Derek Webb Interview – 26 February 2005

G: Do you find that maybe in that desire not to pander to people, you’re kind of wanting to challenge, because I mean you’ve got a fan base, you’ve got to know as a performer that you have an audience – that you’re trying to challenge people to be a little outside the box, or are you just doing what you want to do just because you want to do it?

D: I’m really not, I really don’t want to challenge anybody, as far as sonically and things like that. I don’t have any real ambition to like, make people look at music they don’t like, I really don’t. It really is, I’m in a really unique situation where I can do exactly what I want to. My label gives me so much liberty to do that, and I can make whatever kind of music that I want, I can make whatever kind of record that I want. And it’s so rare that an artist on a label would do that.

Caedmon’s has only had two instances of that in the whole career of the band up to this point; there have only been two moments where we honestly could do exactly what we really wanted. Even if we were opposed to the question ourselves because we knew what would be a help for the label.

But really, what I’m doing is exactly what I want to do, and I think there’s some people who are going to really like it, there’s some people who might kinda like it, there’s some people who won’t like it at all. But I can’t be concerned about that, because I’m not a commercial artist. If I were a commercial artist, it would be my primary concern. But I’m just trying to make really honest, really good art, and for that reason, I like to know what people think, and I hope people like it. If they don’t, that’s okay; I mean, a lot of it is preferential, you know, they might prefer some other kind of music, and that’s totally fine. I’d like for them to still give me a chance and listen to it, see if there’s things about it that they like; some people like the lyrical content but not the production, some people like the production but don’t like the lyrical content. That’s great, there’s things to like about it, that maybe people don’t.

But the bottom line is that I don’t really hear that much, I don’t talk to that many people about it. I was talking to Don Miller in Nashville a few weeks ago – he and I were in town doing a [inaudible] treatment, he and I have been friends for the last year or so, and he was asking me about certain songs, he had these really great questions like, “Well what about Reputation, what about certain songs, how are people reacting to this and not the other?” And I was like, “You know what, those are great questions, but I don’t know.” I mean, because a guy like me, at my level, my career, I mean there’s not that much press about my record, there’s not that much talk, there’s not that much reaction.

There are really glorious but very small communities like the net, and places where I’m introduced as someone important, and I feel like people really do listen, and value the music, and I wouldn’t survive without that. But short of that, there’s really no one paying a lot of attention to me. And I mean, I’d like to build it to where I could have more people hear it. That’s one reason Rich Mullins was so radical, because he had written “Awesome God”; if he hadn’t written “Awesome God”, he would have been this great radical, counter-cultural guy, but no one would have been paying any attention to him. But the fact that he had such huge commerical success is what makes him mind-blowing, because here’s this guy who had written all these huge hits and these churches are singing his stuff in their hymnals, so he comes in and challenges everything about the way they live, it was amazing! And I’m not that person, because I haven’t written my “Awesome God,” and I probably never will.

But, I mean, I like success, but I’m not gonna compromise my art to get it. I would love to be successful, but the bottom line is I just don’t know what people think, because I haven’t really heard, no one’s really…there’s very little reaction to a record like mine from Christian industry, so I don’t know what people think. Other than the board, I really don’t.

G: Interesting…it speaks I guess to us…

D: You guys are my whole world, man! *laughs* You guys go anywhere I’m freakin done, I’m lost!

G: Nah, we’re not going anywhere.

D: I hope not, man!