As the famous stigma goes, most rock stars are known for their sexual exploits and overall debaucherous behavior—and Nikki Sixx and Slash, we love you for it. However some artists are using their influence to make the world a better place and Anberlin’s selfless frontman Stephen Christian is at the top of that list. That’s right, when he’s not singing raging alternative tracks like “Breaking” and “Feel Good Drag” from the Anberlin’s latest album New Surrender, Christiansen is helping to make the world a better place. We caught up with him to find out what he’s accomplished and what you can do to get involved, too.
How did you get interested in volunteering?
A few years ago I was talking to my tour manager about how I was I overwhelmed by the superficiality of the whole industry. On our first record I wrote a song about changing the world but I didn’t feel like I was doing anything about it. So all that kind of caught up to me—and at the time I was reading this book that was talking about solitude and how solitude was the first step in transformation—and I decided that I needed to get away and leave the country. So me and my friend Sarah thought, ‘Let’s just get some friends together and get out of the country,’ so we went to Haiti and when I got there I realized that I can’t just keep this experience to myself, I have to bring other people into it.
Where have you gone since then?
After the Haiti trip me and a bunch of people went down to India and when I got there I realized that this was something I wanted to keep doing. The next place we went was Nairobi, Kenya, and during the day we taught farming and then at night we taught the local schools about AIDS prevention because there’s a lot of misconceptions about how AIDS is contracted in Africa. I want to continue doing stuff like this as long as I’m in this band and afterward. I understand that we’re not the Rolling Stones or U2 and we’re not going to be around for 50 years, so in light of that I want to make as much impact on my genre as I possibly can in a short amount of time.
Do you feel a moral responsibility to give back to others?
I definitely think it’s a moral responsibility. People in bands have no idea what kind of influence they have on others. It’s amazing how much more concerned people are with actors or musicians’ lives across the spectrum then they are in, say, politics. More people watch American Idol than the presidential address; that night people could tell you about Bob Dylan but they can’t even name the presidents who were in office during Dylan’s heyday. I turned vegetarian because Morrissey told me to in high school; I didn’t know anything about animal rights or veganism, all I knew was here’s some guy who says meat is murder and he’s my hero. The stereotypical band guy has a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other and is hanging out on the bus, which isn’t what I want to be.
It seems like a lot of people in bands these days aren’t very socially active. Why is that?
I think the biggest reason is a lot of band guys just don’t know where to start. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to get on the Internet and do some research about organizations, but it’s not our world to think outside the four walls of our van or bus. I think it’s because people are caught up in themselves and they don’t know the first step. I don’t think everyone is selfish, I think some people are just miseducated more than anything else.
If people are in interested helping out what should they do?
There’s dosomething.org, which is a very basic site as far as typing in your area code and providing a list of organizations you can get involved with in your area. But you need to go out and find your niche. Are you interested in planting trees or clean water or saving children, where’s your heart? What’s going to keep your passion alive and what’s going to spark your interest—and most importantly what are you good at? The Internet is full of amazing organizations, so just Google search a local orphanage and start there. These organizations want you worse than you want them, they’re desperate for help. Not just money, they need your time and they need someone to plug them. That’s something that every band can get involved with.
You can catch Anberlin on tour this fall alongside The All-American Rejects and Taking Back Sunday. For more information visit www.anberlin.com.
