Handmaid Zine
Issue #3
Sept/Oct 1994
by Bobbi

        (They proceed to describe Adam's rodeo belt bucket until 
         they all decide to grab their faces, pull at their cheeks, 
         and yell. I'm still trying to figure out that one--B.)

ADAM: I hope that's not going in there!
BOBBI: What was your most memorable show?
SCOTT: The last one...
LUIS: ...at Murtyle Beach, South Carolina.
ADAM: At the last show we had a kid come and accept the Lord. The whole tour was kinda like were planting seeds but we finally got to see the harvest...Charlie, we love you.
ERIC: I was writing in my journal the other day, writing a tour summary...ya know, you'd be proud of me.
LUIS: For an hour?
ERIC: I'd say maybe 59 minutes [laughter]...and I said that Charlie was the reason we were out there. Also, at the last show, the spirit was a blast.
SCOTT: People were crying and weeping.
ADAM: After the show we played worship and people were getting annointed. That's why it was our best, because the people started the worship.
LUIS: It was insane the way the spirit of God was moving like the wind.
SCOTT: That one and Jacksonville, Florida were my favorites because that's where God broke me down and touched my heart. I fully started crying while we were playing. It was rad.
ERIC: Hopefully, the Lord works in every show just in different ways. Those were just times when it was just more...I don't know if tangable is the right word. Even tonight we just played and had fun but I had a guy come up to me afterwards and say that he was really encoraged by us, I was pretty stoked by that.
SCOTT: It makes it all worth it.

        (At this moment, Luis takes a good look at Scott.)

LUIS: Scott, you're just the blue man tonight. He's got the blue shorts on, blue socks, blue shirt...
BOBBI:: ...the hair's special for this interview.
LUIS: You've even got the blue hair. [laughter]
BOBBI: Are you involved in any other activities or have any other special interests besides the band?
SCOTT: Yeah, I like to paint...
ERIC: He likes to watch T.V.
SCOTT: I like burgers from Denny's and watching T.V...I'm a loaf.
ERIC: I like to play my accoustics more than anything. I like to hang out with my girlfriend Nina, whom I love and would like to marry.
ALL: Ahhhh...
ERIC: Reading is one of my favorite things to do and I like to write in my journal...not stories but just my thoughts...I don't know, tree climbing once in a while, play darts, I do like to take walks alone by myself sometimes...
LUIS: Eric wishes he had a beard so when he talked, he could pull at it like this.

     [Luis proceeds to demonstrate in upmost concentration...laughter]

SCOTT: Eric wished he had facial hair.
ERIC: ...and I like to philosophize with my friend Aaron Bradford.
LUIS: Ya know man, if you ate a lot of onions you could get some hair.
ADAM: I like to hang out with my girlfriend Jenny...can you put "Jenny, you're beautiful" in there with quotation marks for me? I'd really appreciate it.
BOBBI: Sure.
ERIC: Wait, and for Nina can you put "Hi Boushka."
ADAM: Hey man, now you're biting me.
LUIS: You had your turn man, you had your turn.
ADAM: Yeah...I also surf, play baseball, go to school, read my bible...and did I say I hang out with my girlfriend?
ERIC: Oh, and I go to school at Biola University too. That's one of the big things in my life that I forgot to mention.
LUIS: Ya know man...you're really pushing your luck. You're talking out of turn and now listen here, chisel chest...
ERIC: Hey turkey...it's been 18 years. [laughter]
ADAM: I also like running and playing pool.
ERIC: I like to play pool too.
SCOTT: Eric likes everything we like.
BOBBI: Next time Eric goes last...okay?
LUIS: I lead a group of guys in a youth group at church...and I have a little dog that I'm training. She's pretty cool.
SCOTT: Darcey found it in Oregon and they drove all the way home with it.

    [At this point, my buddy Todd sneaks into the room to put 
     his sweaty t-shirt and other valuables in my backpack.]

TODD: This isn't goint to be in the interview is it?
BOBBI: Yeah, it's all going in.
SCOTT: This is Todd, former bass player of Unashamed.
ADAM: ...with a nice hairy chest...
SCOTT: ...and lots of cool tatoos.
TODD: Hello. [and we continue...]
LUIS: I'm going to Biola this fall. I'll be a philosophy of religion major and I'll be studying very hard. I will not be seen for the next 18 weeks.
SCOTT: I'm going back to school for the first time for the first time in a long tine. I'm going to Calvery Chaple School and Ministries.
BOBBI: You've started recording your second album, how's it going?
SCOTT: We have seven drum tracks laid down.
LUIS: We've only been in there for three days.
ADAM: Yeah, but two 10-hour days make up for it.
LUIS: Adam's jammin'
ADAM: I'm having a little bit of trouble but I'm scratching through. [laugter]

     [Adam then does a rendition of impersnations, including sound 
      effects]

SCOTT: Don't worry about it...it's an Adam Ferry thing.
BOBBI: How is your music progressing on the second album as compared to the first?
SCOTT: It's longer and totally different.
BOBBI: Yeah, you guys plays a lot of the new songs tonight and they had a different sound compared to the earlier stuff.
LUIS: It's a little more structured.
SCOTT: Mostly because Luis and Eric have been writing most of the new music.
ADAM: It's a little more progressive then punk.
LUIS: Progressive is a bad word.
ADAM: Ok, don't put progressive.
SCOTT: I get to sing more.
BOBBI: When should the new one be out?
SCOTT: December 30...
ERIC: ...the Lord willing.
BOBBI: Sometimes Christian bands will water down their lyrics so they'll appeal more to a secular audience but on the contrary, your lyrics are very straight forward about your faith. What are your thoughts on that?
LUIS: We made up for it on this album.
SCOTT: What?
LUIS: Scott and we did everything we could to water down the songs. Instead of Jesus we just said "our friend" or "you" or "He"...
SCOTT: No we didn't, you liar!
BOBBI: You had me going...I was thinking, dang! [laughter]
SCOTT: Actually on this album I've written all the lyrics on it. It's still "gospely" but in a different way almost. They're pretty musch straight forward...it's just that you have to think a little more. You'll hear something and it'll make you think but you'll understand what I'm going through at that time.
LUIS: Would you say it's a little more personal?
SCOTT: Exactly.
BOBBI: One thing I really respect about the band is the openness and honesty you have not only in your lyrics but that you portray on stage. There's a joy in your knowledge and serving of the Lord you're also able to be honest about your struggles. Is that something that comes naturally or do you have to strive for it?
ERIC: I would say we are what we are by the grace of God.
ADAM: I'll say one thing about that...in our relationship with each other, I know Luis and I try to have an open accountability with each other which we hold very high priority in this band....because one of the things we've talked about is transparecy, like you said on stage. People are going to know if you have an attitude like that. People are going to know if you don't have a joy of the lord. One of the things that we try to do is be open with the intimate things...from a struggle with your girlfriend to smoking a cigarette. We always try to keep things open as possible and not hide things from each other. You can tell when someone's hiding something.
SCOTT: The question for me is that I'm just some stupid guy from Orange County so I don't think I'm special or anything so there's no reason to have an attitude. I'm just a donkey and it's all God...it's nothing of me that's for sure.
LUIS: We definatly strive to be that open and consistant back stage and on stage.
SCOTT: Plus a lot of the kids at the show, we personally know, which is wierd. A lot of the kids tonight come over to my house and stuff.
ERIC: There's a scripture in Proverbs that says, "He who covers his sins will not prosper but whoever confesses and forsakes them, will have mercy." We as a band, like Adam was saying, if we have a struggle or we're goofing up, we just tell each other. We say that we blew it or that I did this or thought that...it's always really purifying and cleansing to confess it to God and your brother.
ADAM: Darcy would you lead us in a song now? [laugter]
SCOTT: That's Luis' future wife. Someday, hopefully soon, I'd like to see them married.
DARCEY: I would too!
SCOTT: Luis, I saw your eyebrows go all the way up! [laugter]
BOBBI: How do you feel about the influence you have towards those listening to your music...do you see yourselves as having a greater responsibility or being more accountable because you're in a band?
ADAM: Oh, yeah.
LUIS: Definately.
ERIC: It does say that in James, "Do not assume all of you should be teachers because anyone who is a teacher has a greater responsibility."
LUIS: We're not teachers but we have a greater accountability to the Lord and being about reproach. Especially where we are...when we're hanging out with the kids around us, there's nowhere you can go where you feel free and can do whatever you want.
BOBBI: Do you sometimes feel like people are waiting for you to fall?
LUIS: No, I've never felt like that.
ERIC: If anybody's doing that, they've got a problem.
SCOTT: ...but I think I've known a couple people that don't like me very much, I don't know for what reason, but yeah they do.
ADAM: I think whenever you're in a position of leadership, someone's always going to looks for a weakness and see if you're going to fall or not. That's where the responsibility comes. those people who are waiting for you to fall still look up to you even if they don't like you. They respect what you're doing and what they Lord's doing...but yeah, sometimes I feel people are.
BOBBI: You already touched on this a little but a lot of times I'll see people wanting to serve God with their music but in time they get caught up in the whole music scene and attitudes become really superficial and they forget why they started the band in the first place. How do you deal with keeping a balance?
SCOTT: We as a band talked about that stuff and said if we ever got to a point where we're doing it just for the music and not the ministry, we wouldn't be a band anymore. That's it. We said that if it ever gets to a point where we're not preaching or at least not being an example...if we're not doing it for the Lord in our hearts then we're not doing it anymore.
LUIS: It's kind of a weird thing to be walking in the store or something and having people come up to you...the whole point is that sometimes, being human, you're in a bad mood or you're tired or...
DARCEY: cranky?
LUIS: Yeah, it's just the whole time you've got to think to yourself are my actions being prideful. I have to ask myself, if I take this present, action, how are people going to look at it? As far as being "rock star," I worry about it because sometimes, just my own personality, I'm not really outgoing like Scott is. I'm not a bubbly guy...but I would never want somebody to see that I'm a bit reserved and think that I'm "oh, too good for you."
SCOTT: I've come to the conclusion as I said before, I'm just a stupid guy that for some odd reason God is using me. I blow it everyday but...
ADAM: I think the one defense we have to that is that we're not afriad to tell each other that we're acting like a jerk. We joke around but you can tell when somebody's not in jest. If somebody's going off, we've established the open accountability to say...hey, wait a minute, look what the word says.
ERIC: We also try, like on the road, we made a promise that we'd all be doing devotions every moring and seek first the kingdom of God. I mean we're always asking each other...hey, did you do your devotions today? Our personal time with the Lord is our biggest priority. Even Luis, on the road, he would get get up in the allotted time...and I'm not saying he would just get up 10 minutes before...but he would say "Hey, if the spirit's speaking to me in my devotional time and God's not through with me, we're not going to leave to the next spot until I'm done." So there's definitely an understanding that when we're seeking God first, everything else is going to fall into place.
LUIS: I gave credit to God that we can be so transparent because the focus is that we're in the right frame of mind.
ERIC: If we have the word of God, it's going to check us and help us not to be sinners, I mean, to continue living in sin....of course, we're human.
BOBBI: I think that's evident in you as a band. It's almost like you can tell when people are prayerful type of people and are in touch with God because you can see it in how they act and in their sincerity and I see that in you guys. I think that's really cool.
ERIC: Praise God.
BOBBI: How did you come to know the Lord?
SCOTT: I gave my life to Jesus in 1989 at a Crucified concert with my friends. Then shortly after I started backslidding. I was 17 then and I backslid until I was 19. So the first two years of my walk were struggling and totally denying God. I was into Buddhism and meditation and stuff. Then I rededicated my life when I was 19 and we started Plankeye.
ERIC: None of my family is Christian...
SCOTT: Me neither.
ERIC: ...except my grandparents I grew up in a home where my parents went though a divorce and I saw a lot of stuff that really broke my heart. In junior high, people always told me that I had it all. I'm not saying this in any kind of boastful way, but my eighth grade year, as young as it may sound, I got Best All-Around and all these awards. PEople were saying how I was going to excel and all that. I was just the biggest pompous little punk and inside I just put on a mask because I was really heartbroken. I remember being upstairs in my hallway just crying and listening to my parents fight and not understanding why things were happening. Then my freshman year my dad moved to Switzerland. My dad was my best friend. It was an unusal father/son relationship...it was extremely close. I can just go off on that but...I loved my dad dearly and he left. That was the hardest thing I everwent through in my life. My girlfriend I had then came up to me in high school and asked me if I was still a Christian because I told her I was...I don't know, I thought it was cool or something. So she asked if I wanted to go to church Sunday and out of guilt I said yeah just so I could get her off my back. So I dressed up and stuff...my mom put a tie on me and gave me two bucks to give to the congregation. I just didn't want to be noticed..and we walk in ten minutes late and we open the door and all eyes are on us. The youth pastor was playing the guitar and says..hey, how ya doing? He just seemed like a really nice guy and I felt really welcomed. So one thing led to another. I bought a bible and started reading it. I went to Forest Home where Billy Grahmn got saved and where I got saved...and I want it to be an evangalist just like him. [laughter] Ever since then I've pretty much been serving the Lord.
ADAM: I guess I'm the only one that gew up in a regular home. My parents are Christians. They have a strong marrige and last year they celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. I was a Christian even when I was little but in the seventh grade I really made a decision to follow Christ. It changed my life and the way I lived. I totally didn't understand that wheen I was in the seventh grade but as you grow older, you understand what it means to live to follow Christ and how to give every aspect to Him. So I guess for the last five years I've bbeen trying to serve the Lord and doing the best I can.

        [Suddenly, Adam can no longer supress his desire to 
         boggie to his favorite Havalina tune that is seeping 
         through the walls of the room, so he kindly excuses 
         himself and runs out the door...we continue.]

LUIS: I dedicated my life to the Lord when I was in my junior year of high school. My testimony, there's not a whole lot to say. Through all the different stuff I did, God kept pulling at me and there finally came a time when God said that my time was up and that I'm coming home and I accepted that. I guess the part of the testimony that I'm really excited about is that when I first became a Christian I was the only one in my family. My mom was raised Methodist. She grew up in the 60's and she got pretty side-tracked. She used to take us to this self-meditation church where you meditated to God but also to Budda and other stuff like that. Since then both my sisters have come to know the Lord and my little sister is pretty immature but at least she believes...
DARCEY: She's doing rad.
LUIS: ...oh, she's doing good. You've got to push her to go to church and stuff like that but that's part of her age. My mom... the Lord really has done awesome works in my family, so it's encouraging. My mom is reading the bible everyday and she's working through a lot of the stuff she struggles with as far as she's still real liberal.She has a lot different thoughts that God's working with. My dad still hasn't given in...
SCOTT: ...but dads are stubborn.
LUIS: Yeah, but seeing the progress from when I first became a Christian, he would just take shots at my faith to now...God has just surrounded him with so many good Christians staying at our house and stuff. Just to see how God has opened up his heart and softened his heart just gives me a lot of hope. I just see the Lord doing good works and it's really exciting.
SCOTT: Nobody in my family is Christian either but in Luis' family, two of his cousins got saved and now their dad got saved...it's like a revival going on over there. It's pretty rad.
LUIS: My sister just came back from a mission trip and that was just increadible because my sister is alot like me. She's not really outgoing, she's real cynical, and it's easy for her to get a negative attitude. To see her go off on something like that where your life will be changed...
DARCEY: ...like yours?
LUIS: Yeah, like mine.
SCOTT: Okay, you can ask the next question or else we'll go off for hours.
BOBBI: Does your past help you to relate to the struggles that other people are going through?
SCOTT: Oh, yeah. I did just about anything and everything before I became a Christian. I was completely and totally in the world so I can pretty much relate to everything. There's nothing someone can tell me about and I'll say I don't understand because I've been there. It's weird...I know that as a kid, I knew that I wanted to know God and that God had a purpose for me in life because I was born early and had four heart failures and just crazy stuff. When I was 12 or 11 years old, I was at these people's house, the Adamicks, and they were Christians. They invited me into the room and introduced me to some missionaries that preached about Jesus and I thought, cool. Then they said, "Hey, sit down and play the piano," and I played the piano..."Play the guitar," and I played a little guitar...then they said, "Hey, come over here we want to pray over you." I thought, okat, whatever...I was hip on that. So I walked over and they laid hands on me and prayed. Then they said, "Someday you're going to be playing music for Jesus. You're going to be preaching the word of God." I was just like, whatever, and I went to go play with the other kids. I waw reading the word and I saw the verse about the body of elders laying hands on you and I thought, trip out on that 'cause they knew the Lord was going to use me one day.
LUIS: I think we have a really good group as far as reaching out to other people because we're so diverse just the four of us as far as...
ADAM: ...we're so different.
LUIS: ...but we're all friends and we've all come close together but if you look at out different backgrounds and who we are away from the band...not so much not but when we first started...it's really put together well as far as reaching out to others.
ERIC: Also one common bond is that Adam, Scott, Luis, and myself all have a heart to see people come to Jesus, through Plankeye or whatever. That's really encouraging to me because that's where my heart is. That's one really neat common bond we have.
BOBBI: That's so cool...ok, our last question, how do you explain to someone who's not a Christian about Jesus when they don't understand you can have a relationship with someone that you can't physically see?
ERIC: It's called faith. The bible says that faith is the evidence of all things not seen and the substance of things hoped for. Ya knowq what though, even though you can't see Jesus, you know He's there and that He loves you...oh. I'm glad you asked this question because this happened to me the other night and now I know why it happened. I got back from tour and ate a lot of cheeseburgers so I went running. It was around 11 at night. I went running and was doing jump rope and inbetween sets I was walking down my street with my hands on my head trying to catch my breath saying, "Remember Mickey D's...Mickey D's" [laughter] ...it was a clear night and I was looking up at the sky and all of a sudden out of the sky this thing just fell down. It looked like glittering fire, almost as if an angel just dropped real quick in front of me. It was huge..as big as this room and it wasn't a shooting star. I was just blown out of my mind and thinking, whoa. I kept on walking, staring at the sky and wondering what that was. It was just so beautiful. I walked about ten more steps towards my house and said, "Thank you, God." Right after I said that a shooting star went accross the sky this way. Right after. I just got chills all through my body and went, oh dude, and melted. It was really trippy....but stuff like that, God assures you. You just know the Lord is real. You can't explain it...and I feel like I'm talking too much.

    [In the meantime, Adam has slipped back in to join us.]

ADAM: What was the question?
LUIS: About faith..ya know, though, for somebody who's not a Christian, words like faith and stuff like that...they don't mean a whole lot.
BOBBI: Exactly, expescially when they see Jesus as just another historical figure.
LUIS: Like for me, before I admitted that God was real...because I spent a lot of time denying it and runnning away from the fact. I used to think a lot, rationalize and stuff, and trick my mind. You can do that...you can lie to yourself. When it comes God, there's just that knowing. I think that everyone knows that there's a God, it's njust whether or not they're ready to admit it or not. I believe there's a verse in Isaiah that basically says, if there's nobody togo out and proclaim the word of God and the truth of God then the trees and mountians will do it for Him. I think that's it. You can look at somebody that knows the Lord...and I mean knows the Lord, not somebody that goes to church because I think there's a lot of people that go to church that don't know the Lord. You can look at somebody that knows the Lord and walks with God and you can tell the difference. You can see the Lord and what God has done in their lives. It's a change.
SCOTT: Yeah, and all the non-Christians that I know that come over to my house, friends that I gew up with...they'd come over and talk to me and ask me questions. I try to explain it to them and say to look at my life...look how it changed. That's the only way I think that I could really tell you that God is real. Look what He's done with my life and what happened to me...how I was before and how I am now. It really makes them think.
ERIC: Also, one cannot overlook the persuasion of the seas, the stars, the solar system, the creative order...it's just increadible.
DARCEY: ...and your body.
SCOTT: Look at my finger...it moves in crazy ways! [laughter]
LUIS: Peter Requino talks about the changes of something like the universe coming out of an explosion. Now matter how certian that is feasible...certainly it's feasible but the chances of that happening are enourmous.
ADAM: The chance of the universe coming together is 1 in 10 to the 40,000th power. 1 in 10 to the 50th power, in physics, is considered impossible...it can't happen. Now you're talking about 1 in 10th to the 40,000th and that's science? Oh, yeah we're intelligent people.
LUIS: Ya know, again, that stuff is really cool and certainly that has it's place but I think ultimatley...you can't argue anybody into knowing the Lord.
ADAM: That's for sure.
LUIS: No matter how much I dig apologetics and stuff like that, I think if somebody's even curious...I would warn them to be careful because if you ask God to show Himself to youm by all means, he will. He can knock you on your face. There's people out there who are seriously searching for the truth...just try it.
ERIC: You just know. When you accept the Lord, you just know that He's real and that He loves you. It's hard to explain but Jesus is a personal friend.
ADAM: The one thing that I hear people say is that "oh yeah, I already checked out the options and Jesus didn't work for me." That doesn't make any sence. Christianity is a thing of faith. How do you explain faith to somebody? I don't know how but you know faith by coming to an understanding of who you are, through God. Only God can show you exactly who you are. We realize that we are filthy and we can't do anything without him. We're nothing but filthy rags. Once you realize that, then you begin to look at your life...and it's only by the Lord that we can do that. People who are earnestly seeking to find truth, will find Christianity and no where else. Everything else has a hole and this does not.
BOBBI: Thanks so much you guys, do you have any last comment or words of wisdom to bestow on us?
ERIC: You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.
LUIS: Eric's soap and doom is coming!

        [Don't ask...it has something to do with a mosquito that followed 
         Eric from Georgia.--b]

ADAM: I'll say something...a word of wisdom is that you may regret telling somebody your dark secrets but once you realize how important it is to share your life and stuggles with other people...once you do that, that's probably the point that, that's probably the point where you're gunna grow in ways that you never knew that you could or in ways that you never perceived God doing in your life. When you open yourself up to other people and deny yourself, that's when your faith becomes real and your life begins to change..once you allow the Lord to change it.