It's faith, love and lyrics

By TIM WATKIN

At the back of a rundown building in Grey Lynn, fat guitar chords and stomping drum-beats are grinding their way out through the roller doors, over the gravelly carpark and car lots and on to the street. It's 11am - rock'n'roll sunrise.

"A bit early for a concert," Detour's singer Adrian Robertson moans with a wry smile, before the band launches into their debut single She Walked In.

They're rehearsing in the kind of bruised back-street studio where rock has always been brought to life kicking and screaming. In one sense these five are just the latest in the explosion of young New Zealand bands scoring record deals and getting airplay. She Walked In is on the playlist of radio stations such as More FM, while the New Zealand On Air-sponsored video has been on RTR, Juice and M2.

However, when these guys start talking about a 60-city United States tour later this year and a marketing plan that aims to sell 100,000 albums internationally, you know something unusual's going on here. The overseas sales of Bic Runga's super-successful Drive album totalled only 45,000.

Detour's difference is simply divine.

"We call ourselves an unashamedly Christian band. We write songs from a Christian perspective," says guitarist Matt Chapman. When Robertson sings "I'm waiting for You with arms outstretched", that's you with a capital Y. God.

And when their record company is promoting them in the US this year, their primary target will be what's known there as the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) market, a niche genre certainly, but still a billion-dollar industry and one of the few sectors of the record industry that's recording growth.

Even deeper into the mainstream, Christian lyrics can be heard.

The members of Wash, the Tauranga nu-metal band, consider themselves four Christians in a band, not a Christian band. Recently signed to small US label Hydrogen, they plan a general release there but still sing about their faith.

Still, Christian music, it's terminally uncool, right? Organs and choirs or second-rate imitations of proper rock? Earnest, cheesy lyrics and passionless tunes? Well, not now. A resurrection of sorts is going on.

Christian music, which hasn't achieved mainstream cool since Beethoven was a boy, is coming back from the dead. Around the world you can put it down to the rise of the pentecostal church, improved quality and diversity, and pop's move from bad boys towards goody-good girls. In New Zealand, its rise has largely been driven by kids in churches themselves, with the help of one company - Parachute.

The precursor of the Parachute Festival - called Mainstage - began in a Horowhenua paddock between a milking shed and the Otaki River in 1987. It was the brainchild of Youth for Christ staffer Mark de Jong and two Baptist ministers, Mark Pearson and Kevin Schultz.

De Jong, 41, now director of Parachute music and the George Martin of the Christian music scene in New Zealand, says they couldn't find enough decent bands to fill the stages, but, making it up as they went along, got 3000 people along.

Next weekend, an estimated 25,000 people - most Christians, many not - will head to Totara Springs near Matamata for the 11th such festival. Next year the festival moves to Mystery Creek to allow for growth.

Names like Sweetwaters and Mountain Rock are mere memories, so why has Parachute prospered?

"I'm asked that a lot," de Jong says, sitting in the meeting room that adjoins his minimalist, metallic office in Mt Eden. Outside, the 22 staff are bustling around like Santa's elves in mid-December. It's less than two weeks to the big day.

"Everything was hard in the beginning," says de Jong. "People didn't think we'd make a go of it financially, so we struggled to get supply marquees or power generators, let alone sponsorship from some corporate".

This year, amongst the six stages, dance lessons, movies and other mayhem, there will be the Coca-Cola Village. Last year, it was Pepsi. De Jong says all their corporate sponsors were wary at first.

Parachute had to prove that a bunch of Christians listening to music in a paddock was cool. Gradually, they've been won over - mostly by the argument that ends "22,500 people".

Surprisingly and without compromise, they've built credibility on their own, seemingly uncool, terms. The rules are famously firm, and run counter to music festival convention: No alcohol or illegal drugs, no stage-diving or body-surfing, curfew between 12.30 and 7am, and, perhaps most remarkable of all, unmarried couples must sleep separately.

De Jong says there's pressure from both sides to change the rules: from some churches to keep the growing number of non-Christians out - "which is crazy", he says - and from those wanting fewer constraints. But the rules remain.

Ivan Beets, the lead singer of Wash, which has played the festival several times, says "the thing people say when you ask what was cool, is the chilled-out atmosphere. People say they can't believe how happy everyone is".

Not as happy as de Jong, though. Parachute has created a popular and financially viable genre out of next-to-nothing. The albums, the festival, the distribution and the publishing businesses add up to a successful business.

"But with them all working together, it does become viable," he says.

"All we have to do is stay on track and in five years' time we'll be a $20 million company, and everything's on track for that."

Such success means the company can raise the bar for Christian music. De Jong freely concedes Christians have made some terrible music and, churches being the nurturing places they are, bands have often been encouraged beyond their talent. Now, they reject hundreds of bands every year.

Besides the savvy and determined management, Parachute's timing has been impeccable. Parachute has ridden the crest of the New Zealand music wave and is now positioned to take advantage of the growing Christian market. That's right - growing Christian market.

New Zealand is home to an underground Christian music scene that is working its way into the mainstream - and around the world, God is selling records.

IT'S simple fact that the record industry is shrinking. But two genres have so far bucked that trend - country and Christian.

In the US, CCM outsells jazz, new age and classical genres put together. In 2001 it grew by around 10 per cent to nearly 50 million albums, worth just shy of $1 billion.

CCM acts have never achieved the crossover success of country stars such as Shania Twain and Garth Brooks. Despite this, dozens of other bands and solo artists are thriving, winning an increasingly mainstream following via the CCM market alone.

Long-time CCM star Michael W. Smith's album Worship went platinum last year. His tour with hard-rockers Third Day attracted bigger audiences than Nelly Furtado, Willie Nelson and Enrique Iglesias.

No one can provide definite sales figures for the CCM genre in New Zealand, but it's agreed it's a growth market, if still small at 3 to 4 per cent. Most Christian music bought here is sold through Christian bookshops and the Recording Industry Association (RIANZ) doesn't count their sales as part of the 7.6 million CDs sold in 2001.

So, why all this growth? In New Zealand, Parachute and the arrival of CCM station LifeFM introduced more people to the music, certainly, but the seeds of success were planted elsewhere in the world.

What those in the industry and listening to a few CDs will tell you is that Christian music is much better than it used to be. It's caught up with music's cutting edge, got better production values and eased back on the preaching.

"I think people are starting to realise that the quality's actually good and there's a lot of these bands coming out and they're not being these obnoxious Christian bands who just take advantage of the stage," says Detour's Chapman.

Increased diversity, too, has meant increased sales. From choirs to rap-core, Christian music now covers the bases.

And the simple fact of supply and demand is an even bigger factor. "Born-again Christian" is one of the fastest growing demographics in the US and the rise of the CCM market runs parallel to the rise of the pentecostal church.

While sales are small, the pentecostal church can take significant credit for the fast-growing number of young bands around the country. Unintentional as it was, as churches put drumsets in beside their organs over the past 30 years and the Pacific congregations have found their feet here, they have created a flourishing underground music scene.

Beets says mainstream bands, struggling to get more than one gig every two months, couldn't believe it when he used to tell them they could get 400 people along to a gig every week. "There's networks of halls up and down the country that youth groups pack out," Beets says.

Gavin Kerr, the band's comedian, jumps in. "What? Christians go to gigs? They're supposed to be in bed."

Not everyone is so enthused with Christian music. As with any minority art form, there's an arm-wrestle between purity and popularity. Some in the church are quick to criticise the bands veering away from pure worship music as selling out.

On the other side, many in the mainstream insist that Christianity just can't mix with sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, that the desire to convert dilutes commitment to the music.

Brad King, of The Rock, says he'd never ignore a good song just because it was by a Christian band, but if songs are too "happy, happy, joy, joy", he's not interested.

The message of hope can jar with rock's angry mood, but it's still rebellious, says Audio Adrenaline's frontman Mark Stuart. "Singing about sex and drugs is old now. So pretty much the most rebellious rock'n'roll person you can be is a Christian because you get people from every side trying to shut you down."

As Kerr says, "People think Christian and they think bed by 7pm, tuck your shirt in, Sunday school. Unfortunately so many people have that impression and it's wrong."

Adds Beets: "In New Zealand it seems you can be Buddhist, Satanist, you can worship pot plants or whatever and it's all cool. But say you're a Christian and the crap hits the fan."

"That prejudice is there," de Jong shrugs, "so our job is to create something so big and successful that people have to take notice of it. We feel by sheer force of what we do, we'll change that stereotype. It's probably going to take us another 10 years."

Says Beets: "When you mix music with conviction and faith, it's so much more powerful than just a bunch of guitar chords. Music since day one has always been spiritual."

Kerr is nodding his agreement, but then leans forwards with a grin and rubs his hands together, "Right, should we sing a round of Kumbaya then?"