Dan and I got a chance to talk to Stephen and Christian from Anberlin when they came through town with Warped Tour 08. We talked about tattoos, life, and New Surrender. Check out what they had to say.

Wes: First off, Christian, I love the Hebrew on your arm. What does it mean?

Christian: Basically it says, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' ; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

W: Love God, Love People. That pretty much sums it all up.

C: People make Christianity out to be some huge complex thing. But its not. If you do those two things, everything else will pretty much fall into place, which I fail at miserably pretty often.

W: Don't we all though, but He loves us just the same. Thats the awesome part about grace.

So we are all really looking forward to hearing New Surrender. On the DVD for Cities, you talked about how each album had a theme, all of them being Man vs. another element. What do you feel like the theme of New Surrender is?

Stephen: I feel like this album is really about getting outside of yourself. All of those "Man vs.", I found out that was really quite selfish. Its kind of like the Buddist theory of enlightenment, where I may spend my whole life and I may never get enlightenment, its all about me. This album is more about "Stop talking about myself". There are alot of issues addressed on this album like homelessness, the moments before you die, the end of time, and most of all standing up for what you believe. There is also a song about a story that I read out of Nevada about a 12 year-old that actually hung herself because her father had been sexually abusing her since age 5. That story just killed me. All of the songs are like that, very issue focused.

    And as far as the album goes, one of the things that does make this album better is Christian. I tell him all of the time that he has the right hand, the rhythm side of Anberlin. It's finally like Joey has a match.

C: Obviously I'm coming from an outside perspective, but all of the previous albums were just Stephen and Joey(songwriting and music), so I think it was the perfect timing to get someone else involved. Most of the stuff I would write, I would throw to Joey and he would make it so much better. And if one of us was going through a writers block, the other was still writing.

W: How was this album different recording with a new producer? Especially since all of the other albums were recorded with Aaron, How was Neal Avron different?

S: I loved it! Since we were on an indie label before, the recording process was so rushed. Blueprints took 3 and a half weeks(to record), Friendship took 4, and Cities took 4 and a half weeks. With New Surrender, we spent 3 and a half months in the studio. And that was non-stop recording!

C: Like 12 hours a day!

S: And I know that I have never worked that hard on a project. And Neal was a stickler. He would listen to something and be like "That one note is off key". And no one else could hear it. And then we would listen to it again and were like "It was!" And he wouldn't let me get away with recording harmonies and melodies and then reusing them through a song. Every vocal of each song was individualy recorded. And I had never done that before either, mostly because we had such a short time in the studio before.

W: I also really enjoyed the fan interaction aspect of the studio webcam. It was really neat being able to peek in on you guys while you were at work recording.

I know that you guys get the "Christian band" question alot, and I know the reponses that I have read. And your music speaks on very deep spiritual levels. How hard is it sometimes to live out your faith "under the microscope"?

S: My Dad taught us growing up that you have an audience of one. So really, I don't care if I have an audience of 10 billion or 10. All I have to care about is that ONE when my head hits the pillow. So I really don't care about the microscope. I mean, there was a microscope on Jesus Christ, and he did everything absolutley perfect. And I am the worst person alive at this moment, so why should I expect anything less. It says that "the prophet will not be welcomed into his own hometown", and I would say that most, infact 99% of the harshest letters we have ever recieved are from Christians. If anything, I thought that Christians were to "go out into the world and preach the gospel", not hang out in these 4 walls in Bob's youth group and give each other a "Jesus Pep Rally". And thats not what its about.


W: Thats awesome to hear you say that, because alot of people are too afraid to say it.

Thanks so much for your time guys and we are really looking forward to New Surrender, releasing on September 30th, 2008.

S&C: No worries!