RockOm

By Trevor Harden, Trevor@RockOm.net

To many, speaking out against sexual prejudice or using an occasional four-letter swear word is no big deal. When an artist with nearly a million career Christian albums sales and ten GMA Dove Awards under his belt does that as part of a major label release, however, people sit up and take notice.

Singer-songwriter Derek Webb has been known to many in the CCM scene for years having been a long time member of Caedmon's Call, the City on a Hill projects and also through his solo releases. His latest album, Stockholm Syndrome, is an honest - and often biting - foray into sexuality, the church, government and culture.

Stockholm proved so provocative, in fact, that Webb's record company removed the song "What Matters More" because of its explicit language, even though the powerful lyrics - in many's opinion - were both prophetic and appropriately used: "'Cause we can talk and debate until we're blue in the face / About the language and tradition that he's comin' to save / Meanwhile we sit just like we don't give a shit / About 50,000 people who are dyin' today."

Using smart marketing techniques, Derek whetted the appetite of his fans prior to the album's release by sending out a series of coded emails and tweets, directing people to a secret website featuring an elaborate alternate reality game.

This is a man who knows how to create buzz.

Because of this, some say his contentious lyrical content is solely for the purpose of attention-getting. Others believe him to be a powerful voice speaking out against societal and religious ills, taking on a set-in-its-ways Christian subculture. Derek himself, however, sees things differently. RockOm recently spoke with Derek Webb about Stockholm Syndrome, the controversy the album has sparked as well as his motivations for songwriting.

Trevor: Since for Stockholm Syndrome you used some interesting marketing techniques as well as the way in which you are selling it - by using various tiers - I'm just wondering what your general thoughts are on where the music industry is right now, how the business models are changing and where you, in your opinion, think it's all headed?

Derek: It's something I think a lot about because more than ever this is the time for creative people to apply their creativity as much to the distribution of their music as to the making of it. So I try to really pay attention and stay up on whatever seems to be around the bend to see if there's any way we can harness it to our advantage somehow. Little by little the industry is coming around and they're starting to figure out the technologies that they originally thought were going to ruin them. They're finally starting to see that the revenue streams of the last thirty years are closing down. The money's never going to come in that way again, but there is money to be made if you can just restructure and unplug yourself from the matrix of the old way of thinking about revenue and music. The people who are hanging on to those old structures and fighting for them are the people who are missing the opportunity to the tune that many of them are having to close their doors. By the time it dawns on them what they could have done it'll be too late because they have put all the money that should've gone into research, development and new technologies into lawyers who basically sue their audience, alienating all of their customers.

The most basic part of it is that anything that is digital can and will be free; that's the bottom line. In my opinion, I think it's going to be a lot more common for music to be free over the next five years and basically be a loss-leader for exclusive content, touring and artifacts that enhance the music itself. There are all kinds of ways to get creative about that. People will then start to employ what Chris Anderson (editor for Wired Magazine) calls "freemium," where you give people the content itself and then if they want more - more exclusive, enhancements or higher-quality - then those are the types of things on which you can make the same, if not better, money than you could the old way.

The thing I've learned from it the most is that more significantly than getting money out of your fans today is getting information and meaningful connection with them. If you can get that then you're not going to have any problems making money. Money is not really the problem; the problem is getting fans to trust us as media providers in general. If you can get their trust - and along with that you can make connections with them - then that's your long term asset. I would just as soon give all my music away if it gets more people on the radar for whom I have information. I would have a career for the next ten years if I wanted to at that point. That needs to be the posture for at least the indie community, who should see the value in that. Unfortunately indie artists on the whole aren't known for their marketing skills.

Trevor: It's no secret that you've said some things on this album that have challenged the status quo in many circles and bucked the system a little bit. It took courage to step out like that and say what you really felt needed to be said, so I was wondering if you could talk a little about how you felt emotionally both before and after this album's release. Did you feel an urgency that inspired you to speak up? Were you scared at all to go out on a limb as you did?

Derek: I wasn't really nervous about it because I don't think about that sort of thing while I'm making records or when I'm conceptualizing. I've said this before but it's the best answer I've got: I see it as my job to be the same thing as any other artist, which is to look at the world and tell you what I see. That's the only agenda that I have. Beyond that I don't have any kind of plans or way of thinking I'm trying to convert everyone to or conversations I'm trying to get people to have about issues. I'm not trying to do any of that at this point. I'm just trying to do the very most basic job that I have and that is to look around me, to filter what I see through my particular personality and framework and to tell it to you as honestly and immediately as I can. This is just what comes out.

I wasn't thinking "Who's going to hear this?" or "What are they going to think about it?" These were just the songs that got written. I don't always understand why particular songs get written at particular times or why they wind up being about certain things and not about others. I don't feel like I do a lot of editorial work in my creativity; I write twelve to fifteen songs a year and I record every one of them. Of those, they mostly come out pretty fully formed. I just sit down and write them and I don't fully understand how that process works; it's more of an art than a science.

But if this had been calculated and about me making a statement about these particular issues and wanting to engage a particular community with these questions, then yes, I probably would've been really nervous about it because I would've been thinking about the trouble I was going to get into. I'm never nervous trusting my instincts.

Trevor: I'm sure you've seen the blog posts and the message boards, of people talking about the themes and content of your album. It certainly has sparked - if not controversy - at least a conversation. What are your feelings about how it's being received?

Derek: Man, I'm just thrilled it's being received at all. I'm thrilled people are finding it these days. I'm way down in the niche in terms of what I do. I know it's not music for everybody; I've got a really small tribe of people that I make music for who seem to resonate with the music I make. I can pretty much depend on those people and I hope they can depend on me. But beyond that I'm just really thrilled that people still care enough about music to listen and to give themselves over emotionally to it and get bent out of shape and get all pissed off and write a bunch of blogs. Honestly I'm thrilled that one way or another people are willing to engage with it and that people didn't just toss it off. Some people probably did and that's OK too.

Again, if I had a particular audience I was trying to speak to and say something specific to, if that had been part of my agenda for making the record, then I probably would be a wreck right now. I've heard a handful of comments from people who maybe even support me or agree with me saying that it's a real bummer that the people who should be listening to it won't be either because of the style or the content or the language - that I'm shooting myself in the foot. See the thing is, there's nothing I'm trying to accomplish. I'm not trying to use my music as a tool for anything beyond itself; I'm just trying to make cool records.

Trevor: Our website explores the bond between music and spirituality, independent of particular faith or religious traditions, and so we have a very diverse audience. Since your past work has been mostly in the Christian music industry circle, I'm wondering if Stockholm Syndrome has been received outside of that circle and if so what the response has been?

Derek: Yeah, it has been. It's been really encouraging actually that a handful of different communities seem to be picking up on it and wanting to get behind it and support it. Personally that's gratifying because whatever message is there seems to have gotten across to the right people. We've had splashes of support from here and there from folks who probably would not have supported what anyone might call "Christian music" before that. That's how a lot of what I've read starts - someone will be writing something and say, "Well, hell has frozen over today because I'm about to recommend to you a Christian music artist." But it's never that simple. Those kind of categories don't mean anything to anybody other than marketing people who are trying to simplify demographics and make you buy stuff.

It's the oldest adage in the book at this point but I just don't believe in "Christian music" or "secular music." I mean there are Christian and secular people who make art but all art reflects the framework of the person who made it. In that way the worldview of every artist is stamped on every piece of art they make. Now I'm no different than anybody else. I'm a follower of Jesus so you're going to see the fingerprints of that from time to time in my music. There are certain seasons in my career where I've taken a little more liberty to talk about the frame or the grid itself that I'm looking through. Here in the last so many years I've been more in a season of looking through that grid and telling you what I see beyond it. I'm at liberty to make both kinds of music as would any artist with any kind of belief.

Trevor: Hearing you say that is so refreshing. People don't usually believe Christian musicians can write music as observation as opposed to being for some influential purpose. Why can't a person have a particular faith and create music without an agenda?

Derek: What a novel idea, right? Art suffers most when someone is trying to use it as a tool to do something beyond just be great art and have intrinsic value as great work. I'm at a point in my career that I just want to do great work. I want to try to do honest work and be a trustworthy artist. There will be a lot of people I'll lose along the way and that's OK because my whole career has been a cycle of self-sabotage, which seems to work pretty well for me. I lose as many as I gain each time around. The people I wind up with are people who understand me and who'll be forgiving their first time through a new record if it's something out of left-field. Maybe they'll want to stick around or maybe I'll lose some of those people and their friends join in. All of that is beyond my concern because that seems to operate outside of anything I can have any sort of influence on. I just try to trust my instincts, make the best records I can and hope that there are people out there that are going to hear about them, like them and come out to some shows. [Laughs] It's as simple as that.

LINKS: www.DerekWebb.com

NOTE: Please visit derekwebb.com to purchase the unedited version of the album. Edited (for explicit language) versions are available at all other retailers such as iTunes and Amazon.com.