The Wake

It’s not easy being the preacher’s kid, especially when you’ve got a healthy dose of rock ‘n’ roll flowing through your bloodstream. Mark Curtis Anderson knows this all too well. As the son of a Baptist minister, Anderson was confronted at an early age with such an imponderable juxtaposition. Now, in his literary debut, Jesus Sound Explosion, the part-time writer and University instructor recounts his own quest for peaceful coexistence among rockers and reverends. The memoir is a fascinating trip through the annals of spirituality, teen-angst and music that delivers zany justification for the lives of preachers’ kids everywhere. Recently, the author sat down with The Wake to talk about the book, and the life behind it.

The Wake: Does religion have a place in rock ‘n’ roll? Can they peacefully co-exist?

Religion has always had and will always have a place in rock and roll. Not necessarily the place that it wants, but it will always have a place. Still, religion and rock and roll will never peacefully coexist. There will always be a tension between rhythm and message

I’m remembering a scene from “A Mighty Wind” where Terry Bohner recalls being abused “musically;” he’s force-fed Percy Faith recordings or something equally putrid. Did you experience anything similar?

Actually, I liked a lot of the music that my parents played at home. My mom and dad never got into the more kitschy Christian music. I was exposed to some bad music in church services, but I wouldn’t call it abusive. The Baptist churches that I grew up in tended to invite the most wretched performers to Sunday evening services. If someone was truly awful, the worst torture was trying not to burst out laughing.

It seems like lots of musicians eventually write books of some kind. John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Jewel. Do you see a connection between writing and playing music?

One connection is in the relationship between the music and the lyrics. Lyric writing imposes limitations that aren’t present in fiction, poetry, and autobiography, and I think it’s natural, at some point, to want to do away with those limitations. I’m guessing that book-publishing songwriters get to the point where they want to write words that will stand alone on the page.

Is rock ‘n’ roll the universal salvation? Can it really heal the soul musically and spiritually?

Rock and roll can heal the soul for moments at a time, but I can’t call it The Universal Salvation or the universal salvation. For one thing, rock and roll is too enmeshed in and dependent upon capitalist consumer culture to provide universal salvation. Sure, there’s the punk/indie scene and other places where rock ‘n’ roll flourishes without corporate backing. But I think rock and roll has always been more about moments of redemption than universal salvation.

I know you worked at the Electric Fetus for a long time, what did that whole experience bring to your writing and your music?

In a lot of ways, working at the Fetus was like going to graduate school for me. I was exposed to so much new music while I was there—a lot of music that I probably wouldn’t have heard otherwise. I like to think that the music I heard at the Fetus gave my writing and drumming greater range and depth.