December 7 - Crown of Thorns

You know what the worst part about being a Christian Rock star is? The groupies.
Dude, let me just tell you: The chicks that come to our shows? Insane. Just absolutely insane.
Most of them are college girls, Young Life types. Fresh scrubbed faces, perfect hair, amazing figures, drop dead gorgeous, and they're completely into our music.
Seriously.
Even though Crown of Thorns is a rock group, most of our audience is female. You look out into the audience at one of our gigs and a good 70% of the faces are female. And it's even more so with the fans who come to our dressing room. Night after night, almost nothing but hot, hot women who dig our music and want to hang out with us are coming backstage dying to meet us.
And they're completely off limits.
Because we're a Christian Rock band.
And Christian Rock bands don't do the groupie thing.
It's also because our fans are Christians, and part of why they're into us is because we're such good, wholesome guys. We're not into partying and drugs and booze and sex like regular rock stars, no sir. And so they're completely comfortable coming backstage and hanging out with us because there's not a chance that anything's going to happen. Shoot, we all even signed virginity pledges just like the people who come to our shows.
Wholesome Christian Rock musicians. Wholesome Christian Rock fans. It's perfect.
The only problem is this: I'm not a Christian.
In fact, religion-wise, I'm not really anything.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not like anti-Christian or anything. I guess if I'm anything I'm agnostic/atheist/tolerant of whatever. You want to be a Christian? Go right ahead. Want to never go to church again for the rest of your life? That's fine with me, too. Seriously, I don't care.
It might surprise you to hear that the lead guitarist of the biggest Christian Rock band in the country not only isn't a Christian, but doesn't have a stance at all, religion wise. So let me explain.
The only reason I joined Crown of Thorns is because Christian Rock is huge. Look it up sometime. Christian Rock consistently outsells jazz, Latin, punk, classical and a bunch of other genres.
Combined.
Really, I don't have anything for or against Jesus. Love him, hate him, ignore him. I don't care. I'm in this for the money.
And it's coming in, too. Now more than at any other time in my career, which is actually pretty long. Before I joined Crown of Thorns, I was in a bunch of groups.
Ever heard of Hobocop?
Rooster Sheath and the Conphylactics?
106 Miles to Chicago?
Hairy Daughter and the Voldewhores?
Simply Dread? You know, the band that played reggae covers of Simply Red songs?
Benny & The Sharks?
Stormin' Norman's Crotch Stank?
No?
None of them?
Exactly.
And I had the bank balance to match that obscurity.
But since joining Crown of Thorns, I'm famous.
And flush.
Got my credit cards paid off. Bought a new car. I even put a down payment on a house. For the first time in my career, the money is good. So I guess that kind of makes me predisposed to being pro-Jesus, but not enough to go to church and worship him; just enough to, you know, rock it out in his name night after night in front of screaming, adoring fans.
Of course, the fact that I'm not partying anymore also helps with the whole finances thing, even though clean, sober, and celibate isn't the most rock and roll lifestyle in the world. I try to tell myself I'm straight edge again. That makes it a little more tolerable, I guess.
But mostly it's all about appearances. Get a headline about the guitarist from Crown of Thorns getting a DUI or something and we can kiss this gravy train goodbye.
Same goes for groupies, and man, it is agony. Just total agony. They're so hot. But they're drawn to us because of this chaste and pious rocker image we have. And the second any one of us so much as kisses one of our fans, it's all over. Such a cruel irony. It's like Midas or, I don't even know what. Like, we have this power to attract all of this honey, but as soon as we taste the honey it disappears along with our ability to attract it. Or something. I'm sure there's a parable about this. If we haven't done a song on this type of thing yet, I'm sure we will.
Actually, maybe we have. Isn't that what Forbidden Fruit is about?
Anyway, this buddy of mine Fred (aka Polar Bear Underwear) does children's music and he's in a similar spot. No, I don't mean he's attracted to children. Come on. What I mean is some of the moms that bring their kids to his shows are just unbelievable. You know, like the really hip, in shape hot moms. Their kids love his music, which means they're predisposed to like him and all that, and there's flirting after the shows, which he says is great, but if he ever started getting with the moms, that would be the end of it.
By the way, he's the only one who knows I'm not really a Christian. He's always making fun of how much more successful I am as a Christian Rocker than I was before, and accusing me of selling my soul for Christian Rock, etc. And I'll admit it feels pretty weird to be lying about such a thing on a regular basis, but I don't think it's really hurting anybody. The fans like the music, I get paid, and I get to rock out. I mean, granted, our lyrics are pretty churchy and all, but the music itself pretty much rocks like any other rock music. So what's the harm? You know, besides not being able to hook up with our fans.
Anyway, like I said, I don't think there's anything out there, you know, supreme being wise. But I like to think that if there is, he or she or whoever would have a sense of humor about this whole situation.