INTERVIEW WITH GOTHDAD OF SILENT WITNESS RADIO

Jeff (aka Gothdad) of Silent Witness Radio. For those curious about Gothdad's T-shirt, Les Carlsen is the lead singer of Christian metal band Bloodgood.)

The other day, I noticed a playlist for Silent Witness Radio posted in one of the FB groups I'm in (Female Christian Rock and Metal). I was excited to see a couple of my favorite bands on that list (which I'll refer to in the interview). So I thought about interviewing the program, and am honored to interview Jeff (aka Gothdad). 

JR: Welcome to my blog. What are the origins of Silent Witness Radio? When did you get started, and who all is a part of this ministry? Is it on a local station, or is it available on-line (or both)? 

GD: Silent Witness Radio started as an idea from a high-school kid (Chris Stamper) in 1987, since there was a total lack of Christian rock and metal airplay on Christian radio in the greater Cincinnati, Ohio area at the time (there's a long story behind that, but I won't bore you with that at the moment).  He found out that the local community radio station WAIF 88.3 FM had an open time slot, and he submitted a proposal for the show.  He won that time slot (Thursdays 2 – 5 AM), and the show was set to begin in December of 1987.  Chris knew he needed someone with actual radio experience to do the show justice, so he called a friend/contact he had who was living in Cincinnati, and his name was Jamie Carper.

A lot of folks came and went over the last 35 years (Chris left the show to Jamie in order to attend college and take a different direction than radio, and Jamie passed away in 2018, there were many other crew supporting Jamie over the decades, and I came in as co-host in 2008), but our present complement of crew consists of Jamie's two sons, Jeremy (J-DAWG) and Caleb (DJ Chicken Nugget), Caleb's wife (The Lovely and Gracious) Katie, and me.  Caleb and Katie are more occasional crew these days, leaving the normal weekly duties to Jeremy and me.

Jeremy, aka J-DAWG

Silent Witness Radio is still broadcasting on WAIF 88.3 FM in Cincinnati, and WAIF has online streaming as well as a traditional FM transmitter.

JR: How do you decide which artists and songs to play? 

GD: That's a question that is somewhat difficult to answer, given the proclivity of some Christian radio hosts in my circles to overplay their gatekeeper status with artist/label submissions, not to mention how the music industry and how artists have adapted to the changes in the music scene and in technology.  Perhaps the answers will illuminate the context:  We try to have a semi-broad interpretation of what is Christian art: 1) is the artist Christian, and 2) if we're not sure, is the art Christian nonetheless?  

Example: we've been known to play Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and we still include their shows on our concert calendar.  The late mastermind for the project, Paul O'Neill, was a person who battled his own demons, I am sure, but by the lyrics used in so much of TSO's Christmas work, it was obvious that he “got it”--he understood, and may well have believed, the Gospel.  

Conversely, there are times the art itself isn't Christian by pure lyricism (example, Christian artists/bands covering more mainstream/secular artists' work), but the artist doing the cover (or coming up with material that definitely has mainstream/commercial appeal) is Christian.  In either of these exceptional cases, we'll likely include it.  

In between those exceptional cases will be songs which are decidedly/overtly Christian by the lyrics (or at least an articulation of/from the worldview of the artist), and if the artist has been at least somewhat earnest in publicly professing faith, and if the genre/style of the song fits our format (which is usually the various forms of hard-edged music, hard rock, punk, Goth, Industrial, extreme metal and metalcore, plus old-school hair metal, EDM, and hip-hop), then we'll likely play it.  We tend not to care what the artist's political viewpoint is, as that's not a consideration for us—I tend to look at our show as an extension of the legacy of the Jesus Movement, which was the revival amongst the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s and into the 1970s.  It wasn't a political movement—it was a movement solely looking to present Jesus in a fashion relevant to the target audience of the day. 

JR: Do you ever plan any events with the featured artists? Any memorable stories from those events?

GD: We do have in-studio guests from time to time, though there's an already-acknowledged difficulty in bringing artists into the station to do a live radio show during a key night for performing (Saturday 8 – 10 PM).  We usually have to catch an artist during “off” time in order to make it happen.  Back in the day when the equipment was available, my predecessors often hit the local Christian music festivals, doing live remotes with other crew still at the station to manage things.  Having artist/band guests at the studios will often be “party time”, and I can remember some great craziness that ensued especially with 3 Days Under on-air live with us.  They were extremely funny, and yet very on-fire for God.

JR: On the other side, what response do you have from your listeners? How has God used your ministry in their lives? 

GD: When you use the show with the idea of “planting seeds”, you don't always know what impact you've had on your listeners, so we don't hear very often from those who find our signal, except in the usual interaction about “What did you just play?  That was amazing!”.  However, some new listeners (at least, new to us) would tell us how the music from the show had changed their lives, and how they went back to church and got involved.  

JR: The first time I saw a play list from you, it included two of my favorite bands: The Daniel Band, which I've listened to for 40 years, and Divine Martyr, who I've listened to for 40 days. (The latter is exaggeration, though I just discovered DM this year; no exaggeration with the former.) Things have changed a lot in this world. But what about Christian music in general and Christian rock specifically? Is there any changes musically besides what parallels the evolution of the genre in the mainstream market? How much has varied lyrically?

GD: I have personally been aware of or involved in this scene for over 40 years myself, and I remember how it was, from a lyrical standpoint, back in the day.  Almost all the known artists/bands back then had overt lyrics in the music in general, and as new genres (such as heavy metal) became popular, lots of songs would be written that followed largely the same lyrical formula.  In metal, for example, “turn or burn” was a very common theme.  It was the sort of thing that made the better artists and bands (from a lyricism standpoint, if not also the musical standpoint) stand out in a very striking fashion.  

While (due either to nostalgia or concerns about how “off the rails” some modern Christian artists have gone in terms of their theology or spirituality) I still have a deep-seated affinity for overt lyrics, I am very, very thankful (in general) for the evolution of songwriting as the Christian music scene continues to move forward.  I think it's great that so many songwriters are pushing into lots of non-overt territory, for the expansion of themes that can then be explored, not to mention adding some lyrical variety to the overall playlist each week. 

JR: Thank you for your time. How do we listen to you all? Any events you want to mention? Any web-site or other means to follow you all?

GD: Thanks for having us! If you have any readers who are in the greater Cincinnati, Ohio area, we broadcast every Saturday evening from 8 – 10 PM Eastern time on WAIF 88.3 FM.  If you're outside of the broadcast area, we keep the “Listen Live” player for WAIF handy from our website (direct link) at http://www.silentwitnessradio.com/swradio.htm for online listening. 

DJ Chicken Nugget & the Lovely & Gracious Katie

We have a web-site that we have kept mostly updated, though the look and feel is still circa 2000, as we never found the time to overhaul it as yet.  The big feature for the site is our Concert Calendar, which has been kept up-to-date.  We'll feature local/regional shows on the calendar as well as summer festivals within a semi-reasonable drive from our area. 

Of course, social media is the real point of connection for just about everybody these days, and (as you've already seen) we have an aptly titled Facebook page called Silent Witness Radio (https://www.facebook.com/SilentWitnessRadio), and that is often the quickest way to contact us.