icah Kinard of Oh Sleeper is the Anti-Christ”. You didn’t know? According to a recent “Christian” website, Kinard “has the voice of a demon” which any metal dude would find amazingly complimentary, is “leading many to hell” and apparently is the number one ranked potential “Anti-Christ” amongst heavy Christian bands. It bums me out that people and sites like this still exist, although Kinard will explain below why this particular one doesn’t anymore. However ridiculous outsider claims can be, there’s no denying the raw power that Oh Sleeper has been exhibiting over their past three albums, the newest being Children of Fire, a sequel concept record to finish up the story started in Son of the Morning.

Writing concept albums can get tricky. While you have an established structure to follow, things can get muddled, points lost and continuity stunted. Its the equivalent of writing an engaging short story with the added element of music. You want the listener to be pulled in, to feel like a part of the narrative while hoping they dive deeper beyond the face value of the story to discover what is truly being taught. With their previous release Son of the Morning, Oh Sleeper shocked fans and alienated critics already in a huff by using that record to largely speak from the point of view of Satan. Some found no redeeming qualities in a move such as this but to hear front man Micah Kinard explain it, those who don’t get it don’t have to listen to it.  A lyricist who truly writes for a deeper meaning than a circle pit and bashed heads, Kinard’s hope is that people REALLY listen and if there’s a stirring of darkness, joy, intrigue, whatever, that the listener chooses to look deeper to discover the inspiration behind the songs themselves and the record as a whole. Children of Fire, a record sure to turn heads and wind the critics up all over again.

Was the storyline that you present on this new record something you knew you’d be writing from the start of Son of the Morning? When did the narrative come about?

Micah Kinard: After Son of the Morning happened, I did start thinking on what I wanted the next one to be like. I knew I wanted to continue the story of son of the morning but I also knew I wanted to do like a full concept album. It just started kind of piecing together. I don’t like to write songs without music and so after we were done with the touring cycle everyone started writing more and songs started to flesh out where you could hear the color and tone of the album. That, paired with the concept and prayer really ended up solidifying everything. When we got back to Richmond, I took the next two and a half weeks and just kind of went in solitude. I’d wake up every day and spend eight hours straight at Barnes and Nobles drinking coffee and writing nonstop. That was the time that I really pounded out the story.

You were reading a lot of Isaiah right?

MK: Yeah! I really wanted to do this depiction of showing a time without God, if God wasn’t there. I wanted to do something that showed kind of like the whole devil made me do it thing being taken out of play and doing things just because someone wants you to, all that being taken out of play and who would really be around still, kind of raise those questions. In order to do that I wanted to depict a time where they thought God was dead so I was kind of nervous about it. I brought the whole concept to my mom and she had just been doing a study on Isaiah and said “You should really check out Isaiah, it sounds a lot like what you’re talking about”. I checked it out and sure enough there’s the story of the remnant, the story of the two and a half or three years where God went basically silent, the destruction of the church and all that. It was eerie, it was totally a God thing whenever I read it and I thought “Wow, I gotta do this!”

While writing and composing the lyrics especially is it difficult to feel uplifted? Does the subject matter ever weigh you down? How do you combat this?

MK: It was hugely encouraging to be praying about it the whole time and it was kind of like God was there writing it with me saying “Don’t worry about it, its going to work out, just go with it”. It definitely took a lot of nerves out. The second song on the album “Shed Your Soul”, I wanted it to be like a full concept every song a chapter. I didn’t want each song to have a resolve, I wanted the resolve to be at the end of the album instead of each song being its own self-contained story. When taken out of context, there are a few songs on the album that straight up just sound like there’s nothing worship or Godly about it but when placed into the context of the story, it has to be there. I had a lot of anxiety about that because of our fan base because I know how closely everyone pays attention to the lyrics. Once all that stuff clicked, writing it came pretty naturally.

It was really great encouragement to say it’s going to be alright, just go with it. The most unsettling part about it was that in portraying a Godless time, I wanted to portray like the worst things I could ever imagine happening to somebody when they went on these righteous kills. I was actually on a hunting trip with our old drummer Ryan and I was telling him about the concept and he was like “You don’t need to think of scenarios, the worst stuff in the world is happening, the worst stuff you can imagine is happening right now”. He was the one who showed me to the story of Samir Kuntar and Palestine and Israel. Then “Dealers of Fame”, which is the story of the Ukrainian maniacs that just happened. After reading and doing tons of research on all of that stuff, I was completely appalled and shaken by it because this stuff is happening and I didn’t even know it was going on. It’s literally the most awful things I can imagine. It really opened my eyes to the fact that we really are the terrors of the world. We can be the most terrifying monster anyone can imagine or we can be the cure as well, we can be a fix to it. That was a very inspiring thing to realize. The goal was to try and portray that in the record and hopefully show some of the kids and people involved in the scene to do the research and see the stuff that’s going on, get involved, whether its spreading the word that this stuff is going on or getting involved in helping out the families affected, anything like that to smooth the situation. That was probably the most inspiring thing about it.

We’ve heard that there is some fervent opposition to you as someone who speaks to this generation regarding the “darkness” presented in your music. Rumor has it that the new record has already been banned from some Christian stores. What is your response to this type of thinking about you and your ministry? (Is it a question of art vs. faith in a way?)

MK: After we submitted it to the label, right across the board they knew it’d be a general market release meaning that they didn’t think that Christian bookstores would take it.

Does that bug you? Or is that pretty expected?

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