That’s the Spirit: Gungor Performs at the Charleston Music Hall
Songwriter Michael Gungor, the guitar-playing frontman of Denver-based pop/rock quintet Gungor, regularly splits his time between bandleader and worship leader duties. Between recording albums and traveling on worldwide tours, Gungor works with a non-denominational Christian community in Denver called Bloom. It’s a balancing act that he’s constantly performing.
“Once I get home and catch my breath, some of my scattered thoughts and vague feelings come together in songs,” Gungor says. “The band plays sizable cities and small towns, and we mix it up along the way. Most of the time, we just try to do what we do and hope people are willing to come along for the ride.”
Gungor’s fascination with music and spirituality began when he was a kid growing up in a church family in Wisconsin. His father was a minister, and the lively music of the church services played a major role in their family life.
“Music was always a big part of our service,” Gungor remembers. “There was a whole band that was actually pretty good. They taught me how to play by ear and respond to what was happening at the moment. That led me to improvisation and jazz right away.”
Gunger, 2012. That’s Michael Gungor second from the left.
Gungor studied jazz and classical music in high school and college, performing with various church bands along the way. “I didn’t become interested in pop and rock until much later,” he says. “I came into it in an unusual way. Maybe that’s why some people think we have an unusual mix of styles.”
Leading a group under the name the Michael Gungor Band, Gungor group made a splash in the Contemporary Christian music scene in the mid 2000s. They tagged their music as “liturgical post rock” — music with a spiritual message and a contemporary approach. Unlike some of their cohorts on the circuit, Gungor asserted an unusual sense of independence. It contrasted some of the more homogenized acts in Contemporary Christian band scene. Thematically, Gungor was far more interested in inclusion than in rivalry or exclusivity.
‘We’ve been around religious culture a lot, and one of the things that irks me the most these days is this kind of ‘us-and-them’ thing that exists politically and religiously,” Gungor says. “There are these two camps that sort of demonize each other. I think that’s at the heart of evil. You know, you have this group and that group with tons alienation between them. When that’s done in religious ways, where people do it in the name of Jesus to set themselves higher than other people, there’s nothing that gets me more worked up.”
With lyrical and musical contributions from his wife and bandmate Lisa, the band’s lyrics consistently convey spiritual themes, but their carefully textured, complexly melodic style stands up on its own as a solid intermixture of modern alternative pop, Americana, gospel, and jazz.
“It’s always been kind of hard to describe the music,” Gungor says. “We try to tap into different emotions, and we dance around genres and feelings. We try to explore as many spots in the songs as we can. Overall, our hope is that people’s hearts are opened and they’re led to that place where they loosen their grips a little bit and relax — the place where they can have a moment of breath and rest away from the noise, pain, an chaos of life.
The latest studio album from Gungor.
In 2010 Gungor and his bandmates — Lisa, drummer Josh Harvey, and bassist Brad Waller — shortened the moniker and released the critically acclaimed, pop/folk-based album Beautiful Things.
“The whole sound of the band continues to evolve, partially because of the many genres in our backgrounds,” Gungor says. “I tend to pick up little elements from different styles. But really, good music has more in common with good music in general than with any specific genre. We kind of have a rock band set-up right now, but we also have a cello in the band because I like that part of classical music, and we also have a banjo and electric guitar and so on. My wife is a singer/songwriter, so I like the simplicity of her voice in songs. You just pick out what feels good along the way and what seems to work.”
Gungor’s 2011 follow-up, the 12-song Ghosts Upon the Earth, received praise from fans and critics, too, and it earned Grammy nominations for Best Gospel Song and Best Rock Gospel Album as well. Since its release, the group has traveled through the U.K., Europe, and Africa. Their current fall tour guides them through the Southeast and into Charleston for an early-evening concert at the Charleston Music Hall. Look for Gungor’s forthcoming live album A Creation Liturgy later this year.
Gungor’s musical and church duties will likely keep him extremely busy through the next year, but he’s determined to achieve a few artistic goals along the way.
“Maybe some of my goals can fulfilled in other spots,” he says. “I’m not sure they’d all fit on one Gungor record. We’ve been experimenting with some electronic stuff, which is different from what we’ve done on previous records.
“I’ve also been experimenting with the idea of lament,” he adds. “In my faith background, it’s a rich, historical thing that doesn’t exist much today. The shaking-your-fists-at-the-heavens kind of thing. I’ve been reading up on Mother Theresa, and how people thought of her to be such a saintly women, but she also had this doubt that was crippling to her. She had real angst about the way she wanted things to be and the way turned out to be. It was about the torture over the idea of the absence of God in her world. I have some songs that echo her words.”
Gungor performs at the Charleston Music Hall at 8 p.m. on Wed. Oct. 10. Doors open at 7 p.m. Admission is $25 ($20 in advance). A VIP admission of $30 includes a 30-minute, on-stage Q&A session at 6 p.m.
Check out gungormusic.com and charlestonmusichall.com for more.
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About the Author
Ballard Lesemann is a musician and writer. Born and raised in Charleston, S.C., he spent years playing in bands and working for Flagpole Magazine in the bustling music town of Athens, Ga. He returned to his hometown and served more than seven years as the Charleston City Paper's music editor. He's better at drumming than he is at playing guitar.
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