For us, it's like. . . I think we got that a lot when we started out and we realized that from the get and from the jump that everyone wants to compare and that's an easy way to get someone to buy your records. If you like Black-eyed Peas, listen to Souljahz, that type of thing.
Right. So we got a lot of that right away to start with and we sort of wanted to veer away from that as much as we could. Probably because we don't want to be a Christian alternative to a really hot mainstream band. We want to be a band that has people who are Christians and have something to say. That's it. You know, we would love for it to be that way. Unfortunately, we can't control who people compare us to and we're never really offended by it, but we would love for it to be like, "The Washington Projects sound like The Washington Projects and you should go buy their record because they sound like The Washington Projects."
(laughs) So that would be cool. For us, that would be a goal: that people would hear it for what it is and that it would be different. We're trying to be different and this is who we are, so, take it for what it is.
Well, I want to applaud you for that.
Thanks.
Those comparisons often tend to drive me nuts. In fact, I used to keep a comparison chart that I picked up at a Christian book store just for an occasional laugh. (laughs)
Some of the comparisons are such a stretch that. . .
Yeah, it's funny. I'm always wondering how that's going to really help. I guess it does help people relate somehow. . . something.
Okay, how would you describe the new album? I would say that it's exciting. It's an exciting record. It has a lot on it. It talks about everything. For us personally, we've been writing for this record for five years. So we had to choose from eight times the songs that made this record because we had just been writing and writing and writing for five years. These are the ones that we picked out, because we felt they were the best songs. We didn't try to put together a record that was based around any particular theme. It was just. . . this is what we've gone through in our life for the last five years. If you want to know where we've been and what we've been doing (laughs) just put in the record and listen to it because it's basically our life on a piece of plastic.
So it's nice for me, because it's cool to be able to share all of that and so I would just describe it as exciting. If I wanted to. . . I remember when I was a kid and I listened to Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey, I always thought that the songs that they sang were songs that they wrote and that they were about something that they actually went through. And that wasn't always the case and when I found that out as an adult, I was really sad about it.