Gideon Lamb (Krister Johnson) and Jeremiah Smallchild (Wilson Hall) will be spreading their message—hell, Christ’s message—with a party in honor of their new book on Tuesday, Sept. 8 at Comix. The musical duo has been strumming and singing together for years and now they’re back in New York, which they call an ironic town, to teach us about hot button issues like drugs, alcohol and your “downstairs area.” Henry Melcher, as pure an intern as we have, spoke with the holy men about their show, new book and an unfortunate night of “binge drinking.” What can people expect from your show at Comix?
Gideon: The show is to celebrate the release of our new book What Would God’s Pottery Do? The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Your Teens and Being Successful. We’re professional musicians so we do perform a good bit and we thought it’d be nice to have a big show in the city. We want to start sharing that not just in book form but live on stage. The show will celebrate the book and the book celebrates you the reader and people who make good decisions.
What are some of the issues the book covers?
G: Premarital intercourse is an issue for the youth so we’re never going to leave that one alone until the youth do. But more specifically, the book gets into some things that we don’t always talk about including the plight of the adopted. Our book breaks down into four sections and the first one is “Home and Family,” so we deal with parental issues, the brothers and sisters, adoption and divorce and even your extended family such as pets, relatives and even your grandparents. We move from there into “Your Body” discussing the pubescent issues –
Jeremiah: Drugs and alcohol.
G: The downstairs area as far as the body goes. The changing, the coarse tufts of hair that sprout in places you never knew hair could grow. We talk about your friends, your friends turning into enemies, the issues that come with school, extra curricular activities then we sort of branch out into the world around the teen as they begin to realize they are going to move out into this world. The dangers of the Internet, knowing your world issues, we get really into it.
J: Environmentalism, we talk about caring for our planet.
G: Sure, we have a “Conservation Conversation” with the kids. We let them know about some international hotspots they need to keep an eye on. Austria/Australia that sort of thing. We just want to keep an eye out.
Do you get at all political when you cover issues like these?
G: We try to stay away from expressing too strong a political opinion because we don’t want to divide people but we’re pretty politically active. We are involved with numerous groups of our own. We started various socially active group such as BALANCE which stands for “building a life around never-ending Christian ethics” it’s a wonderful organization where I’m the Assistant Treasurer.
J: I’m the Head Treasurer so I’m just a little higher up than Gideon on the org chart there.
Are you scared about performing in NYC in front of a crowd that may be non-religious or even anti-religion.
G: We are used to dealing with audiences of every stripe and New York actually has been some of the most welcoming audiences for us. They drink a little much; they have a bit of a drinking problem. Any drinking is too much drinking if you ask me, but they drink too, too much. Don’t worry we will be addressing that issue with them during the course of the show. New York is a very – I don’t know if I’m getting the term right – but an ironic town and so some people seem to think mistakenly that we are a joke, we are an act so they’re laughing sort of at the wrong points which can get a little confusing in the course of the show, but other than that I think everyone has a fun time.
I know you follow Christ’s message, but during your time in New York do you think you’ll be tempted to drink or engage in wrong behavior?
G: We’re not going to lie. We’ve experience temptation. We have walked across the hot coals of mixed drinks and pretty ladies in halter-tops. So what we like to do is employ the buddy system, we stick together, we check in with each other. I had a very difficult time recently; I had an experience with binge drinking. It was a crisis moment, it was a Tuesday, Jeremiah and I had just had our game night and I had lost yet again at “Heal the Leper” Jeremiah says I’m just not doing something right with my hands-
J: You weren’t waving your hands right –
G: OK well we don’t have to get back into it now. But the point of the story is that I was feeling really down on myself and I went for a walk. Boy one thing after another went wrong, I went into this pet store and I got lost in the back of it and when I came home that night my pillow broke. Everything was just really piling up on me.
J: And what did you do when that happened?
G: You know I reached out. I reached out in the wrong direction you know those little tiny bottles they give away on airplanes of alcohol? Well I found one that had been previously drunk, it was empty, but the fumes of spiced rum were enough to send me tush over teakettle and I woke up to Jeremiah screaming and shaking me. Boy ever since then I’ve walked the straight and narrow.
Do you think experiences like these help make your message stronger?
G: I think it does because a lot of these youth think that we haven’t – if they’re skeptical it’s because they think we haven’t lived life. Sure we haven’t had intercourse, but that doesn’t mean we don’t understand the mechanics of it and can imagine the shame we would feel if we did before we were ready.
Who are you musical and religious inspirations?
G: I can start with one: Jesus.
J: I was going to say him too.
G: I find inspiration in my cat Steve. He’s our cat but I like to think of him as my cat because I found him and nursed him back to health. And Steve’s a heck of a guy, sometimes he’ll be licking his paws and looking up at the sky and I know he’s thinking about Christ and about what’s going to happen when he leaves his mortal body. I find that really inspirational when I can imagine what he’s probably thinking and how it affects me.
Any other message you’d like to share with people?
G: We’re just really excited [about the book] we put a lot of work into it. The show is going to be great, Janeane Garofalo is performing as well and we’ll have some other guests as well. Janeane, unfortunately is an atheist, but she’s been a good supporter. We try to look past our vast, vast differences. And we like to break down the word atheist and she’s really “a theist”.
J: We also like to say “She’s an atheist… for now.”
>What Would God’s Pottery Do? The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Your Teens and Being Successful
Sept. 8, Comix, 353 W. 14th St. (betw. 8th & 9th Aves.), 212-254-2500; 7:30, $20
