ERIC: On the title of the song, "Hero43", what does the title mean?

DAN: (nervous laugh)...uh...43rd President. So that was really just it.

ERIC: Many people say, when they go to a Christian concert they just want to hear the CD live. Don't give us the politics. Dan, what do you say to the Christian audience that says, "when we go to a 'Jars of Clay' concert (or in buying the CD) we just want to hear the album live, and we want to be encouraged." What do you say to them?

DAN: I think it's important for an artist to share what is on their heart, what their passion is about. I think it's an artist's world to look at the world and to describe it. (And) many times you can't fit that full description into a three minute song. Sometimes it takes more than that. It takes the communication on stage, it takes the content of an entire show built around a theme of justice, or of freedom. I love what we do, and I really do enjoy being in that place where there is tension.

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.