Jonathan Rundman doesn't need critics, he has an audience, and a life's work, and a family, and solid ideas of his own. He creates work for this audience, with an exceptional earnestness, and the roll of the critic is not to be earnest. When critics and their subjects get together to talk, there is usually a series of mutual game playing, an undercurrent of mutually agreed upon theatrics that means that most everything is the same. You can look through interviews, and say this is the funny question, or this questions is supposed to be provocative. This interview has none of that, Rundman has refused to play the game.

Asking the difficult questions, trying to play gotcha, in at least an abstract way, he comes across as ego less, which is bizarre for a musician. He is pleased to do what he is doing, he thinks that the work that he does is worthwhile, but he is not evangelical. This might be why he is not well known. Performing for more then 20 years, writing songs that are both tightly constructed pop gems, and larger discussions

The game playing that occurs between interviewers and interviewees is shown really well, in I'm Not There, the Todd Haynes move about Dylan. When he is famous, he is in the back of a limo with the BBC, and the sheer contempt is palatable. He does not play the game, because he thinks that his work is too important to be investigated, to be written about.

I have gotten no contempt from Rundman, he has been genuine, warm, and open. He answered a long series of questions with acumen, and patience. But he reminded me of the movie in another way. There are scenes there, of Dylan in the 70s, just before he was saved. In those scenes, he is away from his children on planes and in the back of taxis, in anonymous looking houses. When he sees his children, he loves them deeply, but there is an absence in how he cares for both his music and his children. He is lost.

What Haynes is saying, I think,and there a number of examples of this, that when one is earnest, the music becomes insufferable, or the work refuses to come. There are so many examples of that, of rock stars finding something, anything, and then the work falls and falters. For Rundman, the work is the answer seeking. He has solved the problem of earnestness, by not analysing being earnest. For a culture steeped in meta-texts, readings about instead of reading through, camp heroics, and almost toxic irony, there is something intensely brave about saying out loud, and extensively I care ab out something, and if you care about something (well he cares about a lot of things), lets talk about what we care about.

This caring does not mean that he is without other skills in his devotion. One of the things that is appreciative in his work, is his refusal to be stupid, to bathe in the marshmallow flush of contemporary evangelical work. There is an earthbound solidity to the songs, to his goals as a song writer. He trusts his head, his heart, and his traditions. He realises that they have enough to give him that he does not need to be goopy or insufferably pious.

You can see that pin sharp cleverness, in songs like Waiting for Nixon, which is about meeting the ex-president in heaven, which becomes a parable about grace, and the mechanics of being saved. You can also see it in Dialysis Carpool, a jaunty number about everyone going to the doctor's together, about the life affirming possibility of communion in ordinary places.

He is the only one who I can imagine writing 52 songs about the Christian church calendar, with indie rock songs about the ecclesiastical implications of committee work in relation to the Advent? How many people could write something called A Heartland Liturgy, with rock and roll remakes of Sanctus, Gloria, and Agnus Dei? This is not eccentricity though, no a schitck to hang album sales on. It is a genuine and holy need to update and still maintain the traditions of Christendom. (all Christendom, he is as ecumenical as he is proudly Lutheran, in the best liberal tradition.)

I was going to say, that Rundman should be more famous. Perhaps more people should here his work, for the humility, the openness, and the willingness to engage with the divine, as much for the excellent guitar work, the jangly energy of the work, and the tenderness of the words. But I wonder if he is just happy enough to record, and tour on occasion, and live his vocation, regardless of who is listening. He's kind of prophetic that way.


1. So, the first question that my editor asked me to ask, he is worried that you are not nearly famous enough for a feature. How famous are you exactly?

Paul Westerberg has a great lyric that goes “they ask him ‘are you famous?’ / ‘you’ve answered that, you know’.” My answer would be, not very. However, I think that whatever fame I’ve accumulated is thanks to niche appeal. Among Gen-X Lutherans in church leadership roles, I’m pretty well known. There’s some overlap in the other mainline denominations as well. I’m also getting some wonderful support from the Finnish-American community, who are just discovering me in the past year or so. One sub-set of folks who I’m always glad to have interested in my work are those people who follow suspiciously Christian fringe-Americana bands like Vigilantes of Love, Victoria Williams, Over the Rhine, Bruce Cockburn, etc.

2. You are a member of ECLA, which is  is considered the more liberal of the Lutheran synods, do you notice a levelling off or a decline of membership?  Do you think the mainline protestant domination's are dying, what do you make of the Conservative instinct, that suggests this is because of a lack of moral rigour?

In my travels around the country, I don’t notice the decline, although all the statistics say that it’s happening. I don’t think the membership shrinkage can be blamed on “liberalism”...what I’ve seen is that the proudly liberal and the proudly conservative congregations are growing. I think that any place that clearly, publicly takes a stand in either direction will draw new people. My own congregation here in the Twin Cities is one of the most progressive in the ELCA, and our membership is booming. We’re having trouble finding places for people to sit on Sunday mornings. Seems to me that the way to drive away your members is to be passionless and boring and have nothing challenging to say in any direction.


3 How does one become liturgically Conservative, and socially liberal,? What do you think of the sojourner style reconnecting between economic justice and the practice of Christendom, Esp, in the irony that you have talked about, in how the gospels require a radical simplicity and the culture of the current Christian church does not seem to?

I don’t know how that happens, but the most socially liberal church people that I know are usually the most liturgically conservative. And yes, it’s funny for me to see the Christian-right Evangelical community getting all hyper and excited about the environment, and poverty, and liturgy, ‘cause for me in the ELCA Lutheran realm since the ‘80s, that’s what we’ve been working on the entire time! It’s a drag how we mainline groups never get any media attention, and now all of a sudden when Rick Warren starts hanging out with Bono, the press says “finally, the Christians are caring about the poor!” We mainline Protestants are the Rodney Dangerfield of the church.


4. Do you see any parallels between the ordaining of women in 1970s and the ordaining of gay men and lesbians now? If so, what are they?
I was in diapers when Lutheran women first got ordained, so I don’t remember what it was like before, but yes, I think there are some parallels. The key thing is this: I think all it takes for those unsure people in the pews is for them to meet and know about somebody...a real, actual human Pastor. I think that’s the secret to getting over this homophobia in the church....people need to meet, visit with, eat with, and work with wonderful, kind, loving, responsible, gay Christians. Once it stops being about an idea, and starts being about people, it’s much more difficult to turn them away. The church where I grew up called their first woman Pastor in the last few years, and they’re a pretty old-fashioned congregation. When she got the call, there was some hesitation, but once the parishioners met her and got to know her, there were no problems. So many folks who oppose gay ordination would tell you that they’ve never met or talked to a gay person (that they knew of), and when you’re living in a small rural town, that’s not hard for me to believe. That’s why I offered one of my songs for inclusion on an Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries benefit CD...the more I can do to support GLBT leaders in the church, ordained or not, then the more clueless people in the pews will have a chance to know and care about a real, out gay Christian.

Do you really know people who "fight about the 6 day earth, or the second birth",

Yes, that song is true, drawn from numerous examples. It was initially inspired by a presenter I heard at a youth gathering who did a workshop about how the eruption of Mount St. Helens proved that the earth was only a few thousand years old. The “second birth” issue is something that all Lutherans are faced with when they meet an Evangelical who asks “So, when did you get saved?” Of course, the questioner is looking for a specific date, time, and location. There are a bunch of fun answers that will really send the asker into a tizzy...something like “when I was four months old, at my baptism,” or “this morning, when I woke up and washed my face, looked in the mirror, and remembered God’s love for me,” or “two thousand years ago on Calvary.”

In songs like Looking for Connection, do you find yourself called to ecumenicism as an example of larger community building, or as one example of community building (for example, in other songs, you mention that carpooling to dialysis is holy, and that working on a committee is for the lord)

I really am Ecumenical. And I am because I love denominations. And I love organized religion. I’m always annoyed when Christian bands say “we’re a non-denominational band...we don’t want to be so divisive.” I think denominations are fantastic. I think every Christian should know about the church they attend, who they’re affiliated with, figure out how that connects with their own values and their own spiritual journey, and they should get involved. I think almost every denomination has something valuable to teach the others in the Christian community. It’s that whole thing of “the hand can’t say to the foot I don’t need you.” I think personal spirituality is overrated, and I think organized religion is underrated.

And if that is the case, what do you make of Ratzinger circling the wagons, and the Episcopalians in the middle of schism, considering you were founded as heretical?

I don’t know much about the Catholic situation, but it’s interesting watching the Anglican community dealing with their issues. I suppose it could be a preview of what could happen to us Lutherans. One thing I like about the ELCA is that our relatively young denomination is the result of a couple hundred years of denominational mergers...different kinds of Lutherans agreeing to team up. It would be a drag to introduce a split after such a nice run of cooperation. We move really really slow when it comes to social issues, and that’s annoying for us progressives, but I do think we’re making headway. I guess we can learn from the Catholics that a couple decades of waiting and studying is nothing when you look back across 2000 years of church history.

You talk about how Christian rock is profoundly white, and that you want to work against that, but if there is anything more white then Christian rock (of the Jars of Clay school), its indie rock. Is there a lack of diversity, in both categories? Do you find that a concern, and if you do find it a concern, how do you work on it?

I remember when I gave that “white” quote...it was to a writer from the Illinois Entertainer who was interviewing me about my Sound Theology album. It was a phone interview, and the comment just came out of my mouth...I wish I never said it, ‘cause my problems with Christian Culture don’t really have anything to do with race. Although, I’ve been denominationally influenced (some might say brainwashed) by the values of the ELCA since I was a child, so I can’t help but try to be as inclusive as possible in my own music and presentation.

You’re right, both CCM and Pitchfork-rock (the webpage, not the weapon of Satan) are pretty white. If I had to compare, I think indie rock is the whiter of the two. I’m not sure it’s a concern that indie rock is “too white.” The bands reflect the audience, and vice versa. What I think is really strange is how white people have adopted Black Roots music, and young African Americans have not. A year ago or so I saw the Blind Boys of Alabama in concert...they were awesome. The audience was almost entirely white. I bet it would be a similar situation for other old school black artists. When I lived in Chicago my wife worked with black teenagers on the West Side, and we’d talk to them about music, and none of them had ever heard of Chuck Berry or Aretha Franklin.


What is Whiter Minneapolis, Indie Rock, or being a Lutheran?

Indie Rock wins again. I’ve lived in Minneapolis now for six years, and anyone who thinks Minneapolis is white just needs to go shopping at Target. It’s like a small scale UN in there. I suppose if one’s idea of Lutheran was “the 80 people I see at church every Sunday” then maybe it appears to be white, but I have the privilege of seeing the Lutheran church in its wide scope. I’ve been the interim musician at an all-African American congregation on the West Side of Chicago, I’ve presented music with Lutherans from Palestine, Africa, and India, and within blocks of my house there are Lutheran churches who read the Gospel in Hmong each week. As a kid I remember being so excited to discover songs from around the globe included in our Lutheran hymnal. One of the most fun things about being Lutheran is our awareness of the Christian family on a global scale....not just the folks at our own local congregation.

Also, how different are you from the usual Christian work, if you preform at places like Life Fest, with Rebecca ST James and Switchfoot? 5 days of that sort of work, do you consider yourself active in that part of the community, or as a kind of outlier?

I’m certainly an outlier in the CCM universe. I’ve had a chance to play at LiFest and Cornerstone, two of the big Midwestern Christian Rock fests, but they’re probably the two most flexible of those events. Plus, I only got booked at those events ‘cause I happened to know somebody personally who was booking a certain stage. If I wanted to play at Creation or whatever the other fests are called, I couldn’t even track down a phone number for a booker. I know, because I thought that I should try to play at SonShine, the big festival here in Minnesota, since I’m a local guy, but I couldn’t even find a name or phone number of anybody who was booking it. The CCM world is a self contained universe, and it’s very rare for some indie artist to find a way in.
 
You opened for Swtichfoot though, what do you figure about Christian bands going back into the faith closet after they mainstream themselves?

Yes, I’ve had the chance to open for few big Christian acts, and when I was playing keyboards for Beki Hemingway (who is kind of a Christian alterna-rock legend) I got to do even more shows like that. After playing endless solo shows for 30 people in the church basement, or the grungy bar, it really is fun to have a big PA and a soundman and an audience of a few hundred. I don’t really care if Christian bands cross over to the mainstream audience or not, or go from mainstream to CCM....I say, hey, if somebody wants you to play at their venue, and you wanna do it, then do it. I know that I’m thrilled to play anywhere that somebody will have me. So if I get asked to play some big Christian festival, or go on tour opening for Aimee Mann, I’ll gladly do either one.


Do you have any salacious gossip about Ms St James, a peak at her diva like tendencies, an outrageous rider, or is she just that nice?
In my experience schmoozing at the Christian celebrity events, I’ve found that it’s quite difficult to actually meet and hang out with the other artists. Most bands are there together with their own crew and families, and there’s not a lot of “hey, let’s make new friends!” The one thing I will say about the Christian music stars that I’ve been with is that, in general, they’re amazingly, jarringly good looking. The men and the women. And yes, they’re naturally attractive people, but they’re workin’ it, too, you know....they’re really thin and fit, with super trendy clothing, teeth whitener, and $300 haircuts, the whole nine yards. It’s really quite incredible. They’re like a master race.

How does being involved, say, in a church that actively welcomes LGBTQ voices, jibe with being involved with or being paid by, organizations that are actively homophobic, or allowing women ministers jibe with sharing resources with organizations that do not allow women to speak?

This has been a real struggle for me. For example, a few months ago I was asked to play at a big gathering sponsored by a very conservative youth outreach organization. I knew that they’d probably have a really psychologically manipulative altar call, and that they’d be mortified if they knew what was going on at the church where I attend. I almost turned down the gig. But I sort of knew one of the organizers, and I knew that he himself was a cool, reasonable, and not-insane guy. So I said yes, hoping that at the very least I could bring a fresh voice and attitude to event. So, I played the event, and much to my surprise, they handled everything pretty well. They had an altar call, but it was done as respectfully as one could hope, there were some weirdos around, but they didn’t rule the roost, and in general it was a positive experience. Ultimately though, I didn’t really connect...my attempt to teach the crowd some liturgical songs, some traditional hymns, and my performing of rock songs about church committees and vocation just wasn’t where they were at. I talked to a few people, sold about four CDs, and that was it. I try to be a breath of fresh air for the Christian Right, but they just don’t get it. It’s like I’m up there playing the koto and singing in Japanese.

You have worked, and played extensively at both Christian and secular venues, is there tension between being of the world but not in the world, what are the advantages to playing in places like the Colourbox, versus places like Lifefest, or in small clubs versus church basement, and the opposite—which do you prefer?

I’ve done a lot of thinking about this over the years, and I’ve realized that I love both, and hope to be able to be legitimate in both (and all) situations. In the late 90s, before the release of the Sound Theology album, I spent years on the road playing mostly rock clubs and coffee houses, and it got really old. However, if I only played church gigs, that would be equally lame. Club gigs are fun ‘cause the media will actually cover you, preview the show, etc. And it’s wonderful to play a full band show with big loud guitar amps and not worry about the listeners’ ears. Church gigs are great, though, because they’re intergenerational...no club show will have senior citizens and babies in the crowd. And church audiences actually listen to every word you say and sing. I never really think about the “in but not of” issue...it’s natural for Lutherans to just exist in the world, wherever they are, as people of faith. Lutherans don’t bust things up into “sacred” and “secular.” Of course, as a performer, I always try to be aware of who my audience is, but I just do my thing...I play hymns in rock clubs, and I play love/life/politics songs at church.


One of your most memorable lyrics is "my faith is not erotic, my faith is not neurotic, my faith
is not psychotic.", which i found really interesting, because you have a talent for tender songs that are incredibly erotic. Do you find that there is any intermingling between the erotic feelings that you write about, and your relationship with God? It seems to be a very Lutheran ideal, one that is earthbound, not mystical at all, is that fair? or did you just need a rhyme for narcotic, neurotic, psychotic, or robotic? and sometimes, isn't faith narcotic, when it relieves pain and gives comfort?Or do you consider that every day of survival, of experience, is a miracle, and that miracle, the miracle of existence, is considered a mystical awareness?

I have no problem with erotic feelings. I just get the heebie-jeebies when Christians totally bury their sexual selves, and so the only outlet they have for it is in “praise and worship” situations. Sometimes I’ll catch a late night TV infomercial for a Praise and Worship music CD and they’ll show a sports arena filled with thousands of middle aged women totally blissing out in orgasmic delight as they sing “Shout to the Lord” or whatever, and it gives me the creeps. Not everybody’s faith manifests itself that way, so I wrote that song “You Don’t Speak For Me” to represent another way of living out an authentic spiritual life. The same is true for the other words in the song, “narcotic,” “psychotic,” and “robotic.” I sing “my faith is not narcotic” to provide an alternative to all the Jesus-as-drug references in Christian culture...I’m always annoyed when Christians use the language of addiction to describe their faith, like the term “Jesus freak” or “high on Jesus” or that whole Pentecostal movement in where everybody starts laughing and falling over and acting drunk. My favourite fruit of the Spirit (from Galatians) is “self-control” so I wanted to be sure that self-control got some props in a culture filled with religious “freaks.”


Can you talk a bit about your relationship with the technical languages of faith, the intensity of your commitment to things like the Kyrie, the
liturgical calendar, or even technical terms for the church building itself like the Narthex. Is it a way to reconfirm the essentially logophillic nature of Christianity,or just to destroy who ever made praise and worship music with your massive vocab/knowledge?

As I’ve considered my vocation as a songwriter, I’ve realized that my creative role is to say the thing that nobody else has said before in a rock and roll song. It’s been my motivation with old songs like “Front Row at the Fashion Show,” brand new songs like “Dialysis Carpool,” and all my faith-based songs too. Before I wrote and recorded Sound Theology, I had a creative epiphany when I realized that nobody had ever used rock music to explore the mainline Protestant experience. There are 5 million ELCA Lutherans, plus all the many millions of other Lutherans around the globe, plus all the Methodists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and whoever else! It’s the daily life experience of scores and scores of people everywhere, but nobody had ever sung about it! So that’s the reason I focus on the Kyrie, and church architecture, committees, vocation, and the liturgical calendar. I think it’s interesting material, it’s the reality for millions of people, and Neil Young, Gwen Stefani, Steven Curtis Chapman, or Casting Crowns aren’t writing about it. It’s worth writing about, and singing about, so I’m gonna do it.  

Some questions about Sound Theology:

Can you tell some anecdotes, find some context, about the song Loneliness to Happiness, i find personally it is so far away from my personal experience, that I wanted to know why you found that?

I’ve lived a charmed life. No childhood trauma. Happy family. My dreams of being a musician are being realized. My children are healthy. I’m very thankful for how things have worked out, and I don’t take it for granted. All this, though, and I’ve found that it’s nothing I can share openly without sounding like a jerk. I remember once about a decade ago I was having dinner with a group of friends, and I was commenting about how excited I was to be going out on tour, and I had a chance to play some really great shows, etc. One of my friends got really mad and said “Some of us hate getting up and going to work every day, you know....I hate my job, and I hate doing it, and I don’t need to hear about how great it’s gonna be for you to go off on tour.” I was shocked and embarrassed, to say the least. Another example: my wife had healthy and easy pregnancies with our children, but I’ve discovered that I can never state that fact in public because so many couples struggle with getting pregnant, or if they are pregnant, they have lots of sickness and complications. So this moment of great joy that we’ve experienced has to be hidden. It’s the loneliness of happiness.

Have you succeeded in yr prayer not to backslide into anger and contempt, at this failing rock star attempt, do you still want to be a rock star ?

I still entertain the rock star fantasy, but now that I’m 37 with a couple kids, it doesn’t matter to me as much. And I know that I missed my window...if it was gonna happen, it would’ve happened a decade ago. Thankfully, I haven’t slid into anger and contempt. A good reality check for me is to watch the exploits of the celebrities on the tabloid magazines in the grocery store checkout aisle...it’s proof over and over and over again that fame and money do not bring happiness. I also have enough perspective to know how good I have it...I can make my living as an independent musician, I make the albums I want to make, I have a nice base of supporters who are interested in my work, I can travel around the country playing my songs, and nobody tells me what I can or cannot do. It’s really the best situation anyone could ask for.

You have spoken against the stupidity and commodity spectacle and much current American protestant forces, you refer to it as creating monsters. Do you have any suggestions that make traditional Christian texts alive again, to young Christians

This is so tricky. I don’t know. I was in a confirmation class of about 30 kids. We all heard the same stuff, read the same Bible verses, sang the same hymns, knew the same Pastors and leaders. I loved it. Most of the kids were bored to tears. I’m still a part of the church. I bet about two thirds of my confirmation class are gone for good. Why do some people “get it” and others don’t? I think the answer might be in education....for some reason, I understood WHY we were saying and doing and learning that stuff. Most kids, and most folks in the pew, have no clue why we recite certain things, why the Pastor wears a dress, why the altar colors are purple during Lent, why we read certain Bible verses on certain days. There are specific reasons for every little thing we do in church, and I think they’re wonderful and beautiful and deep and helpful reasons....but most people don’t know it. To them it’s empty tradition. Or worse, they don’t know why we do it, but they come to idolize the rituals themselves, and get horribly stuck in a rut of repetition, inflexibility, and intolerance. One of the reasons I’m so excited about going out to play my own songs is that by bashing my guitar and yelling about liturgy and hymns and order, I can uncover those core meanings in a fresh way for some folks in my audience. Frequently I get emails or comments from folks saying “I’ll never think of Ash Wednesday the same way again” or “I’ve sung that hymn my whole life, but I’ve never paid attention to the lyrics until tonight!”

How do you make people more earnest, less cynical, less angry, more aware of Grace, how do you explain the miracle of Grace, to those exhausted and frustrated by the current constructions of Christian thought?

This is really really tricky, too. American Christians don’t want to hear about Grace. They want to work to earn something. I listen to conservative talk radio every day to try to understand their side of things, and because it’s plain old entertaining radio...the hosts are constantly talking about personal responsibility, and “this is my money...I worked for it,” and “Americans build up their own lives and careers with hard work and dedication.” Whenever I read the parable of the workers in the vineyard, I realize how radical the idea of Grace sounds in the USA today. I’ve never seen a televangelist preach on the parable of the workers in the vineyard...how would they do it? I tried to communicate this idea of God’s unreasonable and free wheeling generosity in my song “Forgiveness Waltz”....maybe the best way to talk about Grace is to do it with art and images. It’s like a dance. It’s less like math. Another good way to communicate about Grace is to live like a realist, but with joy. Lutherans love paradox....saint/sinner, lost/found, law/Gospel, and somewhere in those messy areas God’s Grace is revealed.

You speak against keeping score and track in Forgiveness Waltz, but is not the liturgical calendar's central goal, about keeping track of time, about being obsessional about time?

I think if anything in the church gets obsessive, it’s probably not being utilized properly. The liturgical calendar is just a tool, and it’s supposed to be helpful. It’s supposed to be beautiful and functional. When it becomes an idol in and of itself, then it’s time to re-evaluate the situation. That’s the danger that comes with a high-church faith practice...the churchy stuff can get idolized. In that line of the song “keeping score, keeping track, keeping time, while the hours keep turning” is exactly the obsession that people get stuck in. Christians get so paranoid about everything...who is watching, who’s saved or not, who said the wrong or right thing. If our salvation depended on us keeping all those balls in the air, we’d certainly all be screwed forever. One of the things I like best about being a Lutheran is our commitment to constant Reformation...it’s a great way to be sure that our churchy obsessions don’t drag us down....we will change and rebel and reform to insure that God’s gracious love for the universe is the focus, rather than all our churchy hoo-ha.


 How do the twin forces of feeling and knowing interlace themselves, how do they gird your personal Christian life?

I find that most American Christians have a pretty emotional faith life. They like sensitive, heart-tugging praise songs, and they like to be moved to tears, and sing and raise their hands. Hey, if that’s where you’re at, God bless you. Luckily for folks like this, there are zillions of congregations for them to attend where their needs can be met. For me, ever since I was a kid, I’ve been more attracted to the nerdier aspects of faith. Old stuff, quiet stuff, wordier stuff, candles, symbols, images. My style is less popular, BUT there are quite a few of us out there in the world, and we need to go to church, too. Of course, I feel great emotion and passion in my faith, but it just expresses itself in a different way.

How lonely is the Midwest, in songs like Omaha, you make it sound like a series of absences and spaces of mourning, as do Connor Obrest and Bruce Springsteen, is there any fun to be had in Nebraska, can you think of any examples of a kick ass party song about kicking it there?

Rural Midwestern geography has been a recurring theme throughout all my albums, and a lot of good regional artists from Mellencamp to Uncle Tupelo to the Jayhawks have tapped into to those lonely, dreary feelings. For me, it was challenging to grow up in an isolated little Midwestern town, and even now I get a bit of the small town blues whenever I get out of the city and visit places like that. If you want fun, positive songs about rural life in the Heartland, all you need to to is watch country music videos. Sometimes when I’m in a hotel room with cable TV I’ll watch CMT, and I’m amazed at how so many songs are raucous party anthems about “getting back to the country” and “remembering the good old days” with images of dudes on flatbed trucks and combines, strumming guitars, dancing in the wheat fields, and jumping in the old swimming hole, surrounded by a bevy of babes and cases of beer. When it addresses small town USA, country music accentuates the positive, rock music accentuates the negative.

Tell me about why and how much you love Liz Phair? What are you feelings about Hot White Cum and how did you celebrate the 10th anniversary of Exile to
> Guyville?

When critics rave about Liz, they only talk about her dirty mouth. The media never mentions what really makes her brilliant...riffs riffs riffs! She’s one of my favorite rock guitarists and composers, and her chord changes and rhythm guitar playing is totally inspiring. I can’t help but think that she wrote that “H.W.C.” song as a total commentary on her own infamy for using foul language...she took her claim to fame, and stretched it to ridiculous lengths, probably just to see what those cuss-loving journalists would say about it. I didn’t buy the “Exile” anniversary reissue...not enough bonus tracks. I think my all-time favorite Liz album is Whitechocolatespaceegg.

> 29. How has the indie scene in Chicago differ from the one in Minneapolis?

I’m not sure. When I lived in Chicago I was a pretty active participant in the scene...I was out seeing shows numerous times a week, playing tons of clubs, and I got to know a lot of people. When I moved here to Minneapolis I became a parent, so my evenings were instead spent changing diapers and trying to sleep.

30. Larry Norman yes or no?

I’ve never heard Larry’s music, and don’t have any of his albums, although occasionally I get compared to him. My friend Beki Hemingway was Larry’s backup singer for a few years, and this Summer I sat in with Beki’s band and we did a tribute to Larry...one of his songs called “Why Don’t You Look in to Jesus.” It was the first Larry Norman song I’d ever heard, and it was pretty rocking.

31. Danielson Familee, yes or no?

Never heard them either. Although people tell me I should watch that movie about them. I never listen to Christian rock, or suspiciously-Christian Indie Rock. I prefer the suspiciously-Christian rock of the ‘80s and ‘90s: Maria McKee, T Bone Burnett, Peter Case, Sam Phillips, Tonio K, Bruce Cockburn.

Just how Christian is Sufjan Stephens? Are you envious of his success in the middle west?

I’ve only heard one Sufjan song...a Christmas one. It’s on my iPod. It’s a pretty cool song. And I want to get his Michigan and Illinois albums ‘cause I’ve lived in both those states. I recorded a song back in 1997 called “Front Row at the Fashion Show” where I sang quietly over a banjo and trombone, and this year the song got licensed for airplay in all the Starbucks Coffee locations around the world. After that, a couple people said to me “Hey, you must be influenced by Sufjan Stevens.” It was kind of annoying ‘cause my song was written and recorded a decade ago, way before Sufjan was around. So that’s my only beef with him.

Do you think that being explicit about your faith makes you more money, less money? Do you play We're Creating Monsters at Finn fest, for example? In an incredibly practical way, how do you feed yr kids doing this sort of thing, does it become a voluntary vow of poverty?

I didn’t realize it was going to happen at the time, but my entire career changed when I made my first faith-explicit album. It was the Sound Theology project, and when that came out it really launched me to a new level of visibility, and income. Before that album I was sort of a generic pop/folk songwriter, but once I addressed faith-based issues I discovered that I could bring something unique to the table, and a really great audience of interested people popped up all over the country. So when it comes to feeding my kids, and contributing to my family, I owe it all to the church and to church people. They’re the population who makes my vocation possible. My wife Dawn has always had a normal job throughout my entire career, so thankfully I haven’t need to be the only breadwinner.

How does the making music, the touring, the recording, and the like, interfere with your having kids? Especially touring for the last few years, throughout the United States, Canada, Finland and Sweden?

It totally and completely interferes. In the decade before I had kids I was on the road about 150 days per year. Then when I became a parent I became a stay-home-Dad during the midweek while my wife is at work. Now I can only tour on weekends, play locally in the evening, and a few weeks during the year I’ll go off on extended tours while my kids are with their Grandparents. But yes, taking care of babies and preschoolers makes touring, writing, and recording nearly impossible. This new album I just released is called Insomniaccomplishments because all the late night feeding and diapering totally messed up my sleep schedule, and I ended up with pretty serious insomnia. Rather than lying awake and bored alone in the dark all night I’d get up and write and record songs instead, so the bulk of this new CD was completed at 3AM while my family was sleeping. The last time I played in Finland and Sweden my wife and 2 year old son came with me. For my gigs in Finland we left our toddler with my cousins while I played, but in Sweden he had to come along to the club. I was playing a show at Club Mondo in Stockholm, which is this giant multi-roomed rock venue and disco, and we had to create a little play area behind the bar where my son could hang out with my wife during my set.

How does your wife's position at Augsburg Fortress function in relationship with your work? You are a major Lutheran singer songwriter, your wife works at the biggest Lutheran publisher in the states, before bed do you read sections of the Wittenberg confession tenderly to each other?

When we got married, neither of us were doing professional church work, but over the years our careers have really evolved into an overlapping situation. Now sometimes we even get gigs together where my wife is the keynote speaker and I’m the band. She’s got a PhD in Developmental Psychology, and she’s done some very interesting research on faith development in the brains of infants and toddlers. We have a ton of fun together working as church resource people....we both like to be up front at the microphone, but obviously our content is totally different. My wife is also a very gifted classical musician, and she’s been known to sit in with me occasionally on drums...we do kind of standing-snare with cymbal and brushes drum kit, like the Violent Femmes would use.


"We all need love, the serious kind"—do you think that occasionally we need love the comic kind?

Maybe in our personal lives, but I think the love we need in society and around the globe is pretty serious business.

What is it like to be a youth worker? Did it emerge organically from the youth group being one of the few things to do in the Upper Peninsula? Was the work at Youth Experience evangelical work? Or was it a way to keep teenage kids as Christians? When they are in the middle of trying to figure out what it means to be Christian, or if they want to be Christians at all, what are the implications of organizing around them? Is it a way to keep them safe, from topping thinking outside the margins, to be good Christians, or to challenge them into otherness? What happens when the difficult questions start? What do you do, as a youth worker, if one of your 15 year olds wants an abortion, comes out of the closet, tells you he is no longer Christian, or asks pointed questions about on The Jews and Their Lies?

I did get interested in working in youth ministry because of my own positive experience as a teenager in a church youth group, and at church camp in the Summers. When I was kid at camp and at youth gatherings I was encouraged to play guitar, get up on stage, be a leader, and develop my gifts...I was given a lot of encouragement back then, and it was the beginning of what would become my life’s work as a musician and songwriter.
I had a very part time job as a youth director in a congregation back when I was 21, right at the beginning of my solo music career. I was never much of an evangelist....my strengths have always been in preaching to the choir. Some people are really good at reaching out to people who aren’t in the church at all, but I’m best at encouraging the people who are already there. I had a squeaky clean career as a youth director...no trips to get kids out of jail, no pregnancies, no abuse, no serious drama. The bulk of my work was just being present...talking, going out for pizza, taking kids to movies and concerts, helping kids plan songs and skits for worship services, planning service projects, taking kids hiking, and just celebrating those small joyful moments of life with them.

 What do you tell your own children about God, what will you tell them as they grow older, what happens if they fail to share the faith of their parents?

I think sometimes Christian parents get too obsessed with immersing their kids in the faith, and in the end it backfires on them. My wife and I are trying to chill out, and naturally involve our kids in our family faith-life in joyful, relaxed, flexible and organic ways. I don’t stress out over things like “What if my kids leave the church when they’re 18!!” When my wife and I were growing up, our parents were faithful and cool and loving, and for us it was obvious. That’s the kind of home I want to provide, too.
 

The All Music Guide quotes this about you: "Rundman formed a musical vocabulary grounded in the budding strains of Americana/roots rock, Lutheran hymns, traditional American folk music, and
'70s rock to present a uniquely eclectic variant of Midwestern roots? I grew up in Alberta, so this part of your All Music Guide, fascinated me. I have a few questions about it. Did you listen to chart country, which was the only station that was available to me sometimes, on trips into the city? Which
Lutheran hymns did you sing? Do you still remember them? How did they differ from Episcopalian or Methodist Catholic, or were there just Lutherans up there? My mother and father only let me listen to folk music until I went away to school when I was 14, was this a similar condition, and if so, do you find Pete Seeger as sanctimonious as I do. Could you find enough weed to make Foghat or Frampton palatable? Is there a rock scene there, like the straight edge scene in Provo, filled with kids who had nothing else to do?

I never listened to country music on the radio as a kid. My parents mostly had Top 40 on the radio, and in the car we listened to 8-track tapes of Simon & Garfunkel and Kenny Rogers. I got my own radio in my bedroom when I was 5 years old, and because of that I know every pop single from 1975 until 1988. Lutheran hymns were a big deal to me as a kid. Our denomination got a new hymnal in 1978, and I grew to love all those songs. Lutherans around the USA still sing from that repertoire. Our town had Methodists and Catholics and everyone else, but I don’t know what they were singing. It was before the “praise band” trend, so I think everybody had an organist or pianist back then. When I first started playing guitar in church in the late 80s, it was still a pretty novel idea. I have an uncle who collects 78 RPM records from the Depression, so as a young teenager I got really into listening to old country songs by The Carter Family, and my cousin and I learned all those songs on guitar. I never heard Pete Seeger back then, but the local radio was filled with Rust Belt arena rock: Foghat, Ted Nugent, Bob Seger, etc., plus the hair metal of the day. There was no rock scene at all. This was pre-Nirvana, so kids in my town weren’t learning to play guitar. I was one of the only kids in the whole school who played a rock-band instrument, and the only boy who dared to sing in public. I got teased and called “fag” because I played the piano and was a serious band geek. In the mid-80s I discovered the developing scene of “neo-traditionalist” rock bands, and got really into groups like The Silos, The Rainmakers, The BoDeans, Fire Town, Violent Femmes, and others who were playing proto-Americana. I was literally the only kid in town who liked this music...I would save up my money, and when my church youth group would attend big youth events in Chicago I’d rush off to the record store and buy all the albums that were unavailable in the Upper Peninsula.

Also, speaking of Provo, growing up LDS, i came to believe that my peoples casseroles and jell-o salads were superior, my Lutheran friends tell me that they have better ones. Any opinions? Any exciting recipes for either?

Culturally speaking, I’m a bad Lutheran. Lutherans are supposed to love coffee, casserole, jello, beer, and sitting in the back row....but I don’t like any of those things.


How is a protestant rock ethic the same and how is it different from a protestant work ethic

One of my proudest moments is coming up with that album title “Protestant Rock Ethic” but I think the joke is lost to almost everyone. The “protestant work ethic” that we have here in America has been taken to such an extreme that many American Christians can’t grasp the idea that God’s love for us is a free gift, regardless of our good work. So I thought I’d diffuse the idea, by replacing the word “work” with the word “rock,” which I think is a really funny joke.

Your Texas Kyrie has an energy, and an almost desperation, that other Kyrie's lack. Did you think about Texas when making it? Are you doing any other state Kyrie's? What would a North Dakota Kyrie sound like, a California one?

Actually, that song was not one of my commissioned works. I wrote it as a song writing challenge, to see if I could create liturgical music that could be played by full band without rehearsal, and that could be sung by a congregation without sheet music or any printed text. That’s why the chord progression is a loop, and why the response is an echo. It’s called “Texas Kyrie” because I had a gig at Concordia University in Austin, TX, and after my show I was staying in the campus’ guest apartment. That night I stayed up late writing the song, and I didn’t want to title it just “Kyrie,” so I named the piece after the state I was in at the time. The song appeared soon after on my Sound Theology album, and I discovered that there was a huge interest out in the church for rock-band based liturgical music, so eventually I composed the rest of what would become my Heartland Liturgy.

How exciting is the American Swedish Institute?

Every year that I get older, the more excited I get about my ethnic heritage. My wife is Swedish and I’m Finnish, and we’re both learning more and more about our family backgrounds. My relatives came to America in 1903, and they brought their faith with them. I’ve been able to go back to Finland, to those little towns where they came from, and I’ve stood in their old church buildings and seen my family names on the gravestones over there. It’s pretty powerful.

In your song, "Waiting for Nixon", you write "Somehow, somewhere, something/down the line/we will be meeting Nixon, Meeting Nixon/When we go to the White House in the sky": Do you really think that Nixon went to heaven? i always thought that he was one of the minor princes in hell, brought to earth in a Faustian bargain, engineered by Kissinger. Was this an oblique reference to Lather's by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone"? Do you really want to meet him? What would you say to him?

Yes, I think the song is trying to remind people that we get to heaven because of God’s love for us, not because of how wonderfully we’ve behaved. It’s fun to sing about Richard Nixon, but the I don’t think of the song being about him specifically....it’s really about all presidents and politicians, and how God’s love transcends all the political divisions that we spend so much time and money and energy worrying about. It’s a good reality check in an election year, especially.