Andrew Schwab spent four years writing a novel about a tech company that offers to upload your soul and let you live forever. He thinks most people would take the deal.

The question in the book started during COVID, watching the world his kids were going to grow up in. Take digital salvation with a guarantee, or trust a God you can't taste, see or touch. "I think most people would sign up for the first thing because it's guaranteed. And what if that is the great delusion?" He also told us something that didn't show up anywhere in our research. He isn't part of a local congregation. He leads a church on Discord every Sunday, and it doesn't even have a name. Why he built it that way is the rest of that conversation.

Andrew started Project 86 in Orange County in 1996, signed with Tooth and Nail, and put out the first record in 1998. Ten albums later he announced a final chapter and wrote I Need Truth, a memoir about the whole run. Then came P86:OMNI, a darker, heavier double album with electronic elements, seven music videos and a companion novel. He's also 426 episodes into the band's podcast.

ABOUT THE FORGIVEN

The Forgiven is a community and ministry for artists making heavy music for Jesus. We share their music, tell their stories, pray with them and support the work God has placed in their hands.

The show is hosted by Bill Branstetter, creator of Out of the Depths (a project setting every Psalm to metal, word for word), and Kate Nardone, host of Rock of Ages on AscendFM.

Explore every episode, meet the artists and shop The Forgiven:

https://theforgiven.co

Hear more emerging Christian rock and metal:

https://theforgiven.co/playlist

CHAPTERS

0:00 Show Opener

0:43 Thirty years of Project 86

1:48 Two truths and a lie

4:57 How he met Jesus

9:51 The Crucified and the Christian bookstore

14:33 What Me Against Me meant to Kate

18:25 Can a touring musician have a local church?

20:04 Why his church meets on Discord

26:27 Where his high school friends are now

27:41 The state of the music industry

34:28 "If I know it's AI, I don't consume it"

37:04 What COVID started

38:47 Chasing the Drawing Black Lines dragon

41:27 Building P86:OMNI

45:46 Why keep the 86

47:57 Would you upload your soul?

49:59 Every song is a chapter of the novel

55:52 Lightning Round

60:08 Jesus' favorite Project 86 song

62:29 What's next for P86:OMNI

64:50 How to pray for Andrew

FOLLOW

Project 86: https://project86.com

Bill Branstetter: https://www.instagram.com/outofthedepthsmusic/

Kate Nardone: https://www.instagram.com/radiohostkatehartnardone/

#Project86 #P86OMNI #ChristianMetal #TheForgiven

Someone in amen's church was uncomfortable with a pastor who screams. He doesn't think screaming is a sin. He gave it up anyway.

Caleb makes music as amen, and he is on staff full time at his church as a pastor. When the call came, he didn't ask who had raised it or what they said. "All I needed to know is that they were uncomfortable with the fact that I would be in the pulpit." He told us he would have rather never made another song again than lose the ability to pastor the people in that church. Then he tried yelling instead of screaming, and that got him called into a second meeting. What his pastor told him in that room is the rest of the episode.

This is Caleb's second time on the show. amen is a Christian metal project built on scripture, and he told us it turns one year old on October 8. He says he is too Christian for metal and too metal for Christians, and that both sides have a problem with what he does. He also says the conviction was never his: "I do not think the screaming's wrong. I was just trying to be obedient to the other person's conviction."

Stay to the end. Caleb prays for the church and the metal scene to act like one body.

ABOUT THE FORGIVEN

The Forgiven is a community and ministry for artists making heavy music for Jesus. We share their music, tell their stories, pray with them and support the work God has placed in their hands.

The show is hosted by Bill Branstetter, creator of Out of the Depths (a project setting every Psalm to metal, word for word), and Kate Nardone, host of Rock of Ages on AscendFM.

Explore every episode, meet the artists and shop The Forgiven:

https://theforgiven.co

Hear amen and more emerging Christian rock and metal:

https://theforgiven.co/playlist

CHAPTERS

0:00 A call about the screaming

1:33 Why his congregation is not every congregation

2:19 Is screaming a sin? Paul and the weaker brother

3:21 Why the stronger conscience gives way

4:40 The local church comes first

5:33 What it cost him to lay it down

6:46 He tried yelling instead

8:01 Where do you draw the line? Tattoos in the pulpit

9:54 Stop screaming and stay, or leave the church?

10:30 The final meeting

12:04 "Caleb, are you still screaming?"

13:32 What his pastor told him

15:59 The weight lifted

16:48 Too Christian for metal, too metal for Christians

17:09 "This conviction is not mine"

18:52 Sleep Token shirts and the image

19:51 Christianity is sacrifice

20:10 Revelation 2 and his first love

20:53 Elijah's cave, or keep going

21:59 Kate: let the loudest voice be the Father's

24:04 Bridging the local church and the metal scene

25:16 An apology for his first video

27:16 Caleb prays

FOLLOW

amen: https://www.instagram.com/music.amen/

Bill Branstetter: https://www.instagram.com/outofthedepthsmusic/

Kate Nardone: https://www.instagram.com/radiohostkatehartnardone/

#amen #ChristianMetal #ScriptureMetal #TheForgiven

Grace Graber says the reason you cannot forgive someone is usually not about that person at all. It is about someone you never forgave five years ago.

She was assaulted by a group of girls in middle school, and it got bad enough that her parents pulled her out of school. What she has done with that since is the conversation. "There's been plenty of times I don't want to forgive so and so for doing that to me," she told us. "The reason why is because I haven't forgiven so and so five years back for doing the same thing to me." She walks through what therapy taught her about digging for the belief underneath the hurt, why she thinks those beliefs are less lies than things you were taught, and why letting someone go can feel unsafe.

Grace is a Christian pop-punk artist in Nashville and a pastor's kid out of Sonoma County. A Hawk Nelson song stopped her from taking her own life at twelve, and her parents started driving her to Christian rock shows because they did not know what else to do. Every poster on that bedroom wall is a person in her life now. Her manager fronted Stellar Kart, her worship pastor spent fifteen years in Run Kid Run, and the drummer she met at church turned out to be Hawk Nelson's. A car accident took her ability to play guitar. The settlement paid for beauty school, and the job she got out of it ran the songwriting contest that took her to Nashville.

We also asked how a touring artist does church, and she did not dress up the answer.

ABOUT THE FORGIVEN

The Forgiven is a community and ministry for artists making heavy music for Jesus. We share their music, tell their stories, pray with them and support the work God has placed in their hands.

The show is hosted by Bill Branstetter, creator of Out of the Depths (a project setting every Psalm to metal, word for word), and Kate Nardone, host of Rock of Ages on AscendFM.

Explore every episode, meet the artists and shop The Forgiven:

https://theforgiven.co

Hear Grace Graber and more emerging Christian rock and metal:

https://theforgiven.co/playlist

CHAPTERS

0:00 Opener

0:50 Who is Grace Graber?

1:47 Two truths and a lie

2:54 Grace's testimony

3:30 The Hawk Nelson song that saved her life

6:33 Forgiveness, trauma and the roots beneath the hurt

10:42 "Mental health is a hope issue"

14:07 False beliefs, truth and healing

18:32 The car accident that changed everything

19:35 Finding her way back to music

21:39 Trusting God through changing seasons

24:54 Church hurt

25:24 How touring Christian artists do church

28:28 Finding a church community that understands

30:09 Bible study, The Bible Project and AI

31:43 What Grace would tell her teenage self

33:47 Learning guitar and becoming a songwriter

34:20 How PUNK X PRAISE happened

38:36 Social media and refusing to chase trends

40:00 How worship songs become punk

41:33 Lightning round

44:26 Jericho and what's next

45:23 How to pray for Grace

FOLLOW

Grace Graber: https://www.instagram.com/gracegrabermusic/

Bill Branstetter: https://www.instagram.com/outofthedepthsmusic/

Kate Nardone: https://www.instagram.com/radiohostkatehartnardone/

#GraceGraber #PopPunk #ChristianRock #PunkXPraise #TheForgiven