This is part five of an interview I had with with the frontman of The TechnoFunkBoy recentlyDriver’s Seat. Part 1 can be read here, Part 2 here, Part 3, and Part 4. In this part, we will discuss track 4 of the album, “Robot.”about their debut,
The whole album can be downloaded for free here or streamed online here. Please do take a listen. Kaenor and the band were very careful to not only make the music good, but that the lyrics and music would glorify God.
Me: Okay, Stephen
Lannier.
***
Me: So this is it,
the last song we have left to discuss.
Kae: Good thing
we’re already recording some new stuff, so we don’t actually have to stop
talking.
Me: True
enough! Dude, I love this song, and my
son does too. For the readers, my son is
about a year and a half old, and he dances every time I play this.
Kae: I do too, and I
don’t have the excuse that I’m a year and a half old. It’s tough to stay seated with this one
on. And we wanted to end the album with
a jam, and it turned out nicely.
Me: So each song
not necessarily features a member of the band, but one member is more prominent
in each song.
Kae: Right. And in this song, it is Stephen.
Me: But before we
talk about him, even though we’ve discussed D.R.U.M. before, we have to mention
him, because he actually raps in this song.
Kae: Well, hey, it’s
called “Robot.” I personally would be
disappointed if our robot didn’t say anything in it.
Me: Right. He has a couple of lines in each verse and
chorus, but what in the world is he saying in the break down section.
Kae: I think it was
something like, “All your base are belong to us.” I have no idea. It’s part of his old programming to yell out
stuff like that, and I haven’t been able to track down the problem to fix
it. He always says it when playing the
song, and it’s always right there.
Normally he doesn’t have a microphone on him, so these statements don’t
get recorded, but because he had a mic on this tune, it comes through, and we
gave up on trying to get him to stop it.
Me: Okay, Stephen
Lannier.
Kae: Yeah.
Me: Tell us what he
adds to be the band.
Kae: In almost every
occasion, he is playing the melody with his right hand and the bass line with
his left. All of the driving riffs you
hear on this album are pretty much him.
Me: In this song,
most of the fun is those two intertwining parts – the synth sound that starts
the tune with a simple melody, then the bass that comes in right afterward that
adds some depth.
Kae: Exactly. Stephen is up front in most of the tunes, and
they certainly wouldn’t sound anything like they are without him.
Me: What is this
song about?
Kae: Well, since we
discussed the doctrine of God’s sovereignty already, and we dealt with the
pastoral aspect of that, I wanted to answer some of the common objections to
it. Not all of them – that would require
a book – but just a few that might have come up as the listener goes through
the album.
Me: Since I was an
English major, I noted something that most people may have missed. What is the structure of the verses?
Kae: Sonnets. It’s a form of sonnet that incorporates the terza rima rhyme pattern that Dante used
in his Divine Comedy. It has such a cool sound to it, and while it
is very structured, the rhymes quickly become somewhat unpredictable when you
are listening to it out loud, and they seem to swirl into each other.
Me: That was the
most nerdy thing I’ve heard you say yet, and you live in a video game.
Kae: [laughs]
Me: Some of this is
pretty aggressive. One verse in
particular has the objection that people don’t have the ability to repent and
have faith, and that’s unfair. Your
response there is to turn it back on the questioner and say, “What do you
care? You don’t want to repent, so why
do you care whether you are able to or not?”
Kae: You know, my
answer to that objection used to be much longer, but I was listening to an old
episode, an episode from years ago, of The Narrow Mind with Gene Cook, and they
had an atheist on who used this objection.
Gene basically asked, “Wait, do you want to repent right now? Are you willing to bow the knee right
now?” The atheist of course did not, so
Gene replied, “Then why are you complaining that you can’t do something that
you don’t want to do anyway?”
Me: It would be
like if I were told that I were not allowed to eat squash ever again. I wouldn’t be terribly upset about that. I just really don’t like squash.
Kae: Exactly. The atheist brought up the objection again,
and Gene again asked, “Are you wanting to be a Christian now?” He wouldn’t let up on it. I was really taken aback by this. In a good way, I mean. A lot of times we get objections that are
inconsistent in themselves, and we will answer them, but we don’t challenge the
challenger on them. A discussion of
doctrine should be a two-way conversation, and it is important that we don’t just
answer questions – answer them, yes, but don’t leave it there. Push back.
Did that question even make sense according to the challenger’s
worldview? Do they have a worldview that
can answer the question? Half the time,
people are throwing out stuff they don’t understand and don’t believe, and if
they can see that, then they’ll be better off for it.
Me: It’s kinda of
like the old objection against sovereignty made by some in the church that
belief that God ordained all things to come to pass means that God made people
to go to hell, and that’s not right that He do that. But the people who object in this way have
the same problem, because they usually believe that God knew the future, even
if He doesn’t ordain it, and God knew when He made someone that the person
would go to Hell, but God made him anyway.
Kae: And
furthermore, God knew how much grace would be needed for that man to believe,
but He didn’t provide it. According to
these people you are referring to, God gives everyone the same level of grace –
grace enough to make the choice, but they have to admit that if He had provided
just a little more grace, then more people would be saved. They have to answer the same questions we do,
but not many people will challenge the challenger.
Me: Very good. Where are you drawing from, Scripture-wise,
in this tune.
Kae: Mostly
Romans. Paul tackles a lot of these
issues head-on in Romans. I would really
just advise those who are struggling with these truths to study that book.
Me: So if the
listener is interested in this topic, where would you direct them next?
Kae: Um, some good
books on the topic include The Sovereignty of God by A. W. Pink, The Potter’s
Freedom by James White, and historic documents like the Westminster Confession. But more than that I would just read Romans a
lot, Ephesians, and places like John 6.
Read these sections carefully and follow what is being said.
Me: Kae, it’s been
a good conversation. What’s up next for
you?
Kae: Well, we’re
trying to put together a couple of things.
First is a new single that will have a fun danceable b-side on it, but
that isn’t very far along, so I’m still not sure what it’s going to turn out to
be. But secondly, before we broke out
into the real world, TFB recorded a soundtrack for a video game, and there has
been some interest in seeing that released.
So we are going back to it, making some updates, and recording it now.
Me: This was a
video game inside a video game?
Kae: Yes. There are a few videogames that are set in
the present day or future that have the technology in them for the characters
to play videogames. This one was created
in the game Earthbound, but it is a more traditional RPG, set in Medieval
times. We do some crazy stuff in there
when people accidently leave the Nintendo on all night.
Me: We’re looking
forward to it!
