Tribe Interview - word-on-the-web

The Tribe, perhaps the biggest Christian dance band in the U.K. have a new line up and a new album out this month. David Booker went to find out what we should be expecting from them......

So a new album. New faces in the band, new feel and a new beginning. If people knew the tribe before, what are they going to notice that’s different?

Emma: Lack of girls! I think the main difference really from the WWMT back in the old days is that it always has had this amazing diva queen who stood on the side of the stage and sung her lungs. It was absolutely powerful and amazing! Then you’d have on the side of that a front row of rappers and a back row of dancers. And I think for the first time, well for me personally, I feel that we have got a band together, we’re a unit, its not like segregated individuals out there. We're more coming together with all our talents and we haven’t got a female diva anymore we have two amazing stonking singers called Quintin and George, originally from MIC, so if you’ve heard of MIC you can be guaranteed that you already know that they are amazing singers, and together, you know, with God’s inspiration we believe that we’ve come up with an awesome album. And that’s not us being big headed, that’s God giving us the inspiration, God turning up when we had nothing to write, no lyrics in our heads and no melody, then God just went zap, and I think its really exciting because every track on the new album is a group effort. I think that’s really good because we are supporting each other, encouraging each and lifting each other up and hopefully when we stand up there its not about individuals its about us worshipping God and picking out particular subjects that are relevant today that God wants get sorted in our lives. So the album’s got like all sorts of thinks like from self image to sex, you know, its got bullying, its got all sorts of things that God is fed up with the fact that its still happening and we’re just gonna go out there with our big gobs and say sort it out. I’m really excited about it!

George: I think cause we all listen to different styles of music and we wanted all the different styles to come through. We’re listening to what the young people obviously are listening to at the moment on radio or what’s being played on tv.

We wanted to stay relevant, you know, obviously because the music is a tool, you know to reach out. So we got a lot of different elements of music mixed in there so we have a bit of hip-hop, a bit of R&B, pop, there’s still a bit of dance obviously we don’t want to move away too much from what was happening before, cause you’d end up confusing the people who listened to the music before, so you wanna still have elements of stuff that was done before so, its got some dance influences in it, R&B influences whatever, so we came up with this music style called ‘flavour’ we call it flavour cause its got all these different musical flavours in it.

Has it been easy to gel together, with 2 of you coming into an existing unit?

Quintin: It is quite weird how different people from different backgrounds, obviously the three initial tribe members, and then two guys from totally different backgrounds, different styles of music, are thrown together and within the first 3 or 4months of being together, are thrown into the studio and asked to produce and album. And, on one hand that’s totally insane but on the other hand, as Emma was saying, God just totally stepped in. Relationship wise we’ve really really gelled together, really well I think.

Quintin: Just great relationships, I mean we do get at each other now every now and again, but that’s only natural. And then as far as the album’s concerned, God’s hand was totally in it....we had some great producers and lots of others help, and we produced something which hopefully is acceptable. So it’s been interesting. Its been interesting, very different and really exciting.

What the draw to you new guys joining the band? Was the draw the kind of music or was it the wider ministry of the band and what’s going on here (in Manchester)?

George: We came over and worked with the Message before so we knew what was going on. We had just over the years working with MIC like in Holland and Europe and stuff like that and you know. They (WWMT) came out to Africa as well, so there was kind of an on going relationship, and we’ve been part of the Message 2000 thing. Myself and Quintin really got a heart for this place and when we left MIC we were like "oh God you know what’s next", and we were going to move to England anyway. Then we had this amazing opportunity to come and join the Tribe and we prayed about it and thought it just felt right. you know, when God does something its just right and you know its right and we knew that was the next step we had to take in every line, and cause you know we’d worked with these guys and we knew, we kinda understood what had happened in Manchester, because we just had a heart for it and so we ended up here, its just amazing you know.

There’s a song on the album called ‘You don’t have to’ looking at the sexual pressure on young people. Was that kind of a brave song to put together? Did you worry about that, or did you just think, oh well we’ve got to do it?

Tim: Yeah, that song is the song that says it, I think it has been long time coming from a Christian, I don’t know maybe it hasn’t. The first time I heard a song done and I thought we need to do something like that was a DC Talk song on ‘Free at last’ ‘I don’t want your sex for now’ and I just thought that is so good, we so need to be a bit more out spoken about the whole sex issue. Cause in England you know we’re so like oh that’s a bit taboo. It has been the story of my life coming up through church and it was never mentioned. I mean what’s that doing for our young people who are facing it in school, they're facing it on tv, in magazines, in films and what are we doing as church, we're not addressing it or we haven’t been, so we thought you know come on.

Emma: Do you know what the title actually came from? It must have been about a year or so ago, I don’t know if the other guys remember but, we had a schools lesson and the sex question always comes up, they always say but if we’re Christians then we can’t have sex and I can’t give that up, and I remember one day one of us said, I said, do you realise when the world tells you you’ve got to try all these things do you actually realise you don’t HAVE to. And I remember there was just like silence. One particular group were just like, I’ve never thought of that, I’ve never thought that I don’t have to do what everybody else is doing.

It wasn’t particularly just on sex, it was on all the different issues. That really spoke volumes to me about how the culture is today and I think we need to stand up and say you have an option as an individual, you know, yes there’s peer pressure but you can stand and say no I choose in my life not to go down that road, and that really stuck with me and its really good, cause we had like on the last album the ‘Girl of God’ track which was very much girl power, come on sort your life out and I know for me I was really excited about us doing a group one to come from all aspects from the guys point of view and the girls point of view, to say its not just a girl thing, it's a problem, guys struggle with it as well. I’m really excited to get the guys up there preaching saying come on guys its time to respect yourself and to respect the ladies and lets make a difference in this world and lets be seen as pure and that’s a good thing, its not a bad thing or a sad thing. So I’m really excited about using it. Yeah. Come on. You don’t have to (Emma breaks song).

I guess that when you do that kind of song you’re gonna know that there will be a whole bunch of people listening to it who already have gone beyond the line. What would you say to them if they’re going 'yep I know I’m in the wrong place?' What’s the good news for them on the other side of the line?

Tim: The message is God is a God of grace he doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve. The message is there’s forgiveness with Jesus. The message is yeah you may have messed up but we’ve all messed up we’re not here saying this is how its got to be, in fact the song is talking about our own personal experiences where some of us have messed up in that area and its saying look yes there is a right way to live, there is a way that God wants you to live, but if you’ve messed up, don’t let it grind you down, say goodbye to your past get forgiveness and start living how God wants you to.

Emma: It was funny actually cause one of my friends heard the track and she was like, you can’t do that its too explicit, its too in your face, and she was like I can’t believe you’ve done that. Naturally you would think our sort of response is 'oh no people are gonna hate it and think we’ve gone over the mark', but Tim and I were really excited, we thought good, we wanna have words that are gonna shake people up we don’t want a track that people just think ‘oh that’s nice’ we want people to be challenged and to look at their life styles. We haven’t got it right we’re not saying we’re perfect, we’re talking to ourselves as well but as a group of people lets challenge ourselves and try live our lives how God wants us to live it, cause we’re only gonna gain out of it. So yeah I hope it really challenges people. I’m waiting for the letters.

Is it tough being in this place where when you’re speaking the language of the young people the church doesn’t understand you sometimes?

George: I think there can be dangers sometimes, I think its easy for them not to understand. Young people are totally different from older people, we see in ourselves, it's almost like sometimes people don’t understand cause they’re not in the work and its so easy for them to say ‘oh but you can’t do that’ but you say, maybe we have to say things like that, do things like that, in order to reach out to these kids, cause that’s the only way they understand. So you’ve almost got to meet them where they’re at. Nothing drastic has happened but there can be dangers sometimes.

I guess that the more trendy and 'with it' the evangelism is the harder it can be then for young people to relate to church. How does some of the other stuff you’ve been doing build some bridges there?

Quintin: When we go into schools we always go in with the Eden project happening as well, there’s a group in the school with us, so after we’ve spent a week in the school, we do the gig and when we move onto the next school, there’s a group of really cool young guys there who run lunch clubs during the week. They then introduce the kids into home groups, so you don’t take a kid who’s come from the wild environment who’s decided to get saved and channel them straight into a church. You know they’re still in their school environment and then in sort of a relaxed home environment and then finally into a more, sort of, inner churchy sort of thing, so it’s a bit of a process. We don’t sort of jam them straight in.

Emma: Yeah, definitely. I think that’s why we’ve kinda stuck in Manchester because we realise when God turns up people become Christians, and zap zap zap. But we have such a responsibility to the follow up because even if God does zap someone’s life its so alien to how they’ve been living their life that they actually need someone to get alongside them to say, this is what you can go to, this what you need to do, and some real sort of guidance. Which is why we stay here in Manchester and have been working like Quin was saying about the Eden project and Planet Life cause if you haven’t got that set up people will just fall away because they’ve got no support there, its all about family isn’t it.

I guess for a band like you, there must be the temptation of saying hey look at the Christian music scene in the States and all that stuff.

Quentin: Yeah there is, obviously because you’d be lying if you were up on stage and you feel like sometimes you don’t think this is amazing, this could get huge. We were in Norway the other day and there was Quintin and I watching Rebecca St James, over in America she is absolutely massive, isn’t she. He turned to me and went ‘She’s supporting us’ and we were like oh my word. Just the shock hit us. The fact that someone from over there who is selling hundreds of thousands of records is actually supporting the Tribe, 5 guys from Manchester who work out in a dusty old warehouse with scabby old shoes on and a harness jumping about.

Tim: I’ve sometimes ponder that thought as well, I reckon, I actually wonder if we would make it big if we went. If we upped and actually believed the hype and went to America and tried, I wonder if God would just remove the blessing. You know like we talked about removing the lampstand, or whatever, I wonder if you know he would do that because I just honestly see everything that we do as such a you know, God is so blessing this organisation and this group of people, and I just think. What an awesome responsibility. Yeah I keep saying to the guys you know, much is given, much is required. Just think one day God could just take it away. Its like Lindz said it is something that’s there but…

There’s one question I’ve got to ask you about the album. You’re listening to this album and you get really into it and suddenly there’s a Westlife moment! Is this the Tribe selling out to get the number one radio single or what?

Can I tell you, how that song came about? We were singing. a song that Deronda sang - 'I give you my life' which is a cracking ballad. Cracking song. George and Quintin joined the Tribe and we don’t have a ballad recorded so George and Quintin are required to sing Deronda's song and replace the diva with us.

It doesn’t work. So we had to write a ballad, so we sat with the guitar and that’s what happened.

Well it’s a great song, I just looked at the CD player and thought, hold on, where did this come from?

Quintin: We need that song for the end of show, evangelistic stuff, and what’s nice about it is, it’s in our range.

George: I think also it’s a good thing cause obviously its gonna touch a lot of people, do you know what I mean. Those kind of songs that are there, they always work I think. Young people love them. We’ve got a song, I think its gonna speak volumes.

Lindz: If there’s a Westlife moment, there’s a Eninem moment, there’s an Artful Dodger moment. There’s a bit of garage moment.

So how do you guys keep yourselves going Spiritually? When it must be quite a tough routine sometimes with all the travel. How do you make sure you are not just talking a good talk but you’re in touch with God?

Lindz: It’s kinda like, like that brick wall scenario, you’re a brick in the middle of the wall and you stick people around you that are pillars of strength, to coin a phase. They’re there supporting you and you can sound off to them, so for me like George and Quin were talking about their parents and guys in the church and stuff, I would say like a good group of friends you are spiritually accountable to. Like on Tuesday mornings, this morning I did an hour prayer session with two guys from Eden who don’t really, have any influence in the Tribe kind of thing but they know exactly what’s going on and they know that I can talk with them and sound off and we pray about things and I pray for them, its just making sure that we put people around us that we know we can bounce off them and stuff. Also, you know, its so difficult I don’t think I’ve been to church in like five weeks which is tough, its really hard because sometimes you do feel like you’re giving from an empty bucket, so you have to find other resources like home church, church in the home or men’s groups or whatever it is you have to pro-actively go out and find them and I think that’s tough. Its difficult, its difficult for someone who’s just a Christian anyway, let alone doing our kind of schedule so its taken a bit of time but since I’ve been in the tribe about 18 months I’ve slowly built up this group around us and it seems to hold me steady, sometimes you know you can be up and down, complete nightmare but, you have to work it out.