“A song about Marilyn Manson will never, ever be on a CD put out by Gotee Records. Period!” – Toby Mac

Those words—delivered with tongue firmly in cheek—slam the brakes at the end of Relient K’s first track on their self-titled debut. It was bold. It was bizarre. It was punk rock with a youth group twist. But how did a group of teens go from basement demos to making TobyMac laugh out loud and land a record deal with Gotee? Let’s rewind.

Twenty-five years ago, a scrappy group of Ghoti Hook-loving teenagers from Ohio stepped into a makeshift home studio with a funny name and zero idea that they were about to launch one of Christian rock’s most enduring bands.

At the heart of it all was producer Mark Lee Townsend, whose extended family landed him in Canton, Ohio, just as his daughters were befriending a local punk band through their church. “They go, ‘Hey, we got some kids in our youth group that we’re buddies with that have this little punk band. Would you mind recording them?’” Townsend recalls. That “little punk band” was Relient K.

Townsend had a basic setup—“just a little home studio kind of thing.”—and figured he’d cut a demo as a favor. “They play through probably 14 tunes, no vocals. They’re just playing through the stuff,” he says. But when the vocals were added the next day, Townsend’s ears perked up. “All of a sudden… I’m like okay, this guy’s got some funny lyrics. There’s some really intelligent, funny stuff going on here.”

The band’s quirky charm was immediate, and Townsend whipped up a mix for them to sell at shows. “That’s how silly it was. Record it in a day and a half and mix it in a day,” he laughs. But it didn’t stop there. While touring with DC Talk, he played some of the demo for TobyMac. “He goes, ‘You got anything you want me to hear?’ So I played him two or three different things… he heard ‘My Girlfriend,’ and just thought it was funny.”

Toby liked it enough to want to launch a side project label—SMLXL—but Townsend had bigger ideas. “I was kind of going, okay, that’s cool, but if they really want to have a shot at having a career, let’s see if we can do a product that is something that can get up to Gotee level.”

They spent the summer sharpening their sound. “I’m really pushing them hard on playing well and taking things up another notch.” When he brought the finished mix back to Toby, the response was immediate: “Okay, this is full-on. This is Gotee.”

The band’s lineup and skillset were still taking shape. Frontman Matt Thiessen had been a bassist in a punk band before switching to guitar—though he couldn’t (and still can’t) use a pick. “He plays with his thumb,” Townsend laughs. “I think he said he started on bass… just downstrokes.” Bassist Brian Pittman, meanwhile, was brand-new to the instrument but “had a really decent sense of rhythm. He could play in the pocket where the other guys were kind of rushing a lot.”

Recording in a home studio, not Nashville, made a huge difference. “It was very disarming for them in a good way,” Townsend says. “We just worked at it and got it right. I didn’t want to play guitar on the record. I wanted to force them to play. And they rose to the occasion.”

Standout tracks like “Hello McFly” and “Wake Up Call” were late additions. “Hello McFly, oddly enough, the opening track, that was a late ad—as was ‘Wake Up Call,’ the last song on the record,” says Townsend. And the inspiration behind “Wake Up Call”? Pure real-life punk rock. “Theissen was working as a night manager in a Wendy’s while we were working on this record. So we’d be working, and at like 4:00 he had to bug out, drive down to Bolivar to go work. Work at the Wendy’s. I loved it. It was so punk rock.”

For Townsend, “Wake Up Call” is a favorite, partly because of the experimentation. “We stretched out a little bit… bring in some keyboard stuff, some nylon string… anything to add a layer.”

The band’s sound stood out even in the crowded pop-punk scene of the time. “It wasn’t a Blink clone. It wasn’t a Sum 41 clone,” Townsend insists. “They had their limitations—and they’ll tell you that. But I think that’s what made them.”

He attributes their uniqueness to a willingness to try anything. “They were really open to everything. They couldn’t get enough. They’d try different ideas… falsettos, Beach Boys harmonies, nylon string guitars. We weren’t bound by convention.”

Of course, a few conversations had to happen along the way—like convincing parents to let their kids take the leap. “Hoopes’ family were educators,” Townsend says. “He was about to get a free ride into college… and I had to have the meeting with the parents. I said, ‘Hey, not a lot of people get to sign a record deal. Let’s try it.’”

It worked. The album took off, and the band was soon opening for Bleach, Five Iron Frenzy, and other scene staples. That first record wasn’t perfect, but it was full of heart, humor, and youthful energy. “Honestly, it’s a dream,” Townsend reflects. “Teenagers picking up an instrument and a couple of years later they’re in a band and signed to doing something.”

And two and a half decades and all but one record featuring Mark Lee Townsend he has left the door open to return. “We have such a good history and we don’t have to work at it,” he says. “It’s just too easy. We all get along so well… I love those guys. They’re like family to me.”

Happy 25th to the album that started it all.

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