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We're all aware of the evil that lurks within; the apostle Paul called himself a "prisoner of sin." But most of us are pretty good at hiding that stuff and putting on a smile—especially at church. Dan Haseltine, frontman for the Grammy-winning band Jars of Clay, played that game for a long time too. But when he met some guys who were committed to being totally honest with each other, he decided he was sick of hiding the monster within—a good monster, but a monster nonetheless. Thus the title of the band's new album, Good Monsters, releasing next week—and thus the premise for this conversation with the always thoughtful and articulate Haseltine, who speaks his mind on his own internal monsters, on his doubts, on the rise of honesty in Christian music, and on the things that make him say, "Oh, my God."

I hear this album was basically recorded the old-fashioned way, by getting the whole band in the studio and playing the songs in one shot.

Dan Haseltine Yeah, we actually did preproduction on this record, which is something we never do. We wrote the songs ahead of time, spent some time rehearsing together, and then went in. We literally went song by song and collected full performances of each one.

Did you say to yourselves, "Man, why haven't we done this all along?"

Haseltine I don't know that we could have done it before. The light bulb went on when we were making Redemption Songs; that's when I think we really felt like we were capable of sitting down and making a record that way. The process of making this album was just such a fantastic experience, I imagine this is how we will do it from here on out.

The theme of Good Monsters reminds me of Romans 7, where Paul says, "I do the things I don't want to do, and I don't do the things I know I should do." Is it any way inspired by that passage?

Haseltine Not directly, but certainly the sentiment of that passage. It's the whole idea of coming to grips with the fact that we are capable of incredible evil and also incredible good, and that those things both exist, usually in equal parts, underneath our skin. We tend to hide the bad stuff, but we feel like the gospel calls us to bring the full weight of who we are—both sides—into our relationships, vocations, the things we do, and the way we work with other people.

Anything in particular prompt your desire to explore this?

Haseltine I had recently encountered this thing called the Samson Society. It's a group of guys who get together and get a lot of stuff off their chests, the kinds of things that make us think that if somebody knew this about us, they would run the other way. What I found is that guys are sharing this kind of stuff, and it's making people love them more. That's a vulnerable place.

The gospel never calls us to live our lives privately, but the idea of individualism and isolation has worked itself into our idea of what a good Christian life looks like—that it's full of quiet times where it's just us and God. But for me, when I get into that scenario, the only voice I'm really hearing is my own. And when I'm trying to wrestle with some truth of the gospel or some new element God is trying to teach me, it's just me using my own knowledge base rather than living that out in community with other people. So it never really works. The kind of maturity that I hope for, the kinds of things I want to have freedom from, they never come, because it's just me working it out by myself.

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