Quoted by Billboard magazine as "the most important song writer since Paul Simon", Larry Norman, spearhead in the development of contemporary christian music, has made two tours of New Zealand within the last 8 months. Often misunderstood and mis-quoted by the media and those not familiar with his style of music, Larry has continued to deal with personal issues and aspects of his faith full on and undeterred. John and Marie-Jean Mills were able to talk with him for 'The Shaker' about his music and his views on the current music scene during his New Zealand tour, December '82.
SHAKER: What are you doing and saying at the moment?
LARRY: That's kind of a large question. What I'm saying is the same thing I've always said, that there's only one thing we should be concentrating on as being central and important and that is Christ and our relationship with him. And I've never stopped saying that , and I will never have anything new to say about it, except that Jesus is our Saviour and if we don't believe in him - then we're in trouble. It's going to lead us into a life that we don't really enjoy. We'll wish we'd done things differently. Many people go through their whole life without knowing or believing Jesus, and the ones who come to believe in him as they're older wish they'd done it years before - it would have saved them a lot of grief.
SHAKER: How do you see your ministry - entertainment or evangelism?
LARRY: I'm not an entertainer. If I had set out to do that when I was young maybe I would've learned how to do it, but I never attempted to do it. My concern really from the beginning was to take my friends to Church - and they didn't like Church. They said it was boring and they said it was the music they couldn't stand the most. The music was slow so I began to try to write songs that were christian songs but they were interesting to them. I didn't think of it as being rock and roll. I thought of it as being Gospel because I was raised in a black community and all I was singing were songs that I believed were Christian. You know black gospel music is where rock'n roll came from anyway. So maybe because I'm white, my songs weren't really black gospel, they were white gospel songs, but they sounded like rock'n roll.
So I began to sing and do concerts when I was nine, at school, at picnics and at church even. At that age I assumed that everyone that was at the Church was a Christian but everyone at my school who didn't go to Church wasn't a Christian and that's who I really wanted to sing to. So at school my intention wasn't to entertain. If you're terribly boring I guess that's an insult to people and God didn't create music to be an insult anyway - so I tried to sing and play as well as I could without concentrating on that. I never really cared about entertainment. It's fine - I mean I like to laugh, I like to be entertained you know. I liked Star Wars but there was a message in Star Wars even, so that's probably the reason I like it - because it wasn't just entertainment. So I don't care just to be entertained and I don't try to be an entertainer. I'm really just a person who loves God and believes Jesus is the only thing that has any meaning in my life and outside of Jesus my music has no meaning. So I'm a Christian and I want to tell people about Jesus.
SHAKER: Could you describe the fruit of your ministry?
LARRY: Now if you're talking Biblically, the fruit in our lives is not how many people we lead to the Lord. The fruit in our lives is peace and joy and patience - the Fruit of the Spirit. After concerts I talk to people for hours and a lot of people become Christians and some who are Chrisitans feel far away and they want to find out what they're doing wrong. There's a lot of scripture that they're not aware of so I just quote scripture to them and discuss what they can cope with it on a Biblical basis. I don't have any personal suggestions outside of the Bible to give them - I'm a street person you know.
SHAKER: Why the similarities between Dylan's album cover "Bringing it all Back Home"* and "Something New Under the Son"?
LARRY: What I'm aiming for is precision and exactness. I try to be definitive, in my limited ability as a human who doesn't know very much - until I die - and then I won't be looking through this dark glass, but I'll be seeing things face to face with God. I try to be precise in my music but the reason that I have these photographs that you're talking about, that were from Dylan's album is because:
1. The album is called "Something New Under the Son". Well my music is not new. "There's nothing new under the sun", Solomon said and my album is not new. I'm not trying to say that my album is new under the sun but I trying to say that we are something new under the Son. When we're born again we're a new creature and old things pass away, so on my album I wanted to put some remnants from the past. There are little bits and pieces in the music that some people might recognise have been on other albums before. Just a word there, a little sentence or some musical riff or lick and a lot of people have figured out what they are and when you listen to it you say "wait a minute, I think I've heard that before!" Yes, you have, because there's nothing new under the sun - except us. We are new in Christ. So I was looking around for an album from the past, to make some duplications of some of the images and:
2. I wanted people to realise that I wasn't saying that any music, any art, any visuals are new, so I chose Dylan's album. He wasn't a Christian at the time - this was in 1977 that I recorded the album - but "Bringing It All Back Home" seemed like a very relevant title since that's what God wants to do with us. He wants to bring us home. So I began reading the liner notes that he had written and I thought, well Dylan is really searching for something, for God I believe. Listen to this - on the back of his album: "The Great Books have been written. The great sayings have all been said. I don't understand too well myself what's really happening - I do know that we're all gonna die some day and that no death has ever stopped the world." When I read that I thought: well he's on the right track but except one death has stopped the world because Jesus' death started everything over again. So I kept reading all the things he had written and I decided to take his pictures and re-enact and rebuild them. I've replaced the imagery because as a Christian 'Behold all things are new' - everything. I was so amazed when Dylan became a Christian a few years later. He became a Christian out of the Church that grew out from my Bible Study. He came to Bible Study every morning and studied and then began writing songs about two months after he became a Christian.
SHAKER: Could you explain the supposed satanic 'S' on your record cover?
LARRY: It's a lightning bolt - I don't think of lightning as anything satanic - God creates lightning, rain, weather.
SHAKER: It has been likened to Gary Greenwalls suggestion that this is the same symbol as used by Kiss and AC/DC and also the Nazi S.S.
LARRY: Well it's not my fault that the Nazis took something that looks like a satanic 'S'. This is a lightning bolt. It has nothing to do with a satanic 'S'. There is also talk of backward masking going on in this country now - which is a real distraction. Maybe a few of the groups have turned the records over and said something backwards - like 'Pink Floyd' said "You've found the secret message" and 'Electric Light Orchestra' said "The music is reversible", but it is totally preposterous for some of these travelling evangelists to insist if somebody says God forwards and you turn it around it just sounds like dog backwards that that means they're worshipping dogs.
SHAKER: It has been said that Led Zeppelin have a backward masking that says "I worship Satan".
LARRY: They don't - because if you play it backwards it's the sound of their language going forwards. Say something to me - "The sky is blue" - if I turn it around it sounds like you say "The dog is God" or "Satan is my king". It's not your fault - you just said "The sky is blue" - it's not your fault that what you say forwards sounds like that backwards. You say Jesus forwards, and backwards it sounds like sausage - does that mean you're going to be condemned for worshipping sausage and dogs - because you said Jesus and God? It's not fair. It's a lie, it's a false issue. It came from America and it's in such hysterical proportions in some circles in America that some people are trying to get laws passed that say "warning: this album may contain backwards masking". We should be talking about Jesus and not about false issues like lightning bolts. I have my dog - I put his paw print on my record and so someone wrote in and wanted to know was I into animal worship because they'd been to some of these lectures where people say you've got to look at these records very closely because there's secret symbolism.
SHAKER: It's getting their eyes off the Lord isn't it?
LARRY: Well, If we're going to worry that backwards masking might affect us we don't have very much faith in God's power.
SHAKER: What are your goals for the future?
LARRY: My goal is to die daily unto self and live unto God and that precludes any specific goals because I don't presume to know what God intends for my life to be next year. In the Bible it says we should not be prognosticating the future and saying "we're going to go to this village and fish for a year" - you know - I dont' know what God wants me to do next year. I don't know what song He might give me a month from now.
SHAKER: We hear you have recorded a ot of albums that you haven't released. Is that true?
LARRY: Yeah - Yes, now I'm to the point where I'm thinking, well, I'm not hoing to record any more albums, because it's pointless to put them on tape if they're not coming out. I'll wait till all the past albums are out and then I'll make new ones.
What's the situation with 'Solid Rock' at the moment?
LARRY: 'Solid Rock' has left America and moved to Europe. I've done one album each for all of the artists except Randy. I did two for him and actually I did three because I did one years before. Now I'm trying to help other people in other countries because America doesn't need my help. There are companies that will give young people recording contracts, which is a shame really because some of the people shouldn't be spending two or three years singing - making albums - and then to find out that wasn't really what God wanted them to do. But it's just so easy to get a record contract that they're not really waiting for God to open the door. They can open the door themselves. Some businessman in AMerica is going to say "Yeah, I think I can make money off of this person". I mean that's a dim view of Gospel Music, but that is the under-belly of it and everyone who's in it realises it. That is the negative side of Christian music - that to some people it is a big business. There's milli ons of dollars for record companies. Some of the record companies then make more profit by cheating the people that they owe money to. They don't pay their bills or they don't give royalties to the artists.
SHAKER: Do you think God anoints them?
LARRY: Yes, I think God uses anything and everything for his own purpose which we can't see. But also God will not bless and anoint a criminal, or a liar, or a thief, or an adulterer, or a pervert, or a killer, or a murderer. But they may seem to go unpunished for a long time - but then all of a sudden the result of their sin is clear. A lot of companies are going bankrupt. I don't mean that they are wicked and that's why they're going bankrubt but I personally know of indvidual people at different companies, and I would say there's no proof that they are Christians at all and they couldn't even begin to tell you much about the Bible or about Christianity because they really are in business. I'm sure this must be true over here in New Zealand also. There must be people who say "Lord, Lord" but to whom God would say "Depart from me - I never knew you, you did only evil".
The only thing that's going to do me good is to keep on being faithful and to reach heaven. That's what my treasure is. When I was younger I used to get fooled. I used to think "Wow, they said that the concert hall was filled, so that must mean that I'm doing the right thing". Now I know that it probably means that it was promoted and advertised and it was a small enough hall that enough people wanted to see it to fill it. And now I don't look to think like 'did I hit all the right notes?' - so that means I sang it well. Now I believe that to sing something well is to really feel the truth about it while you sing it and to say something well means to not only say the truth at that very moment but to have lived the truth for the past months and years. how else can we have any anointing or power through the Holy Spirit? When we speak if we're drunk and fornicating and not leading christian lives, there's no pwer in our lives then. It's not saying John 3:16 word for word at a given m oment in time, but it's living the truth year after year. That's what makes our lives Christian. I'm very narrow I think, I'm probably very closed minded too.
SHAKER: Thanks for that, I hope it puts to nought the rumours.
LARRY: I don't think about those. I hear rumours from time to time and it always surprises me. I've heard that I'm a heroin addict. I've heard that I've left Christianity and I'm studying the Koran. I've heard that I was living in a cave in Greece. I've heard that I'm a homosexual. I've heard a lot of rumours and it's so strange. I've heard that I was i pornographic movies in Hollywood. Not just somebody saying "I've heard this about you - is it true?" It's people don't know what to say. I don't know how these rumours get started. I can understand maybe 10 years ago, or 12 years ago, or 16 years ago when I was first singing, people saying "Well, I don't like what he's doing, so this can't be of God, because how can anything that I hate be something God likes, because God and I are so close". That's the prejudice that a lot of us Christians have - "how can God have a different opinion than we have? We must have the true opinion because we love God". And I can imagine maybe 10 years ago if my hair was long then someone in the south would say "He must be a homosexual because his hair's long" not realising that most homosexuals have very short hair, beards and you know they're very macho. They would never have long hair.
SHAKER: Do you get hassled about that any more?
LARRY: No - hardly ever. But it depends, some countries I do. Or some very repressed kind of people that are only looking at the outside and they go "well your hair is little below your shoulders and you have a buckle on and it's not dark black. It seems to have a little bit of gold in it - now is that vanity, are you into material possessions?" No. I'm trying to hold up my pants - you know. But I'm not really a flashy person anyway - I've just never been interested in that so I dress very plainly, in dark coulours on stage so that people don't look at my shoes. My shoes aren't red and my shirt isn't yellow and my pants aren't green because all these colour distract I think. So I wear very dark clothes so that all people see there in the darkened audiotorium with the spotlight on in my face. So they're watching my face and they're listening to what I say. If I went up on stage with pants that had little studs going down the sides and gold flashy sequins and everything, well I imagi ne they do what I do when I see somebody wearing that - I start looking at their clothes instead of their face. I want people to look at my face so when I say Jesus they hear Jesus' name instead of looking at sequins and sparkles. I used to wear all blue, solid. Just all blue and then I got tired of that after about 8 years and now I just wear all black. But if I wore all red, that would be the wrong colour. Like I said, I'm not an entertainer. I'm not trying to appear on stage in bright colours and I'm not trying to make everyone laugh and have a good time and clap along with every song. I think if people clap, if a thousand people clap how can they hear the words?
SHAKER: Your band was well recieved on your last tour.
LARRY: This is interesting. Not in English speaking countries, but when I go to foreign countries and I use the band I can't believe the reaction. People come back stage and for four and five hours there's a whole bunch of us in the band and we all talk to people. So it's not me talking to people alone, it's a whole bunch of us and it takes us four or five hours some nights to finish talking to everybody. I can't even believe that they would wait that long. Wouldn't you get tired of waiting if you wanted to talk to somebody and you had to wait for hours? I would go home. But I think they really want Jesus so badly. An when I sing alone in foreign countries the reaction is not as strong as when I sing with a band, and yet here again is the expectation. After people see me a few times they say "Well, why don't you have a band?" So every few years I take a band around to kind of clear away the smoke that they're creating and I try to meet their expectations and also show them that thi s can be musical too. But that's not really the point. I don't want to become a very dour, negative, dark person who says "No band, no pictures on the cover, no - no". When I started out I was this way. When I was young I was very, very serious to the extreme. I would sing and talk for two hour and wouldn't let anyone laugh. I mean - sometimes people laughed at what I said whwen it was serious because it was kind of humorous. I didn't make it as a joke but sometimes the truth makes us laugh because we see the truth in ourselves. We realise how foolish we are as human beings and we start laughing at ourselves, bu I tried to make everything very, very serious and then as I got older I realised this isn't necessary. God has also created laughter, joy, peace and hope and so I should not be so negative.
So I've been a lot less negative over the years as I've grown up. I think it must have been a real ordeal for someone to sit through one of my concerts back in the 60's because it was just so heavy. The preaching was so direct and heavy and there was no room for them to take a deep breath, be human and relax - I mean it was all very serious. But I do believe it is a serious thing to preach the Gospel but now I realise it's not a serious personality that communicates the gravity and depth and sancity of salvation. It's relaxing and being a human and talking to people. Letting them think in the normal way they think, instead of introducing them into two hours of confrontation. So I attripbute the reaction now of all the people who come backstage to talk to the fact that I'm older and God is using me more as I turn over myself more and more. I mean I see a great wisdom and maturity in Billy Graham and I don't know what he was like 30 years before but I'm sure he must see the differen ce. I see the difference - I'm glad that I've lived this long and I'm still of service to God and it's wonderful to see how much I've grown, how much I've changed, how much I've matured, and I would never go back to being young for anything. Now I can't wait until I'm 40 and 50 because what might God have done in my life by then?
SHAKER: Do you have a family?
LARRY: No - I have a Mom and my Dad and my brother and sisters - yeah.
SHAKER: Well I guess that's about it.
LARRY: Okay.
* Comment by editor: Bob Dylans' album "Bringing It All Back Home" was released in Europe under the name "Subterranean Homesick Blues".
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