Pillar: Deep impact

"Ultimately, it is about making an impact in someone’s life,” says Pillar front man, Rob Beckley. “Even a lot of mainstream artists, that’s their goal—they want to know they have an impact on somebody’s life.

"It’s very gratifying to get an email or a story from somebody who comes to a show about how a song helped them get through a specific time in their life. Those are the kind of things that keep you doing it.”

And it’s the kind of motivation Beckley and his band mates have needed through a frustrating three years leading up to the release of their sixth album, The Reckoning, in October last year. For Beckley, guitarist Noah Henson, bassist Kalel and drummer Lester Estelle, all from the US midwest state of Oklahoma, “there’s been a lot of politics and a lot of sitting around waiting to see what was going to happen,” as Beckley describes it.

With their record label bought out by a larger conglomerate, Pillar’s music had been left in limbo for too long. “We had to wait for them to say when they wanted to put the record out,” says Beckley. “We have been at the mercy of a lot of other people, which kind of stinks for us because it has been our careers on the line. And just when we seemed to have got some momentum going, we had to sit back and let someone else drive.”

But there is an upside. Beckley says the extra time has probably helped the musical development of the new album. “We’ve had the chance to sit down as a band and rehearse and write and actually get into the studio and not be rushed,” he reflects. “All the other records we’ve ever done, it’s been, ‘Hurry up and get into the studio—you’ve got three weeks, go make the record.’”

Of course, Pillar have not just been sitting in a studio for the past three years. They toured last year with POD and have shared stages with big-name mainstream acts like Korn and Evanescence.

"We’ve played festivals with some of these bands,” says Beckley. “We played a festival with Korn and we were able to hang out with them a bit. It’s cool to know we do have a little bit of interaction, whether they notice anything different about us [as Christians] or not.”

But Beckley also sees the opportunity to make an impact on the audiences they share with these bands. “We get a lot of feedback from all kinds of people,” he says. “We get a lot obviously from Christians who hear the message of the music and it’s very motivating to them and we also get a lot from non-believers too. They say, ‘I’m not really down with the whole God thing, but your music is great.’ That’s a great compliment to us. And great motivation for us, to know that we’re reaching somebody who hopefully is our main focus.”

Yet Beckley was not always so focused and he admits he has no idea how he got into fulltime music. “I played saxophone in grade school,” he suggests, “and I kind of got into it a bit. But I never had a dream of being in a band. I used to hate rock music. So the answer is obviously that God’s hand was in it.”

And Beckley sees the same influence in his song writing. He is excited by the increasing recognition of Christian artists for their musical creativity. “The problem used to be with Christian music is that they studied what the world was doing and just regurgitated it with a Jesus lyric,” he comments. “But I think now days, there’s a lot of respect coming to the Christian music industry with bands becoming innovators.

"We don’t just want to go out and re-do what someone else had already done, so we want to know what’s out there and be influenced and try to push the limits a bit.”

While he works collaboratively with the rest of the band musically, Beckley draws on his own spiritual experience to craft the lyrics for the music and he admits—six albums in—that it is challenging to keep this fresh and to explore new ground. “As far as topics or themes for songs, I’ve been reading a lot, some awesome books, some Old Testament stuff,” he reports. “And it’s interesting how God will speak to you when you allow Him to. It’s like when I’m so desperate, trying so hard to figure out an idea on my own, it’s when I’m thinking about something else, that it comes to me.”

Obviously, Beckley appreciates passion in music and belief and at times has been somewhat outspoken about the state of faith in his homeland. This has been sparked by his observations of Christians in other parts of the world where the band has toured.

"With our travels abroad,” he says, “it seems most Christians in other countries—outside the States—cherish their faith so much more than the kids [in our country]. I think there are a lot of people in other countries who are very passionate about their faith. In the States, it’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m a Christian,’ but that’s all they know. They’re a Christian because their parents are Christian. It is a tag or a label, more than it’s a lifestyle.”

And this gets to the real impact Beckley and Pillar hope to have with their music. When asked what he hopes a listener will take away from Pillar’s music, his answer is simple: “To not be afraid to question anything and more importantly to know why they believe what they believe.

"Everybody believes something—even if it’s nothing—but why do you believe that?” Beckley urges. "Most Christians don’t know why they believe what they believe. My thing is, ‘I don’t care if you don’t believe what I believe, but know why you believe it. Have a reason. Don’t just say, ‘Because . . .’ And I want to challenge a lot of Christians to have a reason other than ‘Because . . .’