We had the chance to speak to writer and director Chris White about his heavy metal music-comedy Electric Jesus. The film features Judd Nelson (The Breakfast Club) and Brian Baumgartner (The Office).
Here’s what Chris had to say about making Electric Jesus.
When did you know that directing and writing was something you wanted to do?
CW: I studied 35mm photography as a kid, took a TON of artsy black and white photos, developed the film, even made my own prints in the darkroom all the way through high school and college. So from a very early age, I was learning to look at the world through the eye of a camera. At the same time, I started making audio recordings of my favorite TV shows. I’d listen to them over and over, and this imprinted an intuition for narrative structure, story, and dialogue. So no film studies, really, just organic play. Young Me having fun. Only later, after finding high school theatre, improvisation, comedy…that’s when it all came together for me in a more concrete way. By age 19 or 20, I knew I wanted to write and direct movies.
What was it like wearing so many hats on this project?
CW: At times, overwhelming. Electric Jesus is the biggest film I’ve ever made — on every level. And though I had a strong sense of how each job would go — screenwriter, songwriter, director, producer (not to mention, fundraiser, marketing director, graphic designer, etc) — I really wasn’t prepared for the complexities of each job on a film of this size. What saved me was the handful of brilliant collaborators I’d brought on to help — people I’d worked with on smaller things or met through work on micro and no-budget indie film projects. Truly, Electric Jesus is only a success because I had a team around me who gave me the confidence and clarity to elevate my game…to really go for it.
What can people expect when they watch Electric Jesus?
CW: If you’ve had any contact with Evangelical youth group culture in your life, buckle up! Electric Jesus is going to take you back there like nothing you’ve seen before. If you haven’t experienced that world, prepared to be weirded out, possibly delighted (or terrified), and reminded of what it was like to be young, passionate, and in love for the first time. You don’t have to be a Jesus kid to empathize with the characters in EJ. They really are all of us, and the movie is meant to be a time machine that takes you back to a more innocent time…to reconnect with Young You.
Talk a little bit about the amazing cast put together for this film.
CW: For the leads, I was looking for young actors that reminded me of the kids I grew up with in the 80’s — this, and they had to be amazing actors/musicians. Wyatt Lenhart (Michael, the lead singer) was the first actor I cast in Electric Jesus. I met him while working on a web series called Star Trek Continues. In the film, that’s actually Wyatt singing! Shannon Hutchinson (Sarah) sings on screen and on the record as well. Having those two anchor our cast gave us the chance to fill the rest of the roles with an incredibly diverse group of young actors. Movie-stars-in-the-making like Andrew Eakle (Erik) and Will Oliver (Jamie) paired with comedy character actors Caleb Hoffmann (Scotty) and Gunner WIllis (Cliff) to fill out the main cast, with 80’s icon Judd Nelson (Pastor Wember) and comedy legend Brian Baumgartner (Skip Wick) bringing the star power. Casting makes all the difference in a film like EJ, and it Casting Director Matthew Sefick outdid himself, pulling together such an amazing ensemble.
When the idea come to be to blend Heavy Metal and Comedy for a film?
CW: I’d always wanted to make a coming-of-age, rock band movie. It’s one of my favorite genres — the best films of that genre being about bands that don’t make it: ALMOST FAMOUS, THE COMMITMENTS, ONCE, SING STREET, THAT THING YOU DO, THIS IS SPINAL TAP. Christian rock is often denigrated as something less…and the more outrageous expressions of Christian rock (I’m looking at you, Christian hair metal) even more so. Though a lot of anti-Christian rock sentiment is rooted in religious bigotry, many of the criticisms are fair. There is a lot of bad Jesus music out there. Add to that, bringing an Evangelical mindset into the world of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll and I felt like we had the perfectrecipe for comedy, heartbreak, and awkward teen shenanigans: i.e. the ideal circumstances for a classic rock band comedy.
When people watch the film, what are you hoping they get out of it?
CW: First, I hope they have a good time. Though there are certainly some next-level ideas, deep meanings to explore, the first goal of Electric Jesus is to entertain you. Daniel Smith and I wrote songs to make you laugh and sing-along to…so I hope people do just that. But I also hope this time machine of a movie takes you back — if only for 107 minutes! — to Young You, to the time before life started wearing you down and stressing you out. Nostalgia is a powerful thing. It can take us back to the good times and make us smile, or maybe blush. But I also think, I hope, that nostalgia can serve an even bigger and maybe better purpose: to remind us of who we were as we try to figure out who we are. The young and dumb and happy and awkward and beautiful and twisted Me of the past might actually have something useful to say to Big Me now. So if ELECTRIC JESUS reintroduces yourself to the You you once were and the two of you share a laugh and maybe a tear, I think it will have accomplished everything I’d hoped it would.
_
Check out and stream the soundtrack from Electric Jesus here.
Check out ElectricJesusFilm.com for more on the film and music.
Keep up-to-date with us on all of our channels and social media accounts:
YouTube: http://youtube.com/Popternative
Instagram http://instagram.com/popternative
Twitter: http://twitter.com/popternative
Facebook https://facebook.com/popternative/
Spotify: https://goo.gl/nWtNHP
Apple Podcasts: https://goo.gl/y6tbA9