There was a point when,
and correct me if I'm characterizing this wrong,
but there was a point where there was
a break with the church,
where it kind of came down to you either,
as the pastor are all in with the church,
or you're gonna do this secular music.
Right. So there was a break.
He lost his job, he lost his church,
he lost his congregation,
he lost the parsonage, he lost everything.
There was-- There was pain there.
There was a moment where things kind of all happened
bad for us as a family at the same time.
The record label that we were a part of,
Columbia Records, dropped us as a band.
Our dad lost his job, and this all happened
probably in the same three, four months.
People of the church were petitioning
to get our dad to leave, or be fired,
and these rumors were starting to kind of swirl that
maybe he was taking money from the church,
and more so the biggest issue for them I think
was the fact that he was putting his attention
on his family over the church,
and it really made this divide happen between us.
The thing to understand too is in a church setting,
it's not as simple as just losing a job,
which is already a horrible thing.
It's highly embarrassing when there's
untrue scandal attached to it
I think it adds another layer of complications.
And relationships, you know a pastor and his wife and family
really minister to the church,
and that means everything from taking the phone call
at four a.m. to show up and be there
after a terrible thing's happened.
It's bedside manner, but all the time,
and showing that love and care.
So to have some of these people then turn their back
was really painful for our parents, and for us--
And for us because we had friends,
that was our friends growing up.
Right. Right.
We spent more time at the church than school
when we were growing up,
so once we all left so did our childhood friends with that.
So trying to understand that in a world
where we were young is very complicated.
And as you mentioned, the parsonage is the home
that the church owns,
so we lived in that house and we moved into a home
that one of the members of the church
who was still a good friend of ours
let us live in a house that they owned
for very little rent,
but that was a challenging moment
'cause there was about seven of us,
the six in our family and our uncle,
living in a two bedroom home
kind of all on top of each other,
and working through some of this pain of the church.
And at that point is when we started writing music
for what would become our first successful album,
and I think it was out of that struggle
that really opened up that lane.
As kids, were you fully aware
of what was happening at the time?
Were you fully aware that there was a break happening
with the church, that they were turning?
Yeah I think they--
I was for sure, because--
You were the older-- I was older,
and I had friends even in the high school
that I was attending at the time
that have attended our church,
and they'd be like I heard this and I heard that,
and are you guys leaving?
It was always like we have to be careful at the time
about Myspace, right?
I remember one of the big things, which was really funny.
My father was almost getting in trouble
for the fact that we had a social media page, right?
Where these people could comment,
and girls could say whatever they want,
and that was a problem.
And he said to the board and other people like,
every church in America will have social media
within the next two to three years.
Never gonna happen, you know?
So obviously, that's not the case,
but the reality of the fact is I saw it firsthand.
I saw a lot of the pain from my mom and dad in that.
Did you guys know it as well?
Yeah, I was also going through
a pretty intense thing at that time.
I'd just been newly diagnosed with type one diabetes,
and was working through all that.
So I think it's weird to say this,
but it was a bit of a godsend, you know?
This terribly traumatic thing happens to our family,
and at the same time I'm relearning
how to do simple things like eat and manage a new disease,
so I was a bit distracted, but I recall nights
where there was a lot of tension within the family
and fighting, and moments I think
I could hear my father crying,
and knowing what it was doing to him,
and he put so much of his heart into this,
into these people.
And he was so good.
He was really good.
As a speaker, he was so good.
Speaker and a singer, he was amazing on the stage
and really brought it.
So yeah, it was painful,
but I think the thing that was interesting
was we all needed to get some clarity on what faith
and religion and all of that meant to us
after this had happened,
and I think it really defined who we became
as faith-based people, or not,
and what our value system was.