Well Storied fam….It’s release day!
My first single “Honest” is finally alive and kicking in the real world!
We want to say a HUGE thank you for the ways in which you’ve supported this project and, in fact shaped it. This is OUR record. This Storied community is a place where honest faith and honest doubt have co-existed in an environment of friendship and grace for the last several years. That is a powerful incubator for any art project. When you know you can say anything and still belong, that frees up your pen and opens up your voice like nothing else.
And because I know you, I know you all are kind and awesome people who will likely ask the best ways to support this new endeavor.
First and foremost, PLEASE take the time to go on your Spotify/Apple Music account and pre-add/pre-save the album. Then click to follow me as an artist. These actions communicate powerfully to our robot overlords that this music has a devoted audience and so should be playlisted and prioritized. If no one does this…my solo career will be brief!
Secondly, SHARE it on your socials! This moves the needle more than you can imagine. Use it as the soundtrack to your reels and on TikTok. This where most people are now learning about new music and my own TikTok is pathetic!
Thirdly, I do have one single merch item… gah I know it’s making it all feel a bit real!
Now that THAT’S all out of the way, let’s get into it.
Why Honest? What is this album even about?
This record is really about the question that I think haunts every deep relationship in our lives, and especially our relationship with God.
“Will you love me if I’m honest?”
If I take the risk of completely opening up to you— of showing you my darkest corners and deepest secrets— will the gamble pay off? What happens if I don’t edit my words to make them spiritual or “acceptable”, but just choose to be vulnerable?
What if I ask questions like “can you even be trusted?”
Like “Where were you when my son got diagnosed?”— “are you The Healer when it counts?”
Like “ Is this church, riddled with scandal and abuses, still the extension of your body?”
Will the result be rejection?
Or will it unlock profound and beautiful new depths of intimacy?
All I know is that if I make the choice to never be fully honest, I will never feel fully loved. And I can’t do that anymore - I have to roll the dice and find out.
You can probably already tell that this project is more about questions than it is answers.
Honesty isn’t about being correct or incorrect. It’s about being real or being fake.
No attempt has been made on this record to be “right”- to do that would be to airbrush out the reality, the honesty. And if you’re looking for resolved tension, I can save you some time: I’ve found peace but the tension remains. (Maybe the tension IS the life of faith?)
Maybe you could see this project as raw footage of two deeply committed partners fighting for their relationship. This is the middle of a heated, passionate conversation that is about way more than if I’m “right” or not— this about wrestling through the mess of feelings to try to save the marriage, to find a way forward, to find that reassurance that love persists despite the conflict.
My hope is that, although I can’t offer many answers, this project offers you a permission slip to ask your own bold questions, and expose them to the light.
I’ve said that this album isn’t a statement of belief, but let me offer this:
I believe that the shoulders that bore the sickening weight of the cross will SURELY not buckle under the weight of your heaviest doubts, fears or even accusations.
We can take the risk of being honest. I think we have to.
How else would you follow “the Way, the TRUTH, and the life?”
Stuff that helped inspire “Honest”
1. Americana music! It stands in such direct contrast to worship music. It is so straightforward and unflowery and rarely interested in mundane things like answered questions and loves to leave a question mark hanging in the air.
I think of Noah Gundersen: “Robin Williams” and Chris Stapleton : “Whisky and You”.
Also special mention to Jon Foreman and his Fall and Winter EP’s from back in the day. Sheesh.
2. So many books. But I really think of Anne Lamott the most. Her book Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts On Faith found me at a time in life where I was just completely unprepared for a potty mouthed prophet! Her refusal to speak in the terms of Christian culture about faith was jarring and exciting at the same time. I hope that my album feels like that.
Everything Happens For a Reason by Kate Bowler is explosive on the topic of being real in regards to pain.
The poetry of Padraig O’Tuama was never far out of reach.
Also the decision to read more academic Study Bibles was big for me. I recommend the Jewish Study Bible second edition and the Jewish annotated New Testament alongside the Harper Collins Study Bible.
These Bibles deal more squarely with the text on account of having little or no skin in the game in terms of desiring an evangelical friendly bible. Obviously they both have biases, but they’re upfront about them in ways that are refreshing to me.
3. Dystopian movies, TV and games. Something about the mood of Cormac Mccarthy’s The Road or The Last of Us just felt really resonant with my faith journey at the time. A bleak landscape with sad determined people taking baby steps towards hope sounds like the church to me!
The Handmaid’s Tale series is mind blowing. A great read and for sure not just for girls!
I love the Bioshock video games for their quirky take on American life and religion.
Black Mirror of course reigns supreme in this genre. Asking big haunting questions
4. Podcasts and audiobooks: A particular favorite for me has been You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes. It touches on spirituality often but in a light hearted and “free” way. I love the episode with Ben Gibbard from Death Can for Cutie.
Surrender by Bono is essential listening. And I mean that: listening not reading. A beautifully crafted audio experience.
I would also like to draw attention to The Larkcast. A source of common sense, good news based faith chat.
Having said all that… listen to HONEST HERE
I just want to say thank you one more time for being here. For showing up week after week, month after month on Zoom, and some of you have been here for years now sharing your heart, your thoughts, your process. I’ve learned so much from all of you and I hope this song conveys some of the honesty we’ve experienced here in this little community in Storied.
Much love,
Chris
With that, we’re headed into the weekend like…
“but if you bore that heavy cross
how could you buckle under this”
YES🙌🏼 thank you so much for this. ❤️🔥