One Weird Trick for a Worship Band to Make Their Album Go Platinum

Plenty of metal band releases nowadays feature a track, usually in the middle or at the end, that’s a little quieter or more contemplative, probably to break the sonic elephant-gun onslaught of everything else you’re hearing/have heard. If the metal band is Christian, this track is the time to let listeners know you are, in fact, a Christian band by allowing it to become something of a worship song, or at least a song that mentions Jesus. Bonus points if you got some Psalm verses for maximum effect and have one of those borderline funk-slap acoustic guitar intros.

But once, just once, I’d like to see the inverse happen. You’re a squeaky-clean, modern rock worship band, complete with Nashville-studio solid production, and you put a disgusting, minute-long grindcore track in the middle of your latest release. Make sure it has really questionable early-nineties production values where the guitars are just a little too tinny, and make sure the lyrics are about something mundane, like emptying the dishwasher or buying new shoelaces. It kinda doesn’t matter because no one will understand them; the vocals can be gurgled out at random and lyrics written later to match the rhythm, for the liner notes*. You may use a drum machine because your drummer has no idea how to play blastbeats and will have to sell his soul to Satan to learn how.

If not grindcore, because grindcore dudes have no idea how to play their instruments well, you may insert some Covenant-era Morbid Angel death metal. But that’s as accessible as you may go. We’re not trying to sell albums here, really, with this, and the rest of the music on your album is the very definition of squeaky-clean accessible. But this special track is going to be the ne plus ultra of artistic statements, one that would make baby Jesus giggle and clear His colic.

No Nashville A&R rep in a worth his best blazer would ever go for this idea, so this release would have to be independently-funded. But you’d get my admiration, and that may be worth more to you than recouping your advance and getting to pay your phone bill for this month.

* As an option, this grindcore track can still be a worship song. Someone, definitely not me, may suggest that you go the pornogrind route and lift some Song of Solomon verses for the lyrics. You did not read that here.