Things are falling into place for local Christian band

Friday, June 11, 2010

Click here to enlarge this photo Submitted photo Dana Robinson, left, and Daniel Palmer are the lead vocalists for Scattered Leaves. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

On Tuesdays, Daniel Palmer, the music director for Chesapeake Church and the founder of a Christian rock quintet known as Scattered Leaves, will choose the music for Sunday's services. For Scattered Leaves, the next step, often, is learning several songs in as many days.

By the time Sunday rolls around, you would hardly know the band is playing the songs live for the first time: Though the feelings and emotions are palpable, the performance is refined: They roll through a new praise tune the way a real-deal blues band rolls out "Mustang Sally."

Palmer, 31, comes to Huntingtown from Temple, Texas, the home of Flyleaf (a national Christian rock band) and Britt Daniel (the voice of Spoon, a popular indie group).

He moved here, in 2003, to replace CC's former music director, Dave Holmbo, who had died suddenly of cancer. According to Rev. Robert Hahn, before Holmbo passed CC had been in the early stages of modernizing its worship music, and it wound up conducting a national search to find his replacement. At the time, Palmer was directing the music for a church in Temple. He wasn't looking for a job.

Hahn, however, saw a video of Palmer conducting a service and knew he was right. Why? He was young, and knowledgeable about newer Christian music. But he was also versed in older praise songs, and Hahn believed a blend of the old and the new would make CC's transition to contemporary music gradual as opposed to sudden.

Palmer started playing a keyboard at a young age and has since picked up guitar and vocals. He attended University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, Texas, and continued his education at The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., where he also worked in a church, before returning to Temple. Around this time, Palmer started writing songs.

Upon his arrival at CC, Palmer says he established good rapport with Hahn. After Hahn's daughter, Caroline, returned from a mission trip, Palmer got to know her well, too. The two, in fact, have been married for four years and are expecting their first child.

Meanwhile, it took Palmer several years to assemble the right mix of musicians — people who shared the same ability, values and commitment — for CC's band. He never really sought people out. It was the other way around: Musicians, in their 30s and teens, for their own reasons, came to the church, heard the band and wanted to join.

A key acquisition, you might say, was bassist Jeremy Robinson, a Maine native who heard about CC while living in Annapolis. He and his wife, Dana, a singer, were then playing in the U.S. Navy's Electric Brigade. They liked the church so much, however, that they moved to the county. Now Jeremy assists Palmer in coordinating CC's music and arts.

By around 2008, the quality of the music was such that the band members were compelled to record an album. That, however, would require a name, which Palmer found within Meditation #17, a passage from John Donne's "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions," which contains the oft-repeated phrase "for whom the bell tolls." So it goes: " … his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another."

These days, Scattered Leaves, a band of five plus two alternates, plays gigs outside of CC, mostly at other churches. In addition to those already mentioned, the band includes Nate LaBorie (keys), Chris Carrico (the main drummer), Nick Pastelak (a sub drummer) and Tim Mohler (guitar).

June's a busy month. In the fall, the band hopes to find some time to record a sophomore album, in a wing of the church where they've built themselves a modest yet apt recording studio. After the fall, perhaps they'll figure out what to do next.

Community of caring

"The church community really solidifies what we do," Palmer says one morning in his office at the church, as he and Robinson meet with a reporter. There are two guitar cases in front of his desk. You also find a piano and a shelf of CDs.

"I never really thought about full-time Christian music," says Robinson, who earned a living for many years by playing in cover bands. "But it had been in the back of my mind. Now it's really in the forefront of my mind. At the same time, I'm not opposed to playing secular music either. I enjoy it all."

Thus, a minor conundrum: What's the right musical direction for a group of musicians — artists, too, in this case — who are serious about music but even more serious about their faith? They want to make music — their own, original music. They want to play gigs, though just any gig won't do. You have to work with the same rules as any other band: Around here, around Maryland, very few bands escape the way things generally work, which is that if you want to play originals, go ahead, but you better consider some covers if you want to get booked and get paid. Three options remain: reject these rules, capitalize on them or work around them. Still, the rules are always there — firm.

A go-to website for Christian music is Jesus Freak Hideout. There, you will learn that a group of surf rockers named Switchfoot recently won more awards than any other in the website's annual Reader's Choice Awards. This is a band that has also scored plenty of mainstream success — perhaps because the Christian influences in the music are the very opposite of pervasive.

The Christian music label, it seems, is as often imposed on bands as it is sought out. So-called Christian bands, like TobyMac or Flyleaf or Skillet (three different strains of radio music), receive the label mostly because all bands members profess to be Christian, not necessarily because their music contains evangelical lyrics. This is music, then, which is supposed to express what it's like to lead a Christian life. Potentially, the listener has an automatic way of connecting, and of knowing it comes from a safe source.

"I don't really like the term ‘Christian music,'" Palmer says, echoing the statements of other Christian artists. "It's more that this is our lifestyle; we just write about it. This is what we do. This is what we believe. This is how we live and we write about the ups and downs based on that."

Palmer doesn't listen to much mainstream Christian music. "When you work in a church every day," he explains, "you kind of get burned on some of that stuff because it eventually starts to sound all the same. I don't really want to sound like a Christian band. I'd rather sound just, like, any band — a band that's good."

It's worth noting, however, that Scattered Leaves, a group that possesses obvious crossover appeal, has recorded a devotional record — 2008's "Midsentence" — which is currently its only album. (Plus, it's doubtful that any of the aforementioned bands got their start as the lead band for Sunday services.)

"Midsentence," on the other hand, came about as a result of a band in the process of discovering its gestalt in church, and the underlying motivation behind its creation was to record songs they could play in that setup. The band members chipped in money to buy the recording gear that would allow them to produce it themselves; taking that into consideration, the overall sound is surprisingly professional and polished, as Scattered Leaves provides evidence both of its driving devotion to God but also of its influences, which range from 1980s rockers to new indie music.

As they head into a new recording project, however, the songs they're writing, Palmers says, are not as Sunday morning-ish.

The thing about Sunday morning, though, beyond the fact that the members of Scattered Leaves love and live to play their weekly gig, is that the audience base is pretty darn steady. How many local bands can claim to play before hundreds of people every week? It can be frustrating, then, when Scattered Leaves travels far for a gig to play before a handful of people, as is often the case (and is sort of the hit-or-miss nature of independently produced concerts).

What is the goal for playing out?

I don't know," Palmer says, laughing a bit, shaking his head.

What does Robinson think?

"There's a desire within all of us to play something that we've created in an excellent way," he says. "And the venue for that is to go out and do outside shows. The church is a completely different creative musical element. … Our passions reach out like fingers in different directions. Our passion to lead worship in a church is still there and valid. This is just a different branch."

The idea is definitely not to move to Nashville. The idea is that, while they remain passionate about nothing more than the church, they wouldn't mind expanding their reach a bit and playing some good music.

Palmer and Robinson say that most of the audiences they play for outside CCC expect them to stink and are pleasantly surprised, shocked even, to discover that Scattered Leaves is for real. "That's kind of lame, honestly," says Robinson.

Maybe, then, Scattered Leaves will eventually be able to skip that step when they travel, say, to Glen Burnie or near Frederick. Maybe, instead, the audience who comes will just know what they're getting into, and be engaged.

Sort of like the folks who come to see them play every Sunday at CCC.

Religion rocks

There are enough cars flowing into the parking lot of CC to require people directing traffic. Inside, the seats (no pews here) curve around a stage that would be bare were it not for the temporary construction of a "French villa" (for an upcoming camp for children), music stands, microphones and instruments — like several guitars, a bass, Palmer's own Wurlitzer electric piano, a B3 organ and an additional electric piano (a Nord) placed on top of it.

While an additional half a dozen musicians will perform in the band's church ensemble, the five onstage today represent the standard traveling outfit, with Palmer, the Robinsons, Mohler and Carrico, who drums beneath a video screen which projects the lyrics of each song atop a rolling sky.

Parishioners clap after "Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us," a song written in the 19th century, and rise to their feet for the second song, penned in the aughts. Palmer and Dana Robinson trade lead vocal duties, keeping the mix fresh. Later, when the Robinsons and Palmer play a couple of songs as a trio, the vibe conjured reminds a reporter of the way Jeremy had earlier described his favorite music: Think about James Taylor hanging out at Stevie Wonder's house.

Scattered Leaves carries the bulk of the service. When it comes time for Hahn's sermon, Robinson simply moves his music stand to the front of the stage.

In the early part of his sermon, Hahn talks about how, throughout his life, he's come across musicians before that moment when the public officially defines them, as Jeremy Robinson might put it, as "excellent."

He recalls how, quite some time ago, he heard a band on the radio that wound up being The Police. There were also, as it happens, two young musicians who attended church here prior to getting a record contract and moving away: Joel and Benji Madden, the founders of Good Charlotte.

What about Scattered Leaves?

"I respect them," says Hahn after the service, "because they have enough talent and enough ability to play secular music, and there's nothing wrong with that. But they made a career decision that really impacts your career when you say, ‘I am going to play for God. I'm going to play for what I believe, spiritually, to be true. And I'm going to use my gifts and give them back to the one who gave them to me.' That's a real hard-core decision."

Hahn, as it happens, picked up guitar at 6 and is something of a bluesman. It was CC's music, he says, that drew him here more than 20 years ago from Arlington, Va., where he worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Once in a while, he heads out to local blues jams. There, they call him The Rev.

As a reporter is about to leave, Hahn jokingly tells him CC's motto:

Live music every Sunday. No cover.

Scattered Leaves live

Crossroad Christian Church — The band will perform at 4 p.m. June 12 during a gospel showcase at Crossroad Christian Church, 150 Ball Road, St. Leonard. The event will benefit relay for life. Call 410-586-1272.

Calvary Bible Church — The band will play at 7 p.m. June 13 at Calvary Bible Church, 8300 Nursery Road, Lusby. Call 410-586-1091.

Ignite the Night — The band will join numerous Christian bands June 19 at Ignite the Night, a free Christian music festival held from noon-10 p.m. at St. Mary's County Fairgrounds. Go to www.ignitethenight.com.