Radio 4's "Front Row" show talks to Martin Smith (BBC Radio 4)
Last modified: 05 Mar 2002
Source: BBC Radio 4
Presenter: John Wilson
Date: 05 Mar 2002
John Wilson [radio interviewer]: Martin Smith is the singer with the English Christian rock band Delirious?, currently touring the church halls of America.
[Short clip from 'Heaven']
Martin Smith: We kind of hold a dreaded 'Christian Rock Band' label that has got so many stigmas attached to it.
JW: But if there is a prejudice do you think that's possibly bound up with the idea of what 'rock and roll' should be about? Usually preceded by the words 'sex and drugs'.
MS: Yeah of course, although I think true rock and roll is just being yourself isn't it, and we're certainly doing that, to the detriment of maybe being successful. On the other hand who is really doing the 'rock and roll' thing anyway? You get a rock band with a persona of doing everything under the sun, and yet they've just met with their accountants to talk about their pension deal. So its a very different thing these days.
JW: Do we presume therefore that you are a clean living band? If one of the band members was found to be pursuing the more traditional rock and roll lifestyle would his place in the band be secure?
MS: [laughs] I don't know. If you've got a thing about something, your life has got to back it up. So if that wasn't happening, yea I guess there would be a tension there.
John Aizlewood [music critic]: If you go and see a Delirious? gig, there's a little bit of preaching, but the only difference between seeing Delirious? and seeing a normal rock band, and 'normal' is not even the right word to use there. The only difference is the length of queues at the bar. Delirious? will sell out large venues, the bars will be virtually empty. There will only be the tiny proportion of non-Christians who are sneaking a drink.
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