Date: March 31st, 2007
Band Member(s): Stephen Christan (Singer)

Could you start by introducing yourself and what you do for Anberlin?
Sure, my name is Stephen Christian and I sing for the band Anberlin.

How did you come up with the idea for www.AnberlinCities.com? How has this been developing?
We started with just some conversations I had been having and I have an Apple Computer and on it, one of the things on the desktop, there is a globe. I don't know what kind of globe it was, you can kind of click on it and purchase stuff. So I was like 'Man, that is so cool! I wish we could do something like that, but touring different cities and stuff!' So I started to have a dialogue with our Marketing Director John Frasier and he loved the idea and just kind of started to run with it and before to long he had taken it to a whole different level. I think the website is the best one that Anberlin has ever had. There just so much interaction; they add a new city each week and there is everything from interviews to video updates and everything just all across the board.

You guys have done a lot of acoustic performances and fans really respond to them. Have you considered doing an Acoustic EP in the future?
Yeah, we have absolutely talked about it! I mean I try to everybody that it would be so easy to do it, because we could just go into the studio for one day and we would have it knocked out. And the cool thing is that I think there is a lot of stuff out there online from YouTube to AOL Sessions, I know we played a couple songs on there. If you wanted to hear Anberlin acoustic you could, but I think it would be really could even if we just gave everything away just to have a raw acoustic CD out there.


How did you come to be involved with To Write Love On Her Arms? What do you do to further the cause?
Well, I have been a fan of Jamie Tourchoswy since I met him several years ago, [he is] just a great guy, very humble, very kind hearted and really just a wonderful person. He was working at a company called Hurley and we had been talking for a couple of months and I was like 'Man you really need to quit Hurley, there is nothing for you there and I know you could be doing so much bigger stuff.' And he was like 'Yeah, I am just waiting, I'm just waiting.' A year later after that conversation he started this organization and from day one we were behind with Deon wearing the shirts every day and me getting his stuff up online and just making sure it is all over and just helping him and getting him whatever he needed. Until finally on our first headlining tour we were just like 'we have to take Jamie with us' cause we believe in the cause so much. I know my family has fought depression and I am friends with Renee so I am familiar with her story. So it was just an amazing cause and we are just stoked that Jamie is on board.

How did you come to begin writing the "Modesty Writer's Guild"? What has been your favorite post that you have made so far?
Um, wow... Well, I wanted just a way to get this almost, not a secret society, but this underground [place] for anyone that really sought out Anberlin or really wanted to know about us or about me, I wanted a way that we could really have an open dialogue. I fell like that especially in this music industry it is much like going to a festival were you have a band on stage and there is a barrier, then there is the fans. It is really disconnected and it is like the band on stage is not human, like that is a robot that is going to go back in there bus and they don't move, you really don't get to go back and see them. I really wanted a way for it to feel human. I wanted to show my failures and that I am a human and I make a lot mistakes and stuff like that. So I started to do it like at first just for a couple of friends of mine and I didn't tell anyone about it and then more and more people started to get behind it and they were like 'hey, I stumbled upon this' or 'my friend e-mailed this to me and this is exactly what I am going through life.' A lot of it is really challenges that I have faced or found or definitely posts like "Dismantle. Repair." where I just completely go 'here are my greatest flaws in life.' I just wanted it to come off completely human and raw and real on a few different levels. First off, you know the "rock star level" I wanted to come off human, but then also the fact that I have faith. I have faith in my religion, which is Christianity. I have faith in Jesus Christ and I wanted to show that all Christians are not perfect, that we know we are not this super natural being that is on TV and we don't just take up an offering and say we are better than everyone else. I wanted to show that, dude, the only thing that sets us apart from anyone like the homosexuals, the homeless, the king of the world or the president of the United States, you know the only thing that sets us apart is the fact that we have accepted Grace into our lives. But we are not better, don't look to Christians to see Christ, because we are only humans and we are gonna fail you. I wanted to show that to people, but not only that. I also wanted to expose people to new music, art and theology and philosophy and psychology and all the way around. I can't really recall all my post right now, so I really can't tell you which one is my favorite, but it has been fun experience to have the comments back and to have all these e-mails back from different people saying 'tell me more about this' or 'I'm struggling with this' or 'I'm dying here.' I have had some amazing e-mail conversations with people saying [different things] like a lady asking me if she should get a divorce or a twelve year old girl who had just had sex and was asking me what she should do. I was like 'oh my God, like what should I do?' And I am not a Psychologist, I'm am just a musician so I just try and point people in the best direction that I possibly can and give them a little advice, pat them on the back and send them on their way. It has been amazing the conversations that have come out of that, so it has been very very cool.


How was the band's mission work in India? How did this all come about?
Well, I have been doing humanitarian causes and trips since I was twelve when my dad took me to Mexico City and we worked on the dumps handing out bananas and rice and beans and blankets and stuff like that. So ever since a young age I have been like entwined with stuff like that the world isn't just America and the universe doesn't revolve around the Western Hemisphere. So that was just a seed that was planted and ever since then I have been to like Romania, Moldavia, Bulgaria and France, Ireland and different places and different trips that have just been incredible. Through the years trying to focus on Anberlin and obviously not having any money, being in a band, I was not able to go on all these trips and stuff like that, but then with all the success i realized that this industry is very surface and I was talking to my tour manager and I was saying how I felt like that there really needed to be something deeper, that we needed to give something back to the community. So we started talking and then a friend helped plan a trip and there was like eleven of us that went to Haiti about a year and a half ago. Then coming back I was like 'I have got to tell other bands about this, I have got to get more people involved with this!' So we started planning a trip to India and twenty-five people came. It was an amazing trip and we fought against human trafficking with an organization with a company called APNEA out there. We did everything from teaching guitar lessons, to painting a rooms, to carpentry or just anything and everything. Just anyone that had a certain skill, they could hopefully utilize it there. Then once again, getting back I realized that this was something that I wanted to give to everyone and to every band. So we are planning a trip to go this summer to Nairobi, Kenya and work with the ONE campaign to obliterate AIDS and do as much as possible, but also help teach farming and re-construct the roof of an orphanage that caved in over there. So we are really excited about the trip. It is gonna be sixteen days and we are hoping to take thirty-five different band members and hopefully keep it going and expand it. You know I want people to get out of this country and realize that it is not about themselves and realize that this world it not just about us!

You have traveled so much with all the touring, who is the most memorable person you have ever met and why?
Oh, man! There are so many memorable people you know? Wow, I mean there are several. I once met a man named Mark who was about eighty years old, well maybe about seventy years old or maybe about sixty? Actually I could not even tell, he was just one of those people who is older, but you can't really tell exactly how old he was, but he was definitely old. He was from Russia and he was a captain of a boat and they had just boarded in New Orleans and I got to sit down on a park bench with him and we talked for maybe like two hours about philosophy and God and just the whole gambit, I mean that was amazing to me. I really liked talking to Andy from Fall Out Boy, because I felt like he was one of the few people that seek. Like he really searched out a lot of things in life, like he read a lot of books and had a lot of interesting topics and conspiracy theories. I really thought it was great conversationalist and we had a lot of debates and we still send books back and forth, or he will call me with questions and it is fun, he is just a great, great guy. I am just trying to think, because there are just a lot of people like that, you know? I thought Gerard from My Chem[ical Romance] was honest with me, he was just blatantly honest with me. It was so much that it just took me back and so humble, he is just one of the greatest people in Rock N' Roll. I met a random homeless tarot card reader in San Francisco, that totally just blew my socks off with his cunning wit and just the interesting conversation we had about everything from astrology, to astronomy to tarot cards and it was interesting to hear his take on life. You know just all those conversations you never forget. Man, I have met so many interesting people. I met a stripper in Australia that wanted to change her life and had no idea how and after e-mails and conversations and stuff just watching her life progress, she is back in college now. I am not saying that it had to do with me, but it was just awesome to watch the dynamics that we met at the exact moment when she was deciding, it was just cool to be there and watch it. I dunno, man just the gambit of meeting different people i meant that is just what is so beautiful about my career, my job, that I get to meet awesome people.

What is your favorite book and why?
Oh, wow. Well, by default I would have to say the Bible! [Laughs] That's the dessert island question, 'If you could only had one book..?' [Laughs] Man, there are so many books! I dunno if I could even pick one, because I guess I like different books for different reasons. I like Salinger, Johnson and Miller, because they make me feel like human and normal. I like Corello, because he teaches me that I still have to dream. I read Yancey, because it gives me a totally different perspective on religion and theology. I read Manning, because he grounds me not to get to caught up in salvation and sin and just to live life and Piper just because he showed to explore into humanity is exactly what God intended. June challenges me with his psychology and I dunno, I read Oscar Wilde just makes me want to be a poet and quit this music business! So, I guess there is just so many different aspects from all the different people that I read. I love the horror and the gore of like the whole Fight Club and Monster and Lullaby books and stuff like that. I mean that is totally not me, but I am like 'This is so crazy! This is not me, but I can't stop reading these books!' So, I dunno I cant just pick one book. It's funny, because I am in a book club and it is coming up to be my turn to pick which book for people to read, because it is like 'Quick, pick a book that sums you up!' I just can't do this. But if there is one book that I really enjoy and really taught me a life lesson not to care what people think and not to care what the critics think and just to  live life it is Veronika Decides To Die by Paul Coelho. Just amazing, with a great story line. Whoever picks that up and makes into a movie is gonna be rich.

Is there anything else you would like to add for readers?
Just that you don't have to go to Africa or India to make a difference or change in this world. I mean there is orphanages or soup kitchens in your own waste land. I mean there is Habitat For Humanity. If you are lost for where to start there is www.DoSomething.org where you can type in your zip code and it will give you a whole list of things and places where people are needing your help, not just your money. America is so good at throwing money at problems and thinking that is going to solve everything, such as the whole welfare debacle. Just get involved and volunteer some of your time, there are people out there who need people, who need you!  You would be amazed how much better you feel about the world or about yourself. If you are depressed or lonely or hurting, just realize that their are people out there in the same boat, so go out there and help them and you will see that in the end you will see that it is you who really did help. So go out there and become the change!