Whenever we're in a situation where things are going incredibly well, and there is no resistance, I tend to feel more restless in those scenarios than if I was doing something to feel this 'polar push'. That when I'm comfortable. I think that is just part of this design that God has set up in this world. There's never death without beauty involved, there is never joy without sorrow. He always provides these things that are always pulling in tension with each other. When we try to create a world that is void of that kind of tension then we are not living in a world that God has created to find Him.
ERIC: Folks are saying, "They didn't put it on their album, so they are cowards - they're hypocritical in going to a newspaper columnist and talking about there thoughts, and then saying it is the Christian marketplace that kept us from releasing the song, insinuating censorship." What do you say to the charges of cowardice and hypocritical behavior? Can you speak to these charges?
DAN: Yeah, you know...yeah...I'm a coward and I am a hypocrite...on any given day. So, I'm not going to deny that that's a part of my life. So I'll agree to those charges. But there are systems in place where you have to be more tactful. The artist always has a great battle between art and commerce. I'm not going to go throw my full meaning out there.
In that interview (newspaper) he asked me...he said, "Why don't you put a song like this on a record?" I said because there are many people out there wouldn't understand this, that wouldn't look at this because of the position there are in, and believing they have figured it out. They wouldn't want to listen to it, and it would create more problems. And the rest of the things that are on that album that we feel are very important topics, would just get overshadowed by something like this. Sometimes controversy is good, but in other times it's not worth selling out the rest of what we are saying in that album for this one little song. That's really why we did what we did with the song.
ERIC: Let me ask a couple of questions in reference to what you just said. A majority of people believe, if you put together anything that is anti-war, anti-president, then you are anti-troops and military. Is that true Dan? Please speak to family, friends and the patriotic concerns that say, if you put "Hero43" on an album you are actually being anti-troops.
DAN: See, I don't believe that. I'm very much in favor of the troops. These are guys who are following orders, so they are doing their job for their country and there's a system that breaks down if the troops start going, "I don't believe that, so I'm not going to do it." I believe that there are a lot of people in Iraq, our soldiers, that firmly believe they're there for a reason. We don't hear about those reasons. Our media is so screwed up that we don't really hear the truth about what is really going on. We are left to kind of piece it together on our own, from all of this - this influx of the mass media.
The soldiers are the one's that probably get the short end of the stick, because we don't really hear from them. We don't really hear what is going on. What are the good things about this season of trying to liberate Iraq? And, what are the bad things? What is really going on why they are there? At least for me, I find it very difficult to wade through all of the information that is thrown at me about the war, and everyone's opinion.
What I do believe, is that there is a lot of infighting in politics right now. It feels like there is a lot of justification for things that we shouldn't had been a part of. (It seems like we are) now we're trying to save face, when perhaps a better tactic would be to come clean. To say, "you're right, we were wrong in doing this". Maybe we should try to approach this a different way.
It doesn't feel any different than listening to a pastor who has been caught (in sinful error). Everything that happened with Haggard his situation was everyone kind of knew what was going on. And he knew what was going on. Still he said no, (it is not happening). Everybody knew it was true. Seems the same for our government. Everybody kind of knows, for the most part, that we were wrong to go in there, and we really need to clean it up. The reasons we went were not the real reasons that we are actually there.
