Wake Up O' Sleeper To The Musical Stylings of Cool Hand Luke

Cool Hand Luke is by no means you're typical band. Their style of soft, chilled rock mixed with powerful vocals has caught the attention of Flood Gate Records, who recently signed them. Their newest release, Wake Up O' Sleeper, has probably been the latest CD to my collection that I have been impressed by. Filled with inspiring lyrics, melodic guitar and intricate drums and bass, this album is great to just sit back and think to.

After buying the record, I decided to go to their latest show in Dayton and ask the guys a few questions. And as I talked to them, I realized that there's more to Cool Hand Luke than meets the eye.

Interview conducted in person by Mike Barajas.

Names: Mark Nicks (drums, vocals), Brandon Morgan (bass), Jason Hammil (guitar)

Band: Cool Hand Luke

BW: How long has Cool Hand Luke been a band?

M: About five years.

BW: Are you guys all original members?

M: Yep, we've all been there from the start.

BW: How would you describe you music or your sound?

J: Basically, just soft rock

BW: Who would you say are some of your biggest musical influences or favorite records?

B: I like Bjork a lot.

M: I like Mineral's Endserenading a lot, um, Radiohead's O.K. Computer, either one of the Coldplay records, and a lot of the old….back in the day it was Jimmy Eat World's Clarity a lot.

BW: I saw you guys play at the Cornerstone Festival last year, and I noticed that you faced away from the crowd during your set. What was the motive behind or purpose for that?

M: Well, actually, now we don’t set the drums up backwards anymore just because it was creating a lot of technical and sound problems. But, our reason for doing it has been to put the focus more on God and the worship aspect of our music, instead of us just trying to entertain our audience and make ourselves the center of attention or something like that.

BW: Reading your lyrics and bios and stuff like that, its obvious that you guys are a Christian band. Are there any other factors besides the spiritual aspect that inspire your music?

M: I think that we would pretty much say that there's a lot of things that really inspire us, but we don,t seperate our faith from our life or things like that. I mean, there are things that we all experience that affect our music, but I think it all comes from and comes back to our relationship with Jesus.

BW: At what times in your life do you feel most inspired to write music or to write lyrics?

M: Um, lyrics just kind of pop in my head or into my heart, however you want to say that, and I write them down. They usually or eventually get put into something. But the way we usually write is we get together and we write the music first, then we'll just get a boom box or something like that and make a tape of the song, then I'll go put melodies to it and whatever lyrics I can. Sometimes, a lot of my lyrics will just be floating around on the scraps of paper that I wrote them on for a long time, then I'll find them and eventually end up putting them to a song.

BW: You guys just came out with a new album called Wake Up O' Sleeper, which I just bought, and was pretty impressed by. Inside the booklet, I saw that the title came from the Bible verse Ephesians 5:15 that says "Wake up O' sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you." What made you guys title your record after this verse?

M: Well, I guess I had read that verse before, but had never really thought that much about it. But last summer we were on tour and for some reason I really started thinking more about putting scripture into the lyrics of our songs. It was just something that I knew I wanted to do on our next record because I feel like, all words, whether they're written or spoken, as soon as they're spoken or written down or something, they're just dead thoughts.

And, it’s not that they can't be good, but they're dead because we move on past those thoughts. Sometimes, we wish we could take back our words, but the Bible is the only book that is full of living words that are never gonna be wrong and that are perfect. God's never going to wish He could go back and change those words. So, I've just been thinking about how, if we could put scripture into our songs, then, in a sense our songs would be living.

Anyway, I was just reading in Ephesians, and I read that. I thought it was really cool because, in the Bible, you can tell that the writer isn't just talking, that he's quoting poetry or something like that. I read this study note on it and it said that historians believe that it was taken from an early hymn. I just thought, that's really cool and we should try to put that into a song, because its already a song and its lyrics are already perfect so we wouldn't have to change anything. I mean, we ended up not even putting it in one of the songs, but it just fit the theme of our record really well because its just a call to honest worship and a call to wake up and understand that real Christianity is about Jesus and its about a relationship, not just wearing a title.

BW: Is there any favorite song that you guys wrote on the album?

B: For me, my favorite is the song "One Time." For me the lyrics are just great and are something that I can look to every single day because it's very applicable to most every situation that you might go through. Its kinda like, we're always on the road and playing every night, but I really just kinda meditate whenever we play that song.

BW: That song is probably my favorite on the record. Actually, my next question has to do with that song. This is kinda directed towards Mark, that song "One Time" has a lot of references to "climbing a mountian" and "overcoming mountains." Was there a certain "mountian" that you were having to overcome or was there something in your life you were battling that prompted you to write those lyrics?

M: Actually, it was a very specific thing. I was in college, and, well I wouldn't really say it was my senior year because I went for five years.Well, I guess it was my first senior year and it was just like the hardest schedule with all my hard classes, and at the same time we were working on our old record plus I was working part time. I mean, I would wake up in the morning, go to class then go to work and then have to run to the studio straight from work while having all these big projects due. And one day, I was just stressin' out really bad and I was thinking, how am I going to do this? How am i going to get all this work done? I was really stressed out and I just felt like I needed to go lay down for a little bit, and as I was lying there....I don't really necessarily want to say it was a dream, because I wasn't really sleeping. It was that weird part where you're conscious, but you're trying to fall asleep, so you're not really all there. I just kinda visualized God picking me up and putting me on his shoulders and He showed me that once I got up to His level and his height, what I thought was a mountian was just a little hill. And then God pointed and said, there are mountians ahead that you're gonna have to cross, but I made these mountains and I put them there, and if you stay with me we'll cross them together, because these mountians are obedient to me and so if you're with me
they're gonna be, you know, not a problem. Then I just woke up, and felt so much better and I just wrote down everything, and then, when we wrote the music to this, I kinda just made it all rhyme a little bit, and they became the lyrics to that song.

BW: What do you guys feel has been the most rewarding part about being in Cool Hand Luke?

J: Well, I guess this has been the main tool that God has used me to shape into who I am in Christ. And the band kind of put us in ministry when we weren't necessarily seeking that, I mean we just wanted to play music. But I guess we we're pretty ignorant about what we were getting into. I mean, the band has put me in positions that I don't think I would've ever gone on my own. So for me, its grown me up and given me situations that I can experience with two other guys that are growing too, so one day when I venture out by myself, I'll have some wisdom and knowledge about how God works, because, I've gone through some hard times with these guys.

M: I get a lot of e-mails that are really encouraging, I mean, just to see the fruits of our work when sometimes we feel like no one's paying attention, or no one's getting what we're doing. Like sometimes months, or even a year later we'll find our someone came to know Jesus at one of our shows and through our music. Like, last night, we played this free show at the Virgin Megastore in Columbus, and I was able to talk to this guy. He
said he didn’t even know why he went there, he just felt like he needed to go. I don’t even think he'd ever heard us or heard of us. He pretty much just came up to me and was in tears saying that God had used us and the things we had said to make him like re-evaluate his life because he hadn't been walking with the Lord. I mean, just that alone can really encourage me, especially like if we've played a months worth of shows and nobody comes. Just those few people that we do touch makes it worth it for me. It’s just a humbling thing to know that the lyrics that I write in my bedroom or the songs that we get together and write are affecting people.

BW: How long have you guys been on this past tour with the new record?

M: Well, we played a few spot dates right after the record came out, then we were in Nashville for GMA week, then we left Tennessee, so I guess we've been gone for a little over a week.

BW: What’s been one of the coolest experiences from this tour or past tours that you've done?

M: Its really hard to name one, because I mean, we've met a lot of really cool people and have gotten to know a lot of really cool bands.

J: I got one for as far as this tour goes. Like, we got to play on radio U in Columbus yesterday, and that was something that we were pretty nervous about, but it turned out to be really fun and to be a really cool experience.

MB: You guys actually played on the air?

M: Yeah man, it was scary, but it was something none of us have ever done before.

J: Yeah, that was probably one of the recent experiences that was pretty fun.

M: I've really enjoyed getting to know the guys from Number One Gun. I've had several really good conversations with those guys.

BW: Yeah, I was talking to them earlier while you guys were in your van. They're pretty cool guys.

B: We like them a lot. It's been fun touring and getting to know them.

BW: What's your opinion on how there seems to be a big separation between the Christian and secular music scenes?

M: I think Christians kinda created the Christian music scene, and its kinda silly in a way. I see how some people think its necessary, and I guess people who don't agree with Christianity wouldn’t really want to hear Christian music. But, it’s all art, and its all important. I mean, of course this is coming from a Christian perspective, but I really believe that all art is from God, whether we choose to acknowledge that or not, and I
think, most people's art and faith tie in together. I mean, you're gonna write songs about what you believe, things that are real to you and things that you experience and things that you're passionate about. To me, it's just natural that if you're a Christian, your beliefs will come out in your art and in your music. I mean, we don't write our songs the way we do to try to fit in to the Christian "scene" or to meet some standard, we just write about our passion.

J: I don't really know if we have an opinion one way or another. I mean, we do what we do unapologetically. I mean, sometimes we can get caught up in our sinfullness and become concerned with what other bands are doing, but we shouldn't. So we don’t concern ourselves with trying to be a "Christian" band, we're just Christians who are in a band, and that will undoubtedly come out through our music.

BW: Where do you see you guys going in upcoming years, or where do you see God taking the band in the future?

B: Just one day at a time.

M: I honestly don't think we have a clue what's gonna happen with this band. I mean, had you heard about us before this new record came out?

BW: Yeah.

M: We were actually in this really hard transition where some kids were really ticked off at us because we don't scream on the new record. I don't know, I think we're just trying to find our niche, and we're just trying to follow where God takes us. I guess, right now, we're being really humbled and maybe even a little bit insecure. I mean, now that we're on Floodgate Records and the Christian industry knows about us, we're getting a lot of
positive feedback from them, but then when we go out on tour....no one really comes to our shows that much. And I mean, people are signing our message boards being all ticked off because we don't scream. And I guess, we're just seeking the Lord and writing the music that he puts in our hearts and we're just hoping that he'll put us where we need to be as far as who we're playing for, and whatever level of worldly success, it's up to him