Seven Sorrows goes against the grain in several ways. First, they are Catholic. Second, they aren't afraid to do hardcore. As if this wasn't enough to make everyone think they were from another planet, they also give their music away for free. That's right, you can download all their songs from www.SevenSorrows.com and if you want a CD all you have to do is send them a couple of bucks to cover shipping. I sent Mike an email and asked him a few questions about his band.

How has being in a band together affected your marriage?

It has been awesome being in a band with my wife. I couldn't ask for anything better. She is my best friend, and being able to not only share a band, but a ministry together, it is great. Since so much happens with the band (ups and downs), it is great being by each others' side to experience it together. But with anything, we don't let the band take away from our marriage. We balance everything.

I understand that your looking for new band members again. May I ask
what happen to the drummer and guitar players who just joined?
They quit. hahahaha, but to elaborate here is a short story. Since Dan (former singer/guitarist) quit in July we have been using every possible outlet to look for members, we have been scouring the earth, well at least Southern Cali. For over 5 months, we had not been able to find a single member. Then Angie and I did a Sacred Heart Novena for members, and within the 9 days, we had found all 3 of the members we needed. Then within a month, for various reasons each of the 3 band members quit.

What are the struggles you've experienced as a Catholic musician?
Their of course are the "normal" band struggles or scheduling, practicing, communication, etc., but with a Catholic band their is so much more. The Catholic music/entertainment market is untapped right now, it is a baby in the making. It is strange being in a band knowing that their are no major Catholic record labels, or radio stations to play us on, or TV stations to play a music video, or even large distributors to get CDs across the United States. But even more than that, we are trying our best to do God's will. So this band has been constantly attacked by the Devil. He is trying very hard to stop us, so that God's plan may not be fulfilled. We don't know what God's long-term plan is for us, but if it is related to the size of the Devil's attacks, then their must be big plans in our future.

We live in a world where there is a big push from record companies to
keep people from sharing music over the Internet. What made you decide
to give your music away for free?
God's will. Everything in this band is for God. He guides us in every decision that we make. It started in the beginning, when we had a 3 song demo. We sold it at shows for $3 ($1 a song sounded fair). We didn't make too much money at each show. Then one show we thought, "let's just give them away for free, and accept donations". We did, and we made about the same amount of money as when we sold the CD. So this was God setting us up for the kill. So we had been praying about this and the huge Steubenville conference in San Diego was coming up and we were playing at lunch. With much prayer and discerning, we decided we should do all for free at that show. So we had 300 CDs and over 100 shirts and used all of our band money. We knew if this failed we would be hurting, but we trusted God. We gave all away for free and when we counted the money, we almost made our money back to the penny. That was a good enough answer from us. So we have continued to do all of our music for free.

But a shorter answer to your question would be: How can we charge for God's message? If we are trying to help teens get to heaven, how can we charge them for this? How could we deny a kid the gospel message of God because they didn't come to Church with $15? Don't get me wrong, I don't think it is wrong to charge for Christian music, but at this point in our career we know that God is calling us not to charge.

Have you considered putting your music under an open license like
creative commons?

Not really, not exactly, wait....what is creative commons? hahahaha. Actually someone had suggested that to us before, but this is our ministry and we are trying to reach as many people as possible. Anyone can get our music for free on our website, and we have let a few other websites have our music as well, but we want to be in touch with those who get our music. It explains on our website that if you want to use our music or burn CDs for friends, just ask. But we still want to retain the rights to our music. We don't want our music showing up in some abortion campaign ad, or in a porn movie...hmmm although that might help convert people.


Have you started writing new songs or are you waiting until the band is
complete?

Well we had a whole set of new songs for our new album, but Dan quit 2 days before recording, so we had to cancel recording. But with member switches and adds we might just make all new songs. I have felt the call to be the singer and no longer play drums, so I have been writing more lyrics and have many ideas. (I wrote 2 songs on the old album, Vengeance and Regret) and wrote all of the songs that were going to be on the new album. But musically, no we have not written any new songs, we are waiting until we at least get a few more members.


With so many Catholics in the world and so many Christian bands, why is
it so hard to find Christian bands that are specifically Catholic?

I really do not know and I wish I had the answer. I have thought about this many times and discussed it with many people. I have a few theories:

1) It is not "cool" to be in a Catholic band. I remember when being in a Christian band wasn't cool, then it got very trendy, even to the point where Christian bands were no different that non-Christian bands...doing drugs, premarital sex, living the rockstar life, etc. So once it is "cool" to be in a Catholic band, everyone will start making them. Music is all about trends. Every style of music was "uncool" or "unheard of" at some point. Punk used to be for kids who hated their life, hated rich people, their country, politics, religion, and now you see punk bands everywhere you go. Rock and Roll of the 50's was so called "devil music" with hip-shaking and now, that is the "good music". Jazz used to be for the easy girls, the swingers, played in speakeasies, now it is the sophisticated music...wow..I got off on a rant.

2) It is hard to find good strong Catholics, plain and simple. When you look around mass, you see kids, young teens, then in skips almost 20 years, and you see 35+ people at mass. For some reason teens get confirmed and you don't see them back in mass until they are married, have a kid and decide they want the child baptized. For the teens/20 year olds that do stay, what are the chances that they can play an instrument, like the style of music that other people like, and what to start a band. Not to mention be strong in their faith and want to proclaim it by being in a band. We have been searching everywhere in Southern Cali for 9 months now and haven't found anyone yet...hahahaha. Plus for teens/early 20's people, the Catholic Church is difficult to understand. They may accept many beliefs, but then they may throw out the 3-4 things they don't agree with. With protestant churches, you can just find a church that believes what you want, but in the Catholic Church it is take it or leave it. So it is hard to find people not only strong enough to accept everything, but strong enough to want to fearlessly proclaim it to others.

3) As I talked about before their is no support for a Catholic band in the Catholic market. Who in their right mind would say, "Yes, I would like to be in a Catholic band and have no radio or TV stations to be played on, no big record company to be signed to, no other bands in the same genre of music to play with, etc." So at this point, being in a Catholic band is really a calling by God. Plus, if you ask any teens to name a Catholic band, they either can't, or they will start naming all of their favorite Christian bands. With Catholic bands being unknown it also is hard to have good turnouts at shows. I think the biggest Catholic show I have ever even heard of brought about 1,000 people. And this was with 6 months of planning. But just the other day in the little ol' town of Red lands where I live, the Christian band Kutless played, on a Tuesday, school night, in March, while it was raining and they sold 2,700 tickets. And they had already played 2 other shows within an hour of Redlands.

4) It could also be the Devil. Anything that comes from God and is the truth, is going to be majority attacked by the Devil. I mean just think about it...if the Devil could attack band "A" who doesn't even talk about God, band "B" who loves God, but is wrong on many beliefs of God, or band "C" who is proclaiming the full truth of Christ, who is he going to attack the most? And as the bible says, we will be hated by the world because we love Jesus. So I guess that means that if we get popular we might be doing something wrong..hahaha.

All these theories could be wrong, but these are just a few of what I have thought about.



Please pray for us as we are searching for new members. Pray that God's will be done and that we may bring many people closer to Christ and his beautiful Church.

Be on the lookout for new songs and a new album from us www.SevenSorrows.com