Christian Music History: Underrated Bands of the 2000s

Hey, everybody. Hope you all had a good holiday. If you’re new here, I sometimes drop articles in my real voice behind the paywall. You can use the free preview to check them out, if you’d like to. Regular articles in the ETL voice will continue on the free side.

I felt like writing about Christian music this week! I tried to give myself narrow parameters to keep the article from becoming a book, ha. Feel free to share your own favorite songs in the comments. Thanks for reading! -M

---

The decade of the 2000s was an interesting time for Christian bands. We were moving out of the Golden Age of CCM, but had not quite entered the algorithm/streaming era dominated by worship bands. It was a bit of a transitional period, top heavy with bands like Switchfoot (and later, Needtobreathe) cresting into mainstream success.

The coming reorientation toward worship music would push other bands into the margins. It was a scattering effect: bands like Jars of Clay were rooted to the Golden Era, and bands like the Newsboys could pivot to worship, but other bands simply found themselves without a lane. Some of these groups toiled on the indie scene, others gave up the dream, and others tried to reinvent themselves.

These are the bands I want to write about. It feels, in some way, like they were shorted. Or maybe they were the right band at the wrong time. Or maybe I’m wrong, and there’s no such thing as right band/wrong time. I don’t know; perhaps writing this will help me understand it better.

I limited myself to only talking about three groups. This will keep the article manageable, but also leave room for dialogue in the comments.

Downhere

If you were a Christian band in the early 00s that sang earnest lyrics over pop rock, it was a crowded field. Legacy bands like Third Day soaked up a good deal of attention, and CCM radio darlings like MercyMe were coming into their own. If you didn’t have a TobyMac guest appearance up your sleeve, it could be hard to find a seat at the table.

One of the bands that probably fell between the cracks, to some degree, was Downhere. The quartet from Canada actually did have an interesting wrinkle: harmony. Specifically, two lead singers with distinctive, powerful voices. Jason Germain’s deep and velvety tone would open a song, only to give way to Marc Martel’s nimble vibrato, which…well, it just sounded an awful lot like Freddie Mercury.

A lot.

If you were going to sound like someone, there’s basically no one better that you could sound like. But this led to one of the more oddball codas for a Christian band: a YouTube video of Martel auditioning for a Queen celebration concert went viral, which pushed him into the orbit of the surviving members of Queen. Martel ended up performing with Brian May, and touring with the cover group. When the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody went into production, Martel worked behind the scenes to provide additional vocals as Mercury.

Paper Route