Jesus Freak

I wrote with Oren Thornton, who was in Johnny Q Public.

He also did a lot of stuff on DC Talk's Jesus Freak album.

Like he's the guitar player on that Jesus Freak song.

What is the...

I think that's...

Is that the title track, Jesus Freak?

Yeah, yeah, Jesus Freak.

Yeah,

The story of Cassie Bernal saying yes, she believed in God and dying for it was like jet fuel for a line of thinking that was already popular among evangelical teens, aspiring to martyrdom.

DC Talk published an updated Book of Martyrs with a tie-in to their youth group smash hit, Jesus Freak.

Youth leaders traumatized teens with fake attacks by gunmen vowing to kill anyone who didn't deny Christ.

There were t-shirts aping the Mountain Dew logo that celebrated martyrdom that said, meant to die instead.

It's not, remember back in the, I don't know when it was, 30 years ago now.

Remember when DC Talk came out with Jesus Freak? You got t-shirts, y'all got t-shirts still from, but I mean, you know, that was really cool, right? Jesus Freaks, I mean, that's a compliment.

That's not a, people may use it derogatory, but we're called to be different.

We're not called to blend in with the world.

And there was another great story that's a highlight was we got to work with Toby on a couple of songs as well.

And so we actually went to the studio in Franklin where they recorded Jesus Freak and all that.

We got to actually do some writing and recording with Toby and uh one of those songs ended up on one of his records as well uh

wow and which which song was that uh it was that big album around

now i know why i like that song all right yeah if you listen to that it can't be stopped yeah it's very it sounds

very yeah so that's another one that we had there's a earth suit version of that as well a demo version of that and wow yeah then that's one that we kind of brought up with toby and then he kind of did his own thing with it as well

there's a jesus freak hideout interview with toby from i don't know when this is but uh he says our suit is one of my favorite groups

yeah well this is back from

remember which one it might have been? Like the era, the time frame?

Uh, Jesus freak.

It would have

been that time period.

And like, but like in the context of the live show, it was good.

But his set list was all his political songs.

Like, so it wasn't like my, it wasn't all my favorite songs.

He did play the big bangers at the, the encore and he kind of switched his whole vibe.

Was it like an encore? Was it like the second act? Yeah.

They take three days off in between each show.

Um, and the band is so like, they're mostly old and there's a lot of like, he has a whole, like, he has like four backup singers that are women.

Um, and two of them, like, They're black and they give like a real gospel feel to some of the songs.

You know, I don't see the band on the cover.

Even DC Talk, you know, Jesus Freak.

And it wasn't them on the front.

It was a little more iconic and taking a chance with some stuff.

It was huge.

The album that I am talking about is Jesus Freak by DC Talk.

Man, yeah, if you were in a youth group in the 90s and this album and its songs weren't getting played, you were not in a youth group in the 90s.

It was everywhere.

Huge.

How many times did we sing Jesus Freak together, bouncing around the room, acting like idiots? Yeah, yeah.

what do you think is like the, the one that not Jesus freak song on that record that like stood out, like either is your favorite back then or your favorite now? Cause I feel like everyone's like, Oh yeah, we know Jesus freak.

Um, But I know for me, when I dove into that album, there's, you know, so you have like colored people.