Good rock bands emerge from America's CCM scene with startling regularity. Among the best of the new crop is California's BRIGHTON. Jan Willem Vink met their leader David Brighton.

"We were working with a gentleman who is managing us named Tom Jackson; not only a manager, but a performance consultant in Christian music. We were circulating demos and he sent one to John and Dino Elefante. John heard it and called the next day on his earphone. Usually, when you send a tape to a record company it takes a long time before the record company even listens to it, then they never respond. So it was really exciting to have him respond on his earphone and say 'What's the deal with these guys?' and get together and talk about it."

Did the Elefantes change the band a lot?

"I think they gave us a lot more freedom than they're used to. If you're familiar with Dino and John's work, they're very hands - on producers, very much involved with every aspect of the creative process. They kind of wanted to turn us loose and let us do what we do, then in the middle of the record they had a lot of ideas to contribute so they got involved on the second half of it. So it's half and half. They helped us define our sound. After they came and saw us live they made the comment, There's even more in them than we were aware of, we'll make sure we get that on the next record'."

John and Dino have had criticism that every album they produce sounds the same. How do you feel about that?

"You can't say that about our record. We sound radically different than anything else that is on their label."