Styled God. The Band., God. The Band. were hipster before hipsters existed. Having toured for many, many years, they actually may hold the honor of being the first band ever—not because anyone knows, but because they’ve been around the longest and no one seems to remember, anyway. Their reputation is the best-known of any other band of all time, but they also simultaneously hold the position of being the most adored and most hated band ever.
Composed of three members, God. The Band. plays a very eclectic mixture of every conceivable genre. They have the largest recording library of any other band, clocking in at over 66 albums, depending on how you count them. And like the Grateful Dead, they have been touring from the outset (with some slow-downs) and have garnered the most fervent and adoring crowd following ever.
“God. The Band. is still touring??” asks Tyler Jacobs, with incredulity, “I thought they died off a long time ago. They’re what my grandmother listens to. I haven’t really gotten into them.”
Another bystander, Floyd Jones, said that they are the type of band that everything knows about, but no one listens to anymore. “I mean, they’re kinda like Elvis Presley. Everyone acknowledges he’s the King, but does anyone still listen to ‘Hound Dog’?”
Some ascribe to them a mythical place. Larissa Kenney said, “God. The Band.?? I heard they exist, but I’m not so sure. I just don’t see any evidence of their existence. I mean, I know they have all these fans, and they have so many albums ascribed to them, I’ve just never seen them live, so I can’t believe.”
Having been sampled in acts as diverse as rapper 2Pac and death metal bands Slayer and Lamb of God, to more accessible pop artists like Carrie Underwood and Meghan Trainor, God. The Band. is the most sampled, alluded to, and reverenced band in history.
Some fans exclusively listen to their early stuff. “Ever since JC took the stage, the band has gone downhill,” says Cynthia Forsythe. “I prefer the old stuff myself anyway. The new stuff is just blasphemy, in my opinion.” Forsythe is referencing the infamous replacement of the old frontman, God, with the new frontman, Jesus Christ, JC for short. God was the older, wiser, somewhat more aggressive band leader for many, many years. He went by the stage name “The Father.” Eventually, he decided he wanted to retire from the stage, so now he spends his time doing production and lighting.
Jesus was chosen by the Father as a good replacement frontman. “He has the right energy, compassion, and wit for the job,” God was quoted saying. God gave JC the stage name “The Son,” upon his taking over. Critics believe that the stuff with Jesus as the frontman has a lighter, more peaceful, loving mood to it, while the old stuff was more earthy, more moody, and more philosophical. However, JC always reminds media of the last album, Revelation, as the exception to the rule. “Revelation is brutal,” JC said, “It goes from heavenly choirs to metal blast drumming representing meteors hitting the earth and mountains falling to the sea. Our drummer, the Holy Ghost, really pulled it off.”
The Holy Ghost, as his stagename is known (also, Holy Spirit), is the most soft-spoken member of the band. He plays the rhythm section and also is the touring manager. “Without the leading of the Holy Spirit as touring manager, we could not have done it,” JC says.
JC believes that the newer stuff is more accessible to people. “I think people really liked the singles, ‘Sermon on the Mount’ and ‘Lord’s Prayer’. Those are smash hits,” and continue to be played and sung to this day. “I think people appreciated the change from the hardcore days of the Father to the indie folk of the Son.”
Said the Holy Ghost, “The Father gets really angry whenever you try to say his real name. It’s like no one can say it right. So we have just called him God, his assumed name, or his stagename, the Father. It’s not like I have a real name anyway.”
The Son said that the hardest time in the band was the collaboration with Satan. “He’s a good guy, I think, but his ambitions and pride get the best of him. Our time recording in the desert was horrible. He was just being really adversarial.”
Satan made an appearance in the philosophical album Job, as well as cameos in other albums. “The problem,” explains the Holy Ghost, “is that The Father and Satan have had a long-standing dispute about who created the guitar and the drums. The Father insists that he created them, while Satan insists that he did. And then fans of both bands have to choose to whom to give credit, and it can just get really ugly.”
JC is most excited about his collab with Paul and the Apostles. “I think people really like them. So doing a collab with Paul and the Apostles was a really good decision. It allowed people who didn’t have the attention span for 18-minute progressive rock epics like ‘Creation’ and ‘Parting the Red Sea’ to appreciate our work. Paul and the Apostles have always been very accessible to a lot of people. Without them, we might have just ended up a band no one’s ever heard of.”
John Frank, a fan leader in Tennessee, says that he only listens to the albums which Paul and the Apostles contributed to. “The rest is just so boring, and also a lot of the older stuff just no longer applies to us today. It’s just not relevant. When JC came, he made it all obsolete.”
The Son did bring a lot of changes to the band, while also maintaining the original coherence of the band as a whole. He made the music more accessible to everybody, with some dance beats and pop harmonies thrown in, created an international social media campaign, and started a global movement.
Recently, the facebook page of God. The Band. stated ominously, “The end has come.” Fans worry that it means either a break-up or a farewell tour. In an interview, the Son said, “It’s going to be epic! Kind of like our album Revelation and very interesting, like David*Crowder Band’s Church Music. The Father has some tricks up his sleeve, and no one, not even me, knows what the Father has in store for his fans.”
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