Mixtapemotions

“I Am Horrible at Processing Rejection” by Showbread ft. Whitney DePaoli & Loni Evans, Thursday, April 29, 2021

 

In 2016 raw rock band was pronounced dead in their final studio album Showbread Is Showdead. The cause of death was detailed in the band’s Labeled episode. The music industry, overcommitment with crowdfunding, and the band’s controversial views throughout the years are all contributing factors to the bands demise. As one of the last unabashed Christian Rock acts, Showbread pressed the genre way beyond the bounds of ‘acceptable’ music for Christian kids and incorporated literary, philosophical, and industrial/metal influences that were typically shunned by the church. Showbread is responsible for starting conversations around Nihilism, anarchy, patriotism, and idolatry, and gave Christian kids a vocabulary to enter those conversations with their references to literature, philosophy, and horror movies. 


NOBODY KNOWS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT. I recently heard a podcast lambasting Skillet’s Alien Youth album. The hosts joke about how Skillet‘s John Cooper listened to Korn and Nine Inch Nails once and decided to copy their sound. To be fair, John Cooper has said on Lead Singer Syndrome that he considers Alien Youth to be one of his least favorite albums. In contrast to Skillet, Showbread’s music has pushed boundaries of the Christian market, from their dark imagery on No Sir, Nihilism Is Not Practical to their dual records Anorexia/Nervosa, which channeled NIN and Marylin Manson along with authors Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk in order to tell a dark story that culminates in a redemptive theme, to their statement on Religious Nationalism in the music video for “Vehement” which was a decade before its time. Showbread Is Showdead takes a jab at pastor/Reformed Theologian John Piper. Often Showbread’s message is too radical for fans and as CD sales slowed down, this was a death blow to the strange band.

I’M AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BOTTOMING OUT. My personal history with this band was mixed. On one hand, I was fascinated with the artistic scope that they brought to the scene, but like the John Cooper caricature of Our Pod Is An Awesome Pod (mentioned above), I always avoided the “satanic” music of Manson, Korn, and NIN. Even when I got into heavier music, Showbread’s symbol, an eighth not crossed out (pictured to the left). Seeing that symbol on so many t-shirts at Cornerstone made me fearful about the future of music and question whether or not the band took their musicianship seriously. Was the band committed to a future of musical terrorism, in which melody was traded for distortion? Furthermore, they admitted at Cornerstone 2011 that their gothic persona, makeup, and antics were part of their gimmick to press their Christian agenda. I would have felt more conflicted with that if their agenda was completely in line with what we identify as Christian today. Showbread’s music still packs a punch today, but in my 30s, hard music is only really relevant on bad days. And days like today with work meetings from ungrateful administrators lacking no vision for the future of education makes me through up my hands and say, “Let’s [just] ruin everything” then. Days like this are great for re-exploring the complexities of Anorexia/Nervosa. But we can’t hope for too many days of Showbread.