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radioSTU G (Garrard to the taxman) spoke to a group of journalists at the Greenbelt Festival this year. Here's what he said.
It must have been a slightly strange experience for you last night being on your own. Did you miss the band?
"It was interesting - I haven't done anything on my own for about 16 years. That was the first time - apart from on Wednesday when I played for a bunch of friends in our living room, which was more nerve-wracking than last night. It's a good experience."
Did you miss not having some walls of sound behind you?
"Well, I was trying to create walls of sound by looping things and it was kind of part working. It's been a tough kind of year and a half trying to figure out what's happening so there's something quite liberating to come and do something like this on my own without any of that kind of chaos. It was really good, I enjoyed it."
How did you feel when the Delirious? split came? Did you feel there was more in the band?
"Yes, I definitely felt that we hadn't finished. For me it's all about the vision and the passion. I just had bags of vision left for what we were doing and what I thought we could still do. To be honest I was disappointed, very disappointed. And when Stu left we all sat round and said what do we do? Do we call it a day or carry on? And we all wanted to carry on. It was a real shock when Martin came to us and said he felt it was time for him to leave."
What were you thinking?
"It's a bit like having a car crash. You can't cope in the moment but we're all adults and still full of love and respect for each other. So John and I looked into taking the band on and getting a new singer to replace Martin."
Did you get as far as auditions?
"No, we didn't. We did go to America and talk about it a lot with folks over there, and a few names came up. We got to a point where it was going to increase the stress rather than liberate us and also we wanted to be respectful of the Delirious? fans and Martin as well."
Are you involved in any mentoring of other people or any other bands to try and fill the gap that Delirious? will leave, as the band were such an important force for so many young people?
"Thank you. While Delirious? is running and going it really is all consuming in terms of time and energy and our intention has always been to kind of help other bands and pull people through but it's not until something like this happens that you get a chance to do it. Part of my next phase is definitely going to have some of that in terms of production and how can people come through. But at the same time I've still got so much I want to do on an artistic, songwriting level as well. It's a little bit chaotic and a little bit messy but I'm sure that we'll be helping folks."
What do you think you'll be doing in five years' time? Will you be a performer, a writer, a producer, part of a band, solo?
"Well, I hope it's going to be all of those things. Being restricted to the one thing for so long I'm chomping at the bit to do everything. But I have got a bit of a game plan. I've got a new manager based in America, a new publishing deal so I'm doing lots of songwriting this year. And there is a new band developing at the minute with me and with John Thatcher and with a guy from Nashville called Jason Ingram and a guy who was in Sydney called Paul Mabury. We've been writing songs and recording. They're all self-penned songs."
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I've been thinking allot about these guys lately. It's nice to see some feelings shared as to the reason of the death of Delirious.
In regards to that, I've been wondering, in spite of current church culture, whether or not it's best to have a "band" in the church.
It's weird, as a musician it seems apparent to me that placing such a strong focus on the players can be counterproductive to glorifying God. We've all been indoctrinated by rock "star" celebrity culture, to varying degrees.
I'd personally love to be more creative with church music. But at the same time I think that the intricacy of melodies can be distracting. It's like the more complex the music gets, the more specific it gets in style. The more stylistically specific it gets, the more those who don't care for such a style will be turned off. If they like that style, they can then become pre-occupied with the worshippers instead of the worshipped (God).
I love music, but I feel like Martin might have gotten it right to quit. It's like that Leonard Cohen song "Hallelujah." The song has that line, "you don't really care for music do ya?" Ultimately I think God really doesn't care, especially when the music becomes a ruse for the true gifts of the Holy Spirit... but I still love music, and as a musician, I hope I'm wrong.
From this point of view though, it makes sense that selfish expression resonates with the world. Whereas submissive expression, though it might sonically suck, is the true calling of music the body of Christ.
I personally gravitated to the parts of Delirious' songs that complained or sounded sonically selfish.
There's so much personal involvement in a life committed to music that I really wonder whether or not such extreme isolated self-involvement isn't truly at it's core, Satanic.
I'll stop ruminating now, again, I hope I'm wrong. I love music, and I think personal (selfish) music sounds best.