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What happened to POD after they turned down the CCM label?

The manager who told me this story said one of the guys was living out of his car. It wasn't like they had a lot of options, but they felt so strongly that if they were to sign with that label they would not be where they wanted to be, which was on The Howard Stern Show, on mainstream rock stations, and on MTV. Shortly after that Atlantic Records offered them a deal, and they've become the cultural phenomena we know them to be.

I think, even as we speak, things are changing. I see a greater willingness on the part of the Christian music labels to begin to function as mainstream labels. That means sending their artists out to mainstream radio and making a serious effort to be part of the music business. The new head of the Gospel Music Association, John Styll, is working to change things. But until that happens and they're fully integrated, these artists are going to continue to go to mainstream labels.

There are some people encouraging this movement and some power brokers that have a strategic faith commitment. The late Bob Briner is one. And another one is Carson Daly at Total Request Live on MTV. A lot of people may not be aware of his faith journey.

Bob wrote Roaring Lambs back in 1993. But I would say five or six years later his book began to sell quite well and a lot of the artists began to read it. What made it remarkable was he was a grownup. Some of us who have been critical of this stuff were younger and could be dismissed. But to have a grownup, an experienced media professional saying this is not being done right, that carried some weight, and I think it really had an impact.

Many Christians would probably take issue with some of the things Carson Daly's done. It helps to look at the person's critics and see what they're saying. When Howard Stern gets on the air and calls Carson Daly a "Jesus freak" for getting Christians on MTV, that's your first clue that there's more to that person than meets the eye. I think Carson, at his position when he was at MTV, paved the way for artists like POD to be on there. And he's been very strategic in what he's trying to do.

As a youngster, he contemplated going into the priesthood, but he said he could do more at MTV in terms of affecting people. That's pretty significant to have a person like that as a cultural gatekeeper at MTV for a while.

How does the younger generation view these issues differently from older generations?

The previous generation would look at the idea of a Christian section in a store and say, "Isn't that wonderful, we have our own section." This next generation would say, "Why do I want to be in the kooky section in the corner? My ideas are mainstream ideas, my products should be in the mainstream of Walmart." In the same way, the previous generation thought, "We have our own religious channel, isn't that great, 24 hours of Christian TV." This generation says, "Why do we want to be on the kooky channel. We want to be part of the cultural mainstream and have our ideas considered there." One generation was content with having their ideas available, albeit on the sideline. This generation is saying, we want our ideas up front and center part of the consideration that all ideas have.

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July (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48