In this interview, band members Dan Haseltine and Matthew Odmark gives an update on their ministry Blood:Water Mission, upcoming projects, and their thoughts on the gospel music industry.
Your albums just seem to get better and better. Do the band have a specific aim to strive for musical improvement?
Dan: Absolutely. From the beginning, we very much cared about the art of making music and the art of creating songs and communicating. We try not to settle. So we're getting better at pushing ourselves. There are always times when there are certain songs that are harder to finish than others, and you kind of have to press through because you know the song is really in there.
We used to quit a bit earlier, but now we've learned how to fight through and get to the good parts of the songs, and keep the creative parts vibrant and alive throughout the course of the record. That's really important to us. I know there are some bands that think the message is more important than the music, vice versa, but I think what you're trying to say is equally as important as the musical aspect.
Where did your album title Good Monsters derive from?
Matt: The title represents one of the songs in the album, "Good Monsters", and the song itself is a good springboard into what that album is about. It's a quote from Edmund Burke that says "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".
I think a lot of the record is a reflection of processing and wrestling with the reality of who we are as people both flawed and capable of doing good things and evil things. It seems like ordinary people are capable of both those things. So the record is wrestling with that. Knowing that it's in each of us and in all of our cultures. The record is a loose mediation on what that means for us, and what God's reality means in that.
