to music; we don't need any more ambiguity of this sort. Chevelle has officially crossed over.
We should not be so arrogant and foolish to assume that just because we are Christians, we'll never sin, and never hurt our testimony, but it should pain us when people who have publicly claimed the name of Christ turn around and defame it by their actions.
Add metal/alternative rock group Chevelle to the list. Originally marketed through a Christian label, Chevelle quickly took off as a huge success with their popular single "The Red." That album, Wonder What's Next, ended up selling well over a million copies, and was listed as the number three best-selling CD in the Christian market in 2003. The Gospel Music Association (GMA) compounded the band's success by bestowing them with three dove awards. How did they band respond? The following year the 3-member act released This Type of Thinking (Could Do Us In). On the disc, 2 songs included profanity, and a particularly edgy anthem was included on the album soundtrack to the movie "The Punisher." I didn't appreciate the irony of one of their other song's lyrics, either: "God, You are sovereign, We are the salt of the earth. . . ." Apparently Chevelle responded more to the world's praise than the praise of the Christian market. Oddly enough, in their review of "This Type of Thinking," Christianity Today did not even mention the swear words.
Now, three years after that album, Chevelle has released their latest: Vena Sera. Hitting shelves on April 3, vocalist Pete Loeffler has said the title means "Vein Liquid," to represent "the blood of the band and the work we put into the album." The result of all this "blood" and "work" is being called the band's best-crafted musical output yet. 44 minutes of fine-tuned guitar licks and passionate lyricism. It just goes to show then, that "Vena Sera" is the farthest removed (spiritually speaking) of all their albums to date.
Not only is "Vena Sera" on a level with secular counterparts in terms of musical quality, they sound just like them in terms of their words. The song "The Fad" rages "I got the violence" over and over again, and mixes a 'mild' cuss word in between a string of morbid and nonsensical phrases. The next song "Humanoid" speaks of a tortured soul, and 'colors' the emotion with harsh profanity (s* and f*). It's hard to believe a band made up of self-proclaimed Christians could sink so low as to put such language into their songs. Chevelle has always rejected the claim that they are a Christian band, but they have called themselves "Catholics," and taken the name of 'Christian.'
The last song on "Vena Sera" is called Saturdays and it contains the following lyrics: "We've lost the minds we came to know, like cattle out in the cold. We begged for months, we begged to know, show kindness never found." I suppose they're looking in the wrong place for kindness and love; trying to find fulfillment in the secular, instead of reaching out to the Lord who's name they claim.
In a January (2004) post on the band's website, we find the following entry: "In the meantime, I am watching Cops and Paris Hilton on Fox Television and drinking a bottle of tequila that Rikki surprised me with. I deserve this. I worked a long time for some lazy nights in Jenee's bed. "'Drink up...happy hour is now enforced by law'."
It really is a shame, and it is a lesson to the Christian Music Industry to try and be more discerning about who they tab as "Christian." Let a band make that stance for itself, don't make it something it never claimed to be. The lines are already blurred between the Christian and the secular when it comes to music; we don't need any more ambiguity of this sort. Chevelle has officially crossed over.
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