Tattoos, Piercings, and Prayers

Write what you know, they always tell you. But it can be so much more interesting to immerse yourself in what you don't know. That's what Andrew Beaujon, indie rock semigod (of the band Eggs, the label Teenbeat, the magazine Spin and the Washington City Paper), did with "Body Piercing Saved My Life," a year-long journey into the heart and soul of that most forbidding of all musical genres: Christian rock.

Armed only with a recorder, his dry wit and an unusual amount of sympathy (for a journalist), Beaujon traveled to Tennessee, Michigan, Seattle -- anywhere 100 or more rockers gathered in His name. Along the way, he met and interviewed anti-abortionists, pro-arranged marriagers, some of the originals of the scene and its doubting Thomas: David Bazan of emo-lite band, Pedro The Lion. He also spoke with a smattering of Christian goths, Christian publicists, Christian producers ... pretty much everyone connected to this billion-dollar-a-year industry that just might be taking over.

Lisa Carver: Who's gonna read this book?

Andrew Beaujon: I don't have the foggiest idea.

LC: At first it seemed like the worst idea for a book I've ever heard. You know the Christians won't buy it; it won't even get in their bookstores. You're not a believer.

AB: There is a Christian underground starting, where people are chafing at the restrictions. But I've already had trouble with people interviewed for the book who used profanity -- they are upset that I quoted them ...

LC: You mentioned that Christian rock is the only movement where controversy doesn't only not sell, but it'll cancel your entire tour.

AB: I don't have any illusions about this book cracking the Christian market, but I hope that it adds to a conversation that's already going on about the meaning of Christian culture.

LC: I can't see the mainstream buying your book either. Christian rock?

AB: The only thing I've got going for me is ... after the last presidential election, people started saying, "Maybe there is a reason to know what Christians are doing, are thinking."

LC: Could your figure actually be right: 48 percent of Americans consider themselves "born again?"

AB: Yes, and when you're talking about a country as big as America, that's a lot of people.

LC: After I finished your book, I thought maybe the intellectuals would buy your book, because they're wondering how they lost the culture war.

AB: God, I hate to think of anyone smart reading my book. I don't know, but I used to live in New York, and I was always struck by how little people there knew about America as a whole. In a way, they're as sheltered from the Christians as the Christians are from them.

David Crowder, who I interviewed for the book, told me how he'd have to sneak upstairs with his radio to listen to Top 40 under the covers. Which is a very un-Christian way of life, if you don't mind my editorializing. Jesus was out among the tax collectors and the lepers. I hate to compare non-Christians to that, but ...

LC: Here's what I don't get. I went to a Baptist church for Easter. There was a 16-piece band, 8-member choir, fantastic sound system, everyone was happy, and they were singing stuff like "You are good all the time/All the time you are good." It was very different from the stuff I hear on the radio, but it was really great music. I'm wondering why there's this huge, huge market of watered-down imitations of other genres substituting the word "lord" when church music is good and church culture is good. Why copy substandardly?

AB: There's the idea that you have to reach kids and provide them a Christian alternative so they're not hiding under their covers listening to Top 40 furtively. And then there's the basic thing about America, which says that when you change your life, you have to get a whole new lifestyle. And there's a lot of money in that. A lot of the products are geared toward parents more than towards kids.