Stiff Spirit - from Seattle, WA said through Reverbnation...
"Loving Big Picture this morning... You guys are very very good."
******************
Suzette Lebrun - Reverbnation fan
"Go Oakland Go! is cool!"
******************Tone Captain from Aromas, CA
"Whats up!! Listening to Go Oakland Go right now. Awesome tune! Diggin it man. keep up the great work."
"Hello Swaybone.. You Have some real Big ROCKING songs here!! Our Favourite is " Big picture" only just though ! We gave you a well deserved LIKE & Hope our Songs ROCK you."
have a Happy!!
Salt & TGM
"Loving Big Picture this morning... You guys are very very good."
******************
Suzette Lebrun - Reverbnation fan
"Go Oakland Go! is cool!"
******************Tone Captain from Aromas, CA
"Whats up!! Listening to Go Oakland Go right now. Awesome tune! Diggin it man. keep up the great work."
"Hello Swaybone.. You Have some real Big ROCKING songs here!! Our Favourite is " Big picture" only just though ! We gave you a well deserved LIKE & Hope our Songs ROCK you."
have a Happy!!
Salt & TGM
Listen to internet radio with RomanMidnightMusic on Blog Talk Radio
Interview of Theo from Swaybone with Aaron Joy of Roman Midnight Music May 6, 2011.
Theo Cedar Jones is the guitarist-vocalist-songwriter of the California based hard
rock band Swaybone. Swaybone is a unique musical entity as its the only band
directly advocating the teachings of American Hindu/Buddhist guru Adi Da Samraj,
or as the website reads "rock from the heart".
I'd previously done a Christian rock themed episode on my podcast that hadn't proven too popular &
was taking a bit of risk by having another religious themed episode,
particularly one of a small fringe group of a few thousand formal followers
surrounding a deceased controversial guru. I'd had dealings with the group for
many years, both formally & not. It was at an art gallery opening of the
guru, his first solo show in NYC, that I met Theo & he handed me a Swaybone
promo. The uniqueness & passion behind his music was exactly the energy I
wanted for my show. Much to my surprise this ended up being one of my more
popular shows & I think Theo really shined. I've never heard from the
religious group, but its a rare moment when they get mentioned in this type of
media context & without any controversy so I hope they appreciated the
positive press.
AJ: Most musicians will probably tell you that one of the more difficult
things to do when making music, outside of just making good music, is trying to
be original & creative & maybe even unique. My guest I will proudly say
is one of the most unique people that I have introduced through this show. He
has an alternative rock band called SWAYBONE. But, they are more than just
another alternative rock band singing silly little love songs. They do sing love
songs though, but of a far bigger or wider reaching sort. SWAYBONE is what you
might call a devotional rock band. But don't think Christian rock, because they,
to use his own words, are more akin to "guru rock" or "prior unity rock" or just
"Da rock". I'll let him explain later on exactly what that means. SWAYBONE is
inspired by the teachings of the spiritual teacher Adi Da Samraj. As far as I
know it's the only alternative rock band that takes Adi Da's teachings & is
spreading it out to the world. So, it's a pretty big challenge because my guest
is working on making good music, taking the teachings of his guru & yet
tranforming them into something that goes beyond just fellow devotees or fellow
students of this teacher. But, turning it into something that potentially can
have a humongous change on all of his listeners, whether they know who the guru
is or whether they understand everything my guest is singing about or not. But,
the end result is basically something incredibly unique & it is with a great
pleasure that I introduce a man bursting with passionate creativity. On the
phone with me is Mr. Theo Cedar Jones, the frontman, guitarist & lyricist of
SWAYBONE. Theo, welcome.
THEO: Thank you so much for having me, Aaron
& thank you for your introduction, yeah, that was great.
AJ: So, I'm
describing your band here, SWAYBONE, in the opening, can you, maybe, help me out
here & fill in the gaps a little bit, or correct the errors if I have
described you incorrectly. Have I gotten the target here in describing what
SWAYBONE is all about?
THEO: Yeah, that was a very good description. I
don't think anybody has ever tried to describe it on the radio before & I
have been doing this music thing for about 24 years. We played our first show
back in 1987 & that was before I knew, well, that was before I was a devotee
of Adi Da. I had been studying his teaching for many years, but wasn't, I didn't
consider myself a devotee. But, I was pursuing what you just described, trying
to make some kind of original music that would be entertaining & potentially
write some hit songs.
AJ: Of course.
THEO: Actually, before I
became a devotee in 2001 I was pretty frustrated trying to accomplish that goal,
because my main goal was basically to try to be a good singer, try to be a good
songwriter & maybe at least write one hit song in my lifetime.
AJ: I
actually wanted, before we go any farther in the talking about the background of
SWAYBONE & the music & what you're doing & the bigger picture, do
you think you could share where one can go online to find out more about
you?
THEO: We are at myspace.com/swaybone & we are also at
reverbnation.com/swaybone & sonicbids.com/swaybone.
AJ: Excellent.
Excellent. & I know you have a new album coming out which we're going to
share some tunes from & some things out there already. Also for those who
aren't familiar with who we are talking about here, can you in a, let's see, a
bite-size nugget explain who this Adi Da is? Or, maybe the jist of what his
teaching is that people could relate to?
THEO: Yeah, Adi Da is a
contemporary spiritual teacher who brings together, culminates all of the
spiritual teachings that have ever existed & has brought forth a
comprehensive, massive, awesome teaching that is unique amidst all the religions
& all the religious teachers. He was born in 1939 in New York & became
enlightened as it were or reawakened in 1970. I discovered his teachings in 1981
& I was really struck immediately, the first time I saw a picture of him,
that this is the divine person. Many of the world's religions have predicted
that there would be a great avatar, a great second coming of God. & my
feeling is that he is that great avatar & he self-proclaims that he is the
promised god-man. So, all the world's religions have been waiting for a final,
ultimate teacher/god-person to be born & it just so happens he's been born
in our lifetime, in our time, in the modern era& he said that he came in
order to prevent us from getting involved in World War III. & so, we're in
the middle of this incredible, historic moment where God, the divine person, has
incarnated & is creating divine intervention to help the human race save
itself.
AJ: That's a good summary. Very good summary, without getting
into too many of the details. If one wants to find out more they can go to his
main website at adidam.org & they can discover some of his teachings there.
He's passed physically from this world a couple years ago though, but his
community, as yourself & others & myself, continue though. Theo, when
you started SWAYBONE did you plan ... was this intended to be a band focused on
the teachings of Adi Da or was that just sort of a natural outpouring of
something, or was going to be something completely different & morphed into
this?
THEO: It was decidedly not supposed to be about Adi Da, even though
I was studying his teachings. When we started out, I started with a friend of
mine. We started the band back in the late 80's & the goal at the time was
to recreate the psychedelic experience through rock music. & so, we had
discovered our spirituality, in a sense, through taking mushrooms, LSD &
wanted to somehow translate that experience into rock'n'roll. Psychedelic music
was sort of in decline, you know, after the 60's, after PINK FLOYD & the
only guiding lights we had at the time was Robin Hitchcock & the SOFT BOYS.
There was a new psychedelic underground of music in California in the 80's,
comprised of various bands like the DREAM SYNDICATE, the 3 O'CLOCK, the RAIN
PARADE. It never gelled into like a cohesive psychedelic movement in the 80's
when Reagan was President & the most viable form of music for me at the
time was all those bands that came out of the FSG label, such as MINUTE MEN,
MEAT PUPPETS, SOUNDGARDEN, SONIC YOUTH. So, you know, I was kinda trying to
create a new psychedelic revolution through rock. It turned out to be extremely
difficult.
AJ: Now, sadly through this medium we can't share with folks
what a SWAYBONE concert is like, but they can go on youtube & find videos of
you, but when you perform on stage with your band, with the three guys that join
you, well how should we put this, would you share with my audience what's going
on often behind you on the wall or the visuals you include with your show.
THEO: Yeah. We have been privileged to have access to the art of Adi Da. In
the last nine years of his life Adi Da created somewhere between a 100 &
200,000 images of art & these images directly express or convey his state
of consciousness. & they happen to be some of the most extraordinary
bright, colorful, intense art. & I have been serving Adi Da's mission since
2001 & in 2007 we did an event in San Francisco where we got to project Adi
Da's art while live musicians were performing & this sparked an idea for me
that, well, most of the music that was in play with Adi Da's art was what you
might consider more conventionally devotional like either Indian music or
softer type of music. Stuff that was more contemplative, shall we say. But this
art is so powerful, so bold, so strong & so confronting even & I
thought "Gee, this art rocks. This art might go with rock music." I had a kind
of a problem to solve which was that how do you do something about a guru,
something about the sacred in rock music which is supposed to be about
rebellion, about freedom, about sex, about drugs & all those good things.
How do you make that jump from rock's classic themes to something which some
people might think 'are you trying to be religious rock?' A lot of people do
think it's like Christian rock & actually Christian rock is kind of an
inspiration in many ways. So, I had this issue, how do you convey the idea that
this is a rock concert that's happening in sacred space? When we did our first
experiment with this last year we projected Adi Da's art with a projecter onto
a screen, backdrop, that was over & behind the band & the effect, for
me at least, was like so liberating. I felt like the color that was being
projected onto the band was literally made by the divine person & instantly
that art work for me invokes a sense of the sacred. So I didn't have to say to
the audience 'Okay, this is a sacred rock concert, you're supposed to feel
sacred now.' How do you do that, you know?
AJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
THEO: I don't have to literally say it. All we have to do is project this art
& then the feeling of the lyrics & the music & the band just
naturally convey that expression of exstacy, of happiness, of liberation
even.
AJ: I'll say, to back up what you're saying, Theo, that I
discovered Adi Da Samraj in 2005 & at first I was like "Okay, just another
guru, I'm not so interested." But, I immediately saw his art & I went "Wow,
this guy's a great artist." I was overwhelmed by the art initially. & in
the early days, to fill people in, he did a lot of photography work & then
he later combined photographs into bigger images & just kept combining,
combining & then was getting into actually drawing. So, it's very intensive,
multi-layered, lots of stuff on top of stuff & it's pretty much unlike
anything else out there. I don't know about you, but I've never seen anyone who
compares to him. So it's definetly, when you were flashing it on the screen
behind you, it's definetly like bang, you're in this space now! There's no sign
that says applause or anything. It comes across so very much so what you're
looking at.
THEO: Exactly & it's an interesting story about how Adi Da's art kinda got me to become a devotee.
Up to 2000 I'd been reading his books. I had instant recognition of who he was the first time I saw a picture of
him & it kind of terrified me a little bit, because I felt like "Okay, this
is it. This is the ultimate guru, teacher, god-man, that's ever going to exist,
he's given the ultimate teaching for all now but now he's got all these demands,
you know you've got to be a devotee & do all these vows & actually
fulfill all these practices & I wasn't ready. So for many years I studied
but kept my distance, in a way.
AJ: Very common actually.
THEO:
Yeah. I had been pursuing a lot of other spiritual practices that whole time,
including yoga, meditation, writing as a spiritual practice & a number of
other things. Right around 2000 I felt like it wasn't working for me. I wasn't
able to overcome my fear, my worry & my guilt. I was actually feeling
really stuck or depressed that I couldn't grow further or grow beyond this
suffering of the self-contraction, the ego. So I kinda, in a way, reached the
end of my alternatives & just around that time I get a phone call from a
friend of mine. I can say his name. His name is Mark Comings & he happens to
be one of the most amazing visionary authors & public speakers. & he
said "Hey, Theo, did you know that Adi Da is a major artist & he is looking
for people in the art world who will come to see his art & respond to it,
maybe help be an advocate, you know, to help get his art out there to the art
world. & you get a chance to see Adi Da in person."
AJ: Bonus!
THEO: I was like, "Okay, yes!" & 2 weeks before I got to see him for the
first time on July 7th, 2001 I had a devotional response & it just came
spontaneously. Instead of just studying him I felt like I had initiated or he
had initiated a personal relationship with me that was now the biggest thing in
my life. I felt an attraction to him & it suddenly became clear to me that I
wanted to be his devotee. For some reason something had changed in my
disposition. So, I got to travel up to his sanctuary in northern California
called the Mountain of Attention Sanctuary & they had built a big giant
tent where Adi Da had set up 3 projection screens & a big sound system. We
went in there & started to look at these suites of artwork that would last
2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours. I mean epic, monumental, marathon art showing.
Accompanied by loud blasting music. & I was like "This is the God for me!
If God is an artist & can make this ... This is perfect, this is just right
for me." I was overwhelmed. Like you said, the art is overwhelming. Then we got
to go visit him at a house that was near the sanctuary called Love Point. So
they take us up there in a bus &, you know, I'm nervous, I'm expectant, I'm
exstatic, I'm terrified, I'm every extreme of emotion because, from my
perspective, I'm going to see God in the flesh. The thing that millions,
billions of people have been yearning for generations & centuries. They want
to see their God. They want to & hopefully not have to die first to go see
God, you know. & I go up there. I'm ushered into the room. We're sitting
down. Men on the left, women on the right in this like living room & there's
his chair up in the front. & then he walked in. He's dressed all in black.
He sits down. & I just start balling & crying & I feel like all my
emotions of my life, maybe other lifetimes, are just being wrenched out of me,
pulled out of me, pulling me out of myself towards him. & that was it. I was
converted. I was ready to sign the vow. I'm Adi Da's devotee forever.
AJ:
Thanks, Theo, for that personal testimony. Before we go any farther. Before we
talk, get more into details about some of the philosophy behind SWAYBONE I think
it's time we play a little music.
THEO: Right on.
AJ: I want to
play a song now from your forthcoming album Life On Earth called "Da Light!".
THEO: Right on.
AJ: Before I do, is there anything you
might want to share about what we're about to hear?
THEO: Yeah, this is
the first song on the album. This song was the result of a jam session that I
had with my band & it seemed like a gift. This song just came not out of me
deliberately trying to write a song but out of the genuine chemistry of playing
in the band. When we finished writing it I realized that this was my official
fanfare for Adi Da. This is me just saying "Hey, y'all, the great one is here.
Adi Da is here."
AJ: Well, I guess it came through. That message came
through because when I listened to the album this is one of the ones I went "Ah,
that's a good one to play on the show."
AJ: Theo, before we go any further, I have to ask, & I'm going to plead my
ignorance here, what does SWAYBONE mean? Does it have a meaning at
all?
THEO: You know that name came about in 1995 when we were recording
our first CD. We had to come up with a name, a new name, because our previous
name was the NEWMANUS FOOLS & nobody knew was Newmanus meant.
AJ:
Yeah, that's pretty difficult too.
THEO: So, we needed something catchy,
we needed something fat & happy. So, my long term collabotor in the first
incarnation of the band is named Tom Opell & he came up with that name,
after a long period of struggling to find a good name. & it didn't mean
anything ... except, when you start to look at it, you're like 'Okay, sway,
that's sort of feminine. Bone, that's kinda masculine.' So, it kinda sounds
like a playful combination, to me, of the masculine & the feminine. &
that kinda works for me because, you know, I'm trying to be a hard rock band
& that's so macho & tough & all that but the emotions behind the
music are not really about trying to be tough or trying to be angry. It was
especially helpful because in the 90's we were experiencing the grunge
revolution. I have to make an adaptation & go from being a psychedelic band
to be a kind of commercial hard rock or grunge band. SWAYBONE just sounded like
a good grunge name, like PEARL JAM, you know.
AJ: I hear ya. I actually
wanted to talk a little bit about lyrics now. You & I in the past have
bantered about lyrics & hard rock music. & as I introduced you I said
you were trying to ... you were taking the teachings of Adi Da but yet you were
putting them into your own words. &, you know, not reinterpretting them,
but, you know, sending them back out there for an audience that may not know
his stuff.
THEO: Right.
AJ: I want to bring up now briefly Adi
Da's idea of the ego, which he talks about a lot in his teachings. But,
particularly here in the case of ego based lyrics or subject matter versus what
you're trying to do which is ego transcending subject matter. I know this is
something you've asked that you want to talk about. So, if you wanted to share
a little bit about what you're doing versus what, I don't know, SOUNDGARDEN,
for example, is doing.
THEO: Or really what every single other rock band
has ever done.
AJ: Or what anyone is doing, yeah.
THEO: So, thank
you for bringing this up. This is the maybe the core messge of the band, for
me, is how do you make a transition from an ego culture that we're in right now
to an ego transcending culture that humanity is being called to go towards, or
is being drawn towards & ... maybe just to give a brief definition of what
we mean by ego as described by Adi Da. Ego is the feeling or the idea that you
are separate or irreducibly separate from other people, other egos, from
nature, from the universe & from God & that feeling of separateness is
characterized by a fundamental sense of being afraid, being afraid of death,
being afraid of threats, being afraid of intimacy, being afraid of
vulnerability. Another term for the ego that Adi Da used is the
self-contraction. When I got deeper into Adi Da I felt him causing me to be
more sensative to my own activity & what that activity is is a constant
feeling of self-contraction. So Adi Da says "The ego is not a thing, it's an
act. It's something that you do, second by second, minute by minute, day by
day. If you didn't do it you, or I, would be in our natural state & our
natural state is happiness, is love-bliss, is consciousness itself." So, I
started to get more & more sensative to my own activity of ego &
self-contraction & it just compelled me to write lyrics that addressed by
experience. The more I did this the more I realized I couldn't find lyrics in
other bands that would satisfy me because most of it is self-referential or
talking about basically complaint. So much music is a complaint about 'My baby
left me, my baby done me no good' & boy girl stuff, you know. & God
bless all that stuff. I love that stuff, too. I love all rock'n'roll &
music, but I started to feel like it was confining & claustrophobic to
always be talking about yourself or self-referenciality or narcissism.
AJ: 'Me me' all the time.
THEO: Yeah, you me, everybody. You
know, once you get sensitive to what you're up to, that you are doing the ego,
you are doing the self-contraction, even though life is terrifying & you're
gonna die, it would seem like 'Okay, I should be afraid.' & it kinda makes
sense. Yeah, you should be afraid, you should be depressed, you should be
terrorized by existence. But, no, it's not necessary. & the only reason I
can say that is because I've looked at Adi Da, I've been in his physical
company, I've read & studied & been intimate with him for years &
years & he never failed to be present, available, open, happy, esctatic
& absolutely truthful about everything & never failing. He just never
failed to be truthful, never failed to be compassionate. How? How can he do
that? So I just kept going closer into his teaching & then it just started
to influence my lyrics. I wasn't necessarily trying to interpret Adi Da &
his teaching but, it just happened naturally that lyrics started to pop into my
head & write them down on the page that are a response to his presence
& his teaching & his example. & then I started to like it, 'I like
these lyrics. These lyrics give me what I'm looking for, which is some
liberation & not just being stuck in my complaint or your complaint or
boy/girl this or that, or boy-boy girl-girl or whatever it is.' So, here's the
thing, people of the world, SWAYBONE's message is here to help everybody get a
taste of a kind of music or a kind of message that's not totally about the ego.
Of course it's always ... I'm an ego, so I'm still doing it & I'm still
wrong, but at least because of my response to my teacher I can give you, the
people, a message, that I hope, will be more liberating for you, that will give
you spiritual nourishment, that will give you a capacity to want to be
realized, to want to be free of your suffering, of your
self-contraction.
AJ: I have to ask, you know don't take this the wrong
way or anything, it's just a curiosity, with all the people you've shared
SWAYBONE with or have come to your concerts, whatever, seen you perform, etc.,
I'm sure many of them don't really know Adi Da like you know him, or maybe they
do or maybe they don't. In regards to what you've just said about sharing his
message & this feeling that you're getting has there ever been any negative
reaction? Or have you ever had anyone say to you 'Gosh, Theo, if you'd only do
the boy/girl songs again.' Has that ever happened?
THEO: Yes.
Absolutely.
AJ: Yes! Okay!
THEO: For example, back in 2007 I had
a different band line-up & my drummer at the time was saying "Theo, would
you please just back off on this Adi Da stuff, it's just not cool. It's, you
know, gonna alienate people. You know this is too religious. This is a guru,
what are you doing?" You know a lot of people are anti-guru.
AJ: Yeah,
yeah.
THEO: Then in another instance I actually got a job as a
songwriter & a guitarist/singer in a Christian rock band for a period of
time. 3 of the songs that I wrote for Adi Da got included in the set list for
this Christian band. The leader of the band really liked my voice, really liked
my ... the vibe, you know. & there's so many parts of the message about Adi
Da that kind of sound like you might be talking about Jesus Christ.
AJ:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
THEO: Or you might be talking about God in some
general sense. & he loved that. It's like he got it. He responded to it,
but then, somewhere down the line, something changed & he suddenly became
intolerant & it was like 'Okay, Theo, you can't be in this band
anymore.'
AJ: You've got the wrong god there, Theo, you're not on the
same page that we are.
THEO: Exactly!
AJ: Well, let me ask,
though, as you've brought this up, has it been ... well, let me first ask, are
your fellow musicians in SWAYBONE are they devotees?
THEO: Right now I am the only devotee, but we are pretty multi-denominational.
AJ: It's a nice even flow
across the spectrum. Has it been difficult finding musicians, though, when they
find out what you're about? Do they go 'Oh, you know, I don't really want to
play that music.' Have you had that happen other than the drummer you just
mentioned?
THEO: Yeah, it also happened with the guitar player at that
same time & it's happened maybe another time or two after that, so
...
AJ: How do you deal with that, Theo? Cause on some level it's almost
like a personal attack, but yet it's not. How do you ... cause you're just
playing music. Music, you know, soothes the savage beast. It unites all of us.
How do you respond to that?
THEO: I usually cry when my bandmates leave
me. A bandmate is like an attachment or a marriage & there's no way to
avoid that for me. I get emotionally attached & whenever a bandmate rejects
me or rejects the band or rejects Adi Da it's pretty heart-breaking.
AJ:
Obviously, you can understand the point of view of where they're coming from.
Like you said earlier a lot of people are afraid of this idea of a guru even if
they don't know even who the guru is. It's just a bad response there. It's not
your fault or even Adi Da's fault. It comes from something that's beyond this,
so you can understand it, but I'm sure it is distraught.
THEO: Yeah.
It's just that I made a decision that I felt that taking this path, being open
about Adi Da in rock music was something nobody else had done except, you might
find this interesting, have you heard of the band LIVE?
AJ: I have & probably some of my listeners have.
THEO: They were one of those bands
that had a fairly large amount of success in the grunge movement & their
lead singer Ed Kowalczyk, as it turns, is or was a devotee of Adi Da. &
when they were making their album The Distance To Here Adi Da was
personally involved with Ed on the lyric direction & the art &
everything about that album. & it was very successful. But, when I looked
at the lyrics on that album I felt like I could barely discern anything about
Adi Da in those lyrics & it just seems so vague.
AJ: I will agree
with you.
THEO: I love the album & I think it's great, but it wasn't
satisfying to me at the level of 'Come on, if you love Adi Da, if you recognize
who he is, just say it straight.' & he wasn't willing or able to do that
for whatever reason, but maybe he sort of paved the way for SWAYBONE to kind of
go to that next step. Of all the devotees in the world that make music that I'm
familiar with I couldn't find a single one, except for Jacqueline Clemons, who
wrote an original song with original lyrics that were a response to Adi Da in
an explicit way. So, I felt a little bit lonely, like "Why? Why aren't more
artists & musicians explicitly referencing Adi Da in their art." Because I
will tell you, Aaron, since becoming a devotee my music has unfolded &
bloomed beyond my wildest expectations & two happened & changed
primarily. One is that, as you see, the lyrics changed & suddenly I started
writing better songs. Now, I don't know if there's a connection there, but I
had a big problem writing a good song. I'd been writing for years & it was
almost a little bit like "I'm not really in love with almost any of my songs
& it's really hard to write one good catchy song!"
AJ: & it's
important to be in love with the song as you've got to like what you're
doing.
THEO: You've got to like what you're doing so you can sell it,
you know. & I would make song after song, demo after demo. We made two
albums before I was a devotee & they're pretty good, but I'm not playing
those songs today. I noticed that my songwriting flourished after becoming a
devotee. But, here's another thing. I had a problem as a singer. I had to
strain in my voice in my upper range. I didn't feel like I'd caught my niche as
a singer. After becoming a devotee Adi Da was describing something about the
devotional process when you're turning to the guru & you do this moment to
moment, you're always turning to the guru every moment, the top of your head
it's supposed to be like an open flower or an open cup because the guru
descends from above spiritually & comes down through the top of the head,
down the front of your body & it goes down to the genital base, turns
around & comes back up, goes up to the infinity above. That aspect of the
practice became more & more real to me & then I noticed it started to
affect my singing. Because, if my head is open to the all above my throat,
synuses, my head, my whole resonant, you know, headspace was starting to
change, starting to transform. I got, I was given, I guess, this ability to
sing in a whole new way where instead of trying to strain to reach the notes I
was open to receiving the notes & instead of trying to push the message out
of me like self-expression I was opening my head & singing from above.
& it changed fundamentally what I do & it sounds so much better. & I
could relax while I was singing & be even more powerful than I ever was
before. & so, suddenly, I feel like "Oh, I can sing better. I can write
songs better. Thank you, Adi Da. Thank you, guru." I felt it was his direct
grace that enabled me to do that & to have such inspirational content.
People, artists, listen! Come up here! Get with Adi Da, consider his teaching
because it could make your art better!
AJ: Are you saying, Theo, Adi Da was your music teacher?
THEO: Yes. Yes. He said something very
interesting. He said, somebody said "Bhagavan, you know you don't really play
an instrument". He did actually play a digeridoo, a ukelele & a tamboura.
But he said, "I'm letting other people be my vehicle for playing music." So, I
felt like, "I'm signing up for that. Bhagavan, go ahead, use me as your
instrument. I want to do that." I want to be an instrument for him to be able
to come through me & it just feels better then me trying like do it through
creature efforts alone, you know, to sing & be powerful, be a big rock epic
performer, you know.
AJ: You were just talking about some of the
challenges you faced before becoming a devotee, like the first couple albums
SWAYBONE did. Has there been any big musical challenges that you've had to face
& work through since or after becoming a devotee?
THEO: The big
challenge is that I've got so much good material I don't know what to do with
it all.
AJ: Well, that's a really tough challenge, Theo! Boy, that's a
tough one! Which is a great segueway ... what is on the agenda for the band?
What are you working on or what are you going to be doing?
THEO: Okay,
what's on the agenda for the band is to finish Life On Earth the 11 song
album & hopefully get it done by the end of May. You know this is my
greatest masterpiece that I've ever done. This is the first album where I feel
like all the song from beginning to end are A list songs that I feel completely
convicted by, that I can sing for the rest of my life with complete, you know,
conviction, & I can sell these songs & be an advocate for this record
for the rest of my life. & then make another record after it, because we've
got a whole bunch of songs in the queue so that we can make the next one, you
know, as good as this one. & then we've got a couple shows coming up on the
west coast in June. One of which, on June 11th, is at the University of
California at Berkeley in a ballroom that has a capacity of a 1000 people &
that's the biggest show I've ever been a part of.
AJ:
Excellent.
THEO: Basically, what's on the agenda is to promote this
album, get some recognition, build our fanbase, go on tour, open for bigger
bands & get successful enough that we can accomplish 2 fundamental goals.
One is to support the band financially through the band's success. & B to
get at least 10 million people exposed to our music, so that they would at
least get a chance to hear Adi Da's name, see a picture of Adi Da, see some of
his art & hear about the book Not-Two Is Peace.
AJ:
Excellent. Would you mind, what is Not-Two Is Peace? What's that
about?
THEO: Not-Two Is Peace is a book where Adi Da describes
his plan for world peace, that you might say is his most overtly political
book. It's the book where he described a new way for the whole human race to
govern itself based on cooperation, tolerance & peace. & it's also
about making a fundamental transition in human civilation from an ego based
civilization to a prior unity based civilization & I am so down with
that.
AJ: Excellent, excellent. I'm curious, Theo, I mentioned a
similiar question earlier but as you were talking this one came to my head. A
lot of the music that has been presented to Adi Da & a lot of music that
shares his teaching is traditional music, Indian or classical or
improvisational or something, & you're doing something with a hard rock
edge. Have you had anyone in the community go 'God, I don't know about that.
Or, I'm sure this isn't, I don't know, this is too heavy.' Have you had any
inside response where you've had to go 'No, wait a minute, it's just music
after all.' You know what I'm asking?
THEO: Absolutely & the answer
is yes. Sadly, there's been backlash within the community on the part of some
individuals who said "You know you can't perform a SWAYBONE song at a devotee
event."
AJ: Even though music is music?
THEO: Yeah, but again,
for whatever reason that was the response at one time. On the other hand,
there's a devotee friend of mine named Daniel whose an actor & who also has
a band named GOD'S END. & he is an actor in one of Adi Da's theater plays
called The Mummery.
AJ: An excellent show, by the
way.
THEO: & his band GOD'S END is also a rock band that has lyrical
response to Adi Da, maybe in not as overt way as I'm doing. But, that
individual Daniel has a been a big support actually in encouraging me to keep
doing this.
AJ: Well, Theo, I personally wish you a lot of luck across
the board, both in terms of just your own musical success with the band with
the same with what any other band aims for, but also your, I guess for lack of
a better term, your missionary work in sharing Adi Da's message. So you have my
support & best wishes for both of those things.
THEO: Thank you so
much, Aaron, that's very positive. I appreciate that.
AJ: Postive vibes
here. We're getting near ...
THEO: Can I give one plug?
AJ: Yeah,
go ahead, I actually wanted to say we're getting near the end of the show so,
please, if there's anything you want to go for, Theo, now's the
time.
THEO: Okay. I didn't want to give the mistaken impression that
there's no other artists who are doing an explicit Adi Da message right now.
There is one other artist who has a rap song called "Ego Death". She has
written some of the finest lyrics about Adi Da, in response to his wisdom.
& it just so happens that she's my wife, Bunnybunns. & she's a rap
artist & she's pursuing a music career in L.A. right now & I'm living
part time in L.A. to do the same thing. But, if you are interested go to
bunnybunns dot net & check out her song "Ego Death".
AJ: Excellent,
excellent, excellent. Always nice to mention the wife, too.
THEO: Ah,
yes!
AJ: Theo, like I said, we're getting down to the last few minutes.
Like I said, as before, I wish you the best & I have to say I really
appreciate you spending this hour with me tonight.
THEO: & I
appreciate it very much too, Aaron, & it went too quickly & you're
definetly on the vanguard for bringing me out to the world & bringing
SWAYBONE. Thank you so much.
AJ: I actually appreciate your honesty,
too, & you're talking to hundreds of people & sharing something that
is, on one hand, it's very personal, but yet it can speak to a big audience
& it's not personal at all & everyone can relate to it. So, I
appreciate your candid nature. That's what I want when I have a guest. Someone
who wants to share & really is passionate about what they're talking about
too.
THEO: Right on. Thank you, Aaron.
Theo Cedar Jones is the guitarist-vocalist-songwriter of the California based hard
rock band Swaybone. Swaybone is a unique musical entity as its the only band
directly advocating the teachings of American Hindu/Buddhist guru Adi Da Samraj,
or as the website reads "rock from the heart".
I'd previously done a Christian rock themed episode on my podcast that hadn't proven too popular &
was taking a bit of risk by having another religious themed episode,
particularly one of a small fringe group of a few thousand formal followers
surrounding a deceased controversial guru. I'd had dealings with the group for
many years, both formally & not. It was at an art gallery opening of the
guru, his first solo show in NYC, that I met Theo & he handed me a Swaybone
promo. The uniqueness & passion behind his music was exactly the energy I
wanted for my show. Much to my surprise this ended up being one of my more
popular shows & I think Theo really shined. I've never heard from the
religious group, but its a rare moment when they get mentioned in this type of
media context & without any controversy so I hope they appreciated the
positive press.
AJ: Most musicians will probably tell you that one of the more difficult
things to do when making music, outside of just making good music, is trying to
be original & creative & maybe even unique. My guest I will proudly say
is one of the most unique people that I have introduced through this show. He
has an alternative rock band called SWAYBONE. But, they are more than just
another alternative rock band singing silly little love songs. They do sing love
songs though, but of a far bigger or wider reaching sort. SWAYBONE is what you
might call a devotional rock band. But don't think Christian rock, because they,
to use his own words, are more akin to "guru rock" or "prior unity rock" or just
"Da rock". I'll let him explain later on exactly what that means. SWAYBONE is
inspired by the teachings of the spiritual teacher Adi Da Samraj. As far as I
know it's the only alternative rock band that takes Adi Da's teachings & is
spreading it out to the world. So, it's a pretty big challenge because my guest
is working on making good music, taking the teachings of his guru & yet
tranforming them into something that goes beyond just fellow devotees or fellow
students of this teacher. But, turning it into something that potentially can
have a humongous change on all of his listeners, whether they know who the guru
is or whether they understand everything my guest is singing about or not. But,
the end result is basically something incredibly unique & it is with a great
pleasure that I introduce a man bursting with passionate creativity. On the
phone with me is Mr. Theo Cedar Jones, the frontman, guitarist & lyricist of
SWAYBONE. Theo, welcome.
THEO: Thank you so much for having me, Aaron
& thank you for your introduction, yeah, that was great.
AJ: So, I'm
describing your band here, SWAYBONE, in the opening, can you, maybe, help me out
here & fill in the gaps a little bit, or correct the errors if I have
described you incorrectly. Have I gotten the target here in describing what
SWAYBONE is all about?
THEO: Yeah, that was a very good description. I
don't think anybody has ever tried to describe it on the radio before & I
have been doing this music thing for about 24 years. We played our first show
back in 1987 & that was before I knew, well, that was before I was a devotee
of Adi Da. I had been studying his teaching for many years, but wasn't, I didn't
consider myself a devotee. But, I was pursuing what you just described, trying
to make some kind of original music that would be entertaining & potentially
write some hit songs.
AJ: Of course.
THEO: Actually, before I
became a devotee in 2001 I was pretty frustrated trying to accomplish that goal,
because my main goal was basically to try to be a good singer, try to be a good
songwriter & maybe at least write one hit song in my lifetime.
AJ: I
actually wanted, before we go any farther in the talking about the background of
SWAYBONE & the music & what you're doing & the bigger picture, do
you think you could share where one can go online to find out more about
you?
THEO: We are at myspace.com/swaybone & we are also at
reverbnation.com/swaybone & sonicbids.com/swaybone.
AJ: Excellent.
Excellent. & I know you have a new album coming out which we're going to
share some tunes from & some things out there already. Also for those who
aren't familiar with who we are talking about here, can you in a, let's see, a
bite-size nugget explain who this Adi Da is? Or, maybe the jist of what his
teaching is that people could relate to?
THEO: Yeah, Adi Da is a
contemporary spiritual teacher who brings together, culminates all of the
spiritual teachings that have ever existed & has brought forth a
comprehensive, massive, awesome teaching that is unique amidst all the religions
& all the religious teachers. He was born in 1939 in New York & became
enlightened as it were or reawakened in 1970. I discovered his teachings in 1981
& I was really struck immediately, the first time I saw a picture of him,
that this is the divine person. Many of the world's religions have predicted
that there would be a great avatar, a great second coming of God. & my
feeling is that he is that great avatar & he self-proclaims that he is the
promised god-man. So, all the world's religions have been waiting for a final,
ultimate teacher/god-person to be born & it just so happens he's been born
in our lifetime, in our time, in the modern era& he said that he came in
order to prevent us from getting involved in World War III. & so, we're in
the middle of this incredible, historic moment where God, the divine person, has
incarnated & is creating divine intervention to help the human race save
itself.
AJ: That's a good summary. Very good summary, without getting
into too many of the details. If one wants to find out more they can go to his
main website at adidam.org & they can discover some of his teachings there.
He's passed physically from this world a couple years ago though, but his
community, as yourself & others & myself, continue though. Theo, when
you started SWAYBONE did you plan ... was this intended to be a band focused on
the teachings of Adi Da or was that just sort of a natural outpouring of
something, or was going to be something completely different & morphed into
this?
THEO: It was decidedly not supposed to be about Adi Da, even though
I was studying his teachings. When we started out, I started with a friend of
mine. We started the band back in the late 80's & the goal at the time was
to recreate the psychedelic experience through rock music. & so, we had
discovered our spirituality, in a sense, through taking mushrooms, LSD &
wanted to somehow translate that experience into rock'n'roll. Psychedelic music
was sort of in decline, you know, after the 60's, after PINK FLOYD & the
only guiding lights we had at the time was Robin Hitchcock & the SOFT BOYS.
There was a new psychedelic underground of music in California in the 80's,
comprised of various bands like the DREAM SYNDICATE, the 3 O'CLOCK, the RAIN
PARADE. It never gelled into like a cohesive psychedelic movement in the 80's
when Reagan was President & the most viable form of music for me at the
time was all those bands that came out of the FSG label, such as MINUTE MEN,
MEAT PUPPETS, SOUNDGARDEN, SONIC YOUTH. So, you know, I was kinda trying to
create a new psychedelic revolution through rock. It turned out to be extremely
difficult.
AJ: Now, sadly through this medium we can't share with folks
what a SWAYBONE concert is like, but they can go on youtube & find videos of
you, but when you perform on stage with your band, with the three guys that join
you, well how should we put this, would you share with my audience what's going
on often behind you on the wall or the visuals you include with your show.
THEO: Yeah. We have been privileged to have access to the art of Adi Da. In
the last nine years of his life Adi Da created somewhere between a 100 &
200,000 images of art & these images directly express or convey his state
of consciousness. & they happen to be some of the most extraordinary
bright, colorful, intense art. & I have been serving Adi Da's mission since
2001 & in 2007 we did an event in San Francisco where we got to project Adi
Da's art while live musicians were performing & this sparked an idea for me
that, well, most of the music that was in play with Adi Da's art was what you
might consider more conventionally devotional like either Indian music or
softer type of music. Stuff that was more contemplative, shall we say. But this
art is so powerful, so bold, so strong & so confronting even & I
thought "Gee, this art rocks. This art might go with rock music." I had a kind
of a problem to solve which was that how do you do something about a guru,
something about the sacred in rock music which is supposed to be about
rebellion, about freedom, about sex, about drugs & all those good things.
How do you make that jump from rock's classic themes to something which some
people might think 'are you trying to be religious rock?' A lot of people do
think it's like Christian rock & actually Christian rock is kind of an
inspiration in many ways. So, I had this issue, how do you convey the idea that
this is a rock concert that's happening in sacred space? When we did our first
experiment with this last year we projected Adi Da's art with a projecter onto
a screen, backdrop, that was over & behind the band & the effect, for
me at least, was like so liberating. I felt like the color that was being
projected onto the band was literally made by the divine person & instantly
that art work for me invokes a sense of the sacred. So I didn't have to say to
the audience 'Okay, this is a sacred rock concert, you're supposed to feel
sacred now.' How do you do that, you know?
AJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
THEO: I don't have to literally say it. All we have to do is project this art
& then the feeling of the lyrics & the music & the band just
naturally convey that expression of exstacy, of happiness, of liberation
even.
AJ: I'll say, to back up what you're saying, Theo, that I
discovered Adi Da Samraj in 2005 & at first I was like "Okay, just another
guru, I'm not so interested." But, I immediately saw his art & I went "Wow,
this guy's a great artist." I was overwhelmed by the art initially. & in
the early days, to fill people in, he did a lot of photography work & then
he later combined photographs into bigger images & just kept combining,
combining & then was getting into actually drawing. So, it's very intensive,
multi-layered, lots of stuff on top of stuff & it's pretty much unlike
anything else out there. I don't know about you, but I've never seen anyone who
compares to him. So it's definetly, when you were flashing it on the screen
behind you, it's definetly like bang, you're in this space now! There's no sign
that says applause or anything. It comes across so very much so what you're
looking at.
THEO: Exactly & it's an interesting story about how Adi Da's art kinda got me to become a devotee.
Up to 2000 I'd been reading his books. I had instant recognition of who he was the first time I saw a picture of
him & it kind of terrified me a little bit, because I felt like "Okay, this
is it. This is the ultimate guru, teacher, god-man, that's ever going to exist,
he's given the ultimate teaching for all now but now he's got all these demands,
you know you've got to be a devotee & do all these vows & actually
fulfill all these practices & I wasn't ready. So for many years I studied
but kept my distance, in a way.
AJ: Very common actually.
THEO:
Yeah. I had been pursuing a lot of other spiritual practices that whole time,
including yoga, meditation, writing as a spiritual practice & a number of
other things. Right around 2000 I felt like it wasn't working for me. I wasn't
able to overcome my fear, my worry & my guilt. I was actually feeling
really stuck or depressed that I couldn't grow further or grow beyond this
suffering of the self-contraction, the ego. So I kinda, in a way, reached the
end of my alternatives & just around that time I get a phone call from a
friend of mine. I can say his name. His name is Mark Comings & he happens to
be one of the most amazing visionary authors & public speakers. & he
said "Hey, Theo, did you know that Adi Da is a major artist & he is looking
for people in the art world who will come to see his art & respond to it,
maybe help be an advocate, you know, to help get his art out there to the art
world. & you get a chance to see Adi Da in person."
AJ: Bonus!
THEO: I was like, "Okay, yes!" & 2 weeks before I got to see him for the
first time on July 7th, 2001 I had a devotional response & it just came
spontaneously. Instead of just studying him I felt like I had initiated or he
had initiated a personal relationship with me that was now the biggest thing in
my life. I felt an attraction to him & it suddenly became clear to me that I
wanted to be his devotee. For some reason something had changed in my
disposition. So, I got to travel up to his sanctuary in northern California
called the Mountain of Attention Sanctuary & they had built a big giant
tent where Adi Da had set up 3 projection screens & a big sound system. We
went in there & started to look at these suites of artwork that would last
2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours. I mean epic, monumental, marathon art showing.
Accompanied by loud blasting music. & I was like "This is the God for me!
If God is an artist & can make this ... This is perfect, this is just right
for me." I was overwhelmed. Like you said, the art is overwhelming. Then we got
to go visit him at a house that was near the sanctuary called Love Point. So
they take us up there in a bus &, you know, I'm nervous, I'm expectant, I'm
exstatic, I'm terrified, I'm every extreme of emotion because, from my
perspective, I'm going to see God in the flesh. The thing that millions,
billions of people have been yearning for generations & centuries. They want
to see their God. They want to & hopefully not have to die first to go see
God, you know. & I go up there. I'm ushered into the room. We're sitting
down. Men on the left, women on the right in this like living room & there's
his chair up in the front. & then he walked in. He's dressed all in black.
He sits down. & I just start balling & crying & I feel like all my
emotions of my life, maybe other lifetimes, are just being wrenched out of me,
pulled out of me, pulling me out of myself towards him. & that was it. I was
converted. I was ready to sign the vow. I'm Adi Da's devotee forever.
AJ:
Thanks, Theo, for that personal testimony. Before we go any farther. Before we
talk, get more into details about some of the philosophy behind SWAYBONE I think
it's time we play a little music.
THEO: Right on.
AJ: I want to
play a song now from your forthcoming album Life On Earth called "Da Light!".
THEO: Right on.
AJ: Before I do, is there anything you
might want to share about what we're about to hear?
THEO: Yeah, this is
the first song on the album. This song was the result of a jam session that I
had with my band & it seemed like a gift. This song just came not out of me
deliberately trying to write a song but out of the genuine chemistry of playing
in the band. When we finished writing it I realized that this was my official
fanfare for Adi Da. This is me just saying "Hey, y'all, the great one is here.
Adi Da is here."
AJ: Well, I guess it came through. That message came
through because when I listened to the album this is one of the ones I went "Ah,
that's a good one to play on the show."
AJ: Theo, before we go any further, I have to ask, & I'm going to plead my
ignorance here, what does SWAYBONE mean? Does it have a meaning at
all?
THEO: You know that name came about in 1995 when we were recording
our first CD. We had to come up with a name, a new name, because our previous
name was the NEWMANUS FOOLS & nobody knew was Newmanus meant.
AJ:
Yeah, that's pretty difficult too.
THEO: So, we needed something catchy,
we needed something fat & happy. So, my long term collabotor in the first
incarnation of the band is named Tom Opell & he came up with that name,
after a long period of struggling to find a good name. & it didn't mean
anything ... except, when you start to look at it, you're like 'Okay, sway,
that's sort of feminine. Bone, that's kinda masculine.' So, it kinda sounds
like a playful combination, to me, of the masculine & the feminine. &
that kinda works for me because, you know, I'm trying to be a hard rock band
& that's so macho & tough & all that but the emotions behind the
music are not really about trying to be tough or trying to be angry. It was
especially helpful because in the 90's we were experiencing the grunge
revolution. I have to make an adaptation & go from being a psychedelic band
to be a kind of commercial hard rock or grunge band. SWAYBONE just sounded like
a good grunge name, like PEARL JAM, you know.
AJ: I hear ya. I actually
wanted to talk a little bit about lyrics now. You & I in the past have
bantered about lyrics & hard rock music. & as I introduced you I said
you were trying to ... you were taking the teachings of Adi Da but yet you were
putting them into your own words. &, you know, not reinterpretting them,
but, you know, sending them back out there for an audience that may not know
his stuff.
THEO: Right.
AJ: I want to bring up now briefly Adi
Da's idea of the ego, which he talks about a lot in his teachings. But,
particularly here in the case of ego based lyrics or subject matter versus what
you're trying to do which is ego transcending subject matter. I know this is
something you've asked that you want to talk about. So, if you wanted to share
a little bit about what you're doing versus what, I don't know, SOUNDGARDEN,
for example, is doing.
THEO: Or really what every single other rock band
has ever done.
AJ: Or what anyone is doing, yeah.
THEO: So, thank
you for bringing this up. This is the maybe the core messge of the band, for
me, is how do you make a transition from an ego culture that we're in right now
to an ego transcending culture that humanity is being called to go towards, or
is being drawn towards & ... maybe just to give a brief definition of what
we mean by ego as described by Adi Da. Ego is the feeling or the idea that you
are separate or irreducibly separate from other people, other egos, from
nature, from the universe & from God & that feeling of separateness is
characterized by a fundamental sense of being afraid, being afraid of death,
being afraid of threats, being afraid of intimacy, being afraid of
vulnerability. Another term for the ego that Adi Da used is the
self-contraction. When I got deeper into Adi Da I felt him causing me to be
more sensative to my own activity & what that activity is is a constant
feeling of self-contraction. So Adi Da says "The ego is not a thing, it's an
act. It's something that you do, second by second, minute by minute, day by
day. If you didn't do it you, or I, would be in our natural state & our
natural state is happiness, is love-bliss, is consciousness itself." So, I
started to get more & more sensative to my own activity of ego &
self-contraction & it just compelled me to write lyrics that addressed by
experience. The more I did this the more I realized I couldn't find lyrics in
other bands that would satisfy me because most of it is self-referential or
talking about basically complaint. So much music is a complaint about 'My baby
left me, my baby done me no good' & boy girl stuff, you know. & God
bless all that stuff. I love that stuff, too. I love all rock'n'roll &
music, but I started to feel like it was confining & claustrophobic to
always be talking about yourself or self-referenciality or narcissism.
AJ: 'Me me' all the time.
THEO: Yeah, you me, everybody. You
know, once you get sensitive to what you're up to, that you are doing the ego,
you are doing the self-contraction, even though life is terrifying & you're
gonna die, it would seem like 'Okay, I should be afraid.' & it kinda makes
sense. Yeah, you should be afraid, you should be depressed, you should be
terrorized by existence. But, no, it's not necessary. & the only reason I
can say that is because I've looked at Adi Da, I've been in his physical
company, I've read & studied & been intimate with him for years &
years & he never failed to be present, available, open, happy, esctatic
& absolutely truthful about everything & never failing. He just never
failed to be truthful, never failed to be compassionate. How? How can he do
that? So I just kept going closer into his teaching & then it just started
to influence my lyrics. I wasn't necessarily trying to interpret Adi Da &
his teaching but, it just happened naturally that lyrics started to pop into my
head & write them down on the page that are a response to his presence
& his teaching & his example. & then I started to like it, 'I like
these lyrics. These lyrics give me what I'm looking for, which is some
liberation & not just being stuck in my complaint or your complaint or
boy/girl this or that, or boy-boy girl-girl or whatever it is.' So, here's the
thing, people of the world, SWAYBONE's message is here to help everybody get a
taste of a kind of music or a kind of message that's not totally about the ego.
Of course it's always ... I'm an ego, so I'm still doing it & I'm still
wrong, but at least because of my response to my teacher I can give you, the
people, a message, that I hope, will be more liberating for you, that will give
you spiritual nourishment, that will give you a capacity to want to be
realized, to want to be free of your suffering, of your
self-contraction.
AJ: I have to ask, you know don't take this the wrong
way or anything, it's just a curiosity, with all the people you've shared
SWAYBONE with or have come to your concerts, whatever, seen you perform, etc.,
I'm sure many of them don't really know Adi Da like you know him, or maybe they
do or maybe they don't. In regards to what you've just said about sharing his
message & this feeling that you're getting has there ever been any negative
reaction? Or have you ever had anyone say to you 'Gosh, Theo, if you'd only do
the boy/girl songs again.' Has that ever happened?
THEO: Yes.
Absolutely.
AJ: Yes! Okay!
THEO: For example, back in 2007 I had
a different band line-up & my drummer at the time was saying "Theo, would
you please just back off on this Adi Da stuff, it's just not cool. It's, you
know, gonna alienate people. You know this is too religious. This is a guru,
what are you doing?" You know a lot of people are anti-guru.
AJ: Yeah,
yeah.
THEO: Then in another instance I actually got a job as a
songwriter & a guitarist/singer in a Christian rock band for a period of
time. 3 of the songs that I wrote for Adi Da got included in the set list for
this Christian band. The leader of the band really liked my voice, really liked
my ... the vibe, you know. & there's so many parts of the message about Adi
Da that kind of sound like you might be talking about Jesus Christ.
AJ:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
THEO: Or you might be talking about God in some
general sense. & he loved that. It's like he got it. He responded to it,
but then, somewhere down the line, something changed & he suddenly became
intolerant & it was like 'Okay, Theo, you can't be in this band
anymore.'
AJ: You've got the wrong god there, Theo, you're not on the
same page that we are.
THEO: Exactly!
AJ: Well, let me ask,
though, as you've brought this up, has it been ... well, let me first ask, are
your fellow musicians in SWAYBONE are they devotees?
THEO: Right now I am the only devotee, but we are pretty multi-denominational.
AJ: It's a nice even flow
across the spectrum. Has it been difficult finding musicians, though, when they
find out what you're about? Do they go 'Oh, you know, I don't really want to
play that music.' Have you had that happen other than the drummer you just
mentioned?
THEO: Yeah, it also happened with the guitar player at that
same time & it's happened maybe another time or two after that, so
...
AJ: How do you deal with that, Theo? Cause on some level it's almost
like a personal attack, but yet it's not. How do you ... cause you're just
playing music. Music, you know, soothes the savage beast. It unites all of us.
How do you respond to that?
THEO: I usually cry when my bandmates leave
me. A bandmate is like an attachment or a marriage & there's no way to
avoid that for me. I get emotionally attached & whenever a bandmate rejects
me or rejects the band or rejects Adi Da it's pretty heart-breaking.
AJ:
Obviously, you can understand the point of view of where they're coming from.
Like you said earlier a lot of people are afraid of this idea of a guru even if
they don't know even who the guru is. It's just a bad response there. It's not
your fault or even Adi Da's fault. It comes from something that's beyond this,
so you can understand it, but I'm sure it is distraught.
THEO: Yeah.
It's just that I made a decision that I felt that taking this path, being open
about Adi Da in rock music was something nobody else had done except, you might
find this interesting, have you heard of the band LIVE?
AJ: I have & probably some of my listeners have.
THEO: They were one of those bands
that had a fairly large amount of success in the grunge movement & their
lead singer Ed Kowalczyk, as it turns, is or was a devotee of Adi Da. &
when they were making their album The Distance To Here Adi Da was
personally involved with Ed on the lyric direction & the art &
everything about that album. & it was very successful. But, when I looked
at the lyrics on that album I felt like I could barely discern anything about
Adi Da in those lyrics & it just seems so vague.
AJ: I will agree
with you.
THEO: I love the album & I think it's great, but it wasn't
satisfying to me at the level of 'Come on, if you love Adi Da, if you recognize
who he is, just say it straight.' & he wasn't willing or able to do that
for whatever reason, but maybe he sort of paved the way for SWAYBONE to kind of
go to that next step. Of all the devotees in the world that make music that I'm
familiar with I couldn't find a single one, except for Jacqueline Clemons, who
wrote an original song with original lyrics that were a response to Adi Da in
an explicit way. So, I felt a little bit lonely, like "Why? Why aren't more
artists & musicians explicitly referencing Adi Da in their art." Because I
will tell you, Aaron, since becoming a devotee my music has unfolded &
bloomed beyond my wildest expectations & two happened & changed
primarily. One is that, as you see, the lyrics changed & suddenly I started
writing better songs. Now, I don't know if there's a connection there, but I
had a big problem writing a good song. I'd been writing for years & it was
almost a little bit like "I'm not really in love with almost any of my songs
& it's really hard to write one good catchy song!"
AJ: & it's
important to be in love with the song as you've got to like what you're
doing.
THEO: You've got to like what you're doing so you can sell it,
you know. & I would make song after song, demo after demo. We made two
albums before I was a devotee & they're pretty good, but I'm not playing
those songs today. I noticed that my songwriting flourished after becoming a
devotee. But, here's another thing. I had a problem as a singer. I had to
strain in my voice in my upper range. I didn't feel like I'd caught my niche as
a singer. After becoming a devotee Adi Da was describing something about the
devotional process when you're turning to the guru & you do this moment to
moment, you're always turning to the guru every moment, the top of your head
it's supposed to be like an open flower or an open cup because the guru
descends from above spiritually & comes down through the top of the head,
down the front of your body & it goes down to the genital base, turns
around & comes back up, goes up to the infinity above. That aspect of the
practice became more & more real to me & then I noticed it started to
affect my singing. Because, if my head is open to the all above my throat,
synuses, my head, my whole resonant, you know, headspace was starting to
change, starting to transform. I got, I was given, I guess, this ability to
sing in a whole new way where instead of trying to strain to reach the notes I
was open to receiving the notes & instead of trying to push the message out
of me like self-expression I was opening my head & singing from above.
& it changed fundamentally what I do & it sounds so much better. & I
could relax while I was singing & be even more powerful than I ever was
before. & so, suddenly, I feel like "Oh, I can sing better. I can write
songs better. Thank you, Adi Da. Thank you, guru." I felt it was his direct
grace that enabled me to do that & to have such inspirational content.
People, artists, listen! Come up here! Get with Adi Da, consider his teaching
because it could make your art better!
AJ: Are you saying, Theo, Adi Da was your music teacher?
THEO: Yes. Yes. He said something very
interesting. He said, somebody said "Bhagavan, you know you don't really play
an instrument". He did actually play a digeridoo, a ukelele & a tamboura.
But he said, "I'm letting other people be my vehicle for playing music." So, I
felt like, "I'm signing up for that. Bhagavan, go ahead, use me as your
instrument. I want to do that." I want to be an instrument for him to be able
to come through me & it just feels better then me trying like do it through
creature efforts alone, you know, to sing & be powerful, be a big rock epic
performer, you know.
AJ: You were just talking about some of the
challenges you faced before becoming a devotee, like the first couple albums
SWAYBONE did. Has there been any big musical challenges that you've had to face
& work through since or after becoming a devotee?
THEO: The big
challenge is that I've got so much good material I don't know what to do with
it all.
AJ: Well, that's a really tough challenge, Theo! Boy, that's a
tough one! Which is a great segueway ... what is on the agenda for the band?
What are you working on or what are you going to be doing?
THEO: Okay,
what's on the agenda for the band is to finish Life On Earth the 11 song
album & hopefully get it done by the end of May. You know this is my
greatest masterpiece that I've ever done. This is the first album where I feel
like all the song from beginning to end are A list songs that I feel completely
convicted by, that I can sing for the rest of my life with complete, you know,
conviction, & I can sell these songs & be an advocate for this record
for the rest of my life. & then make another record after it, because we've
got a whole bunch of songs in the queue so that we can make the next one, you
know, as good as this one. & then we've got a couple shows coming up on the
west coast in June. One of which, on June 11th, is at the University of
California at Berkeley in a ballroom that has a capacity of a 1000 people &
that's the biggest show I've ever been a part of.
AJ:
Excellent.
THEO: Basically, what's on the agenda is to promote this
album, get some recognition, build our fanbase, go on tour, open for bigger
bands & get successful enough that we can accomplish 2 fundamental goals.
One is to support the band financially through the band's success. & B to
get at least 10 million people exposed to our music, so that they would at
least get a chance to hear Adi Da's name, see a picture of Adi Da, see some of
his art & hear about the book Not-Two Is Peace.
AJ:
Excellent. Would you mind, what is Not-Two Is Peace? What's that
about?
THEO: Not-Two Is Peace is a book where Adi Da describes
his plan for world peace, that you might say is his most overtly political
book. It's the book where he described a new way for the whole human race to
govern itself based on cooperation, tolerance & peace. & it's also
about making a fundamental transition in human civilation from an ego based
civilization to a prior unity based civilization & I am so down with
that.
AJ: Excellent, excellent. I'm curious, Theo, I mentioned a
similiar question earlier but as you were talking this one came to my head. A
lot of the music that has been presented to Adi Da & a lot of music that
shares his teaching is traditional music, Indian or classical or
improvisational or something, & you're doing something with a hard rock
edge. Have you had anyone in the community go 'God, I don't know about that.
Or, I'm sure this isn't, I don't know, this is too heavy.' Have you had any
inside response where you've had to go 'No, wait a minute, it's just music
after all.' You know what I'm asking?
THEO: Absolutely & the answer
is yes. Sadly, there's been backlash within the community on the part of some
individuals who said "You know you can't perform a SWAYBONE song at a devotee
event."
AJ: Even though music is music?
THEO: Yeah, but again,
for whatever reason that was the response at one time. On the other hand,
there's a devotee friend of mine named Daniel whose an actor & who also has
a band named GOD'S END. & he is an actor in one of Adi Da's theater plays
called The Mummery.
AJ: An excellent show, by the
way.
THEO: & his band GOD'S END is also a rock band that has lyrical
response to Adi Da, maybe in not as overt way as I'm doing. But, that
individual Daniel has a been a big support actually in encouraging me to keep
doing this.
AJ: Well, Theo, I personally wish you a lot of luck across
the board, both in terms of just your own musical success with the band with
the same with what any other band aims for, but also your, I guess for lack of
a better term, your missionary work in sharing Adi Da's message. So you have my
support & best wishes for both of those things.
THEO: Thank you so
much, Aaron, that's very positive. I appreciate that.
AJ: Postive vibes
here. We're getting near ...
THEO: Can I give one plug?
AJ: Yeah,
go ahead, I actually wanted to say we're getting near the end of the show so,
please, if there's anything you want to go for, Theo, now's the
time.
THEO: Okay. I didn't want to give the mistaken impression that
there's no other artists who are doing an explicit Adi Da message right now.
There is one other artist who has a rap song called "Ego Death". She has
written some of the finest lyrics about Adi Da, in response to his wisdom.
& it just so happens that she's my wife, Bunnybunns. & she's a rap
artist & she's pursuing a music career in L.A. right now & I'm living
part time in L.A. to do the same thing. But, if you are interested go to
bunnybunns dot net & check out her song "Ego Death".
AJ: Excellent,
excellent, excellent. Always nice to mention the wife, too.
THEO: Ah,
yes!
AJ: Theo, like I said, we're getting down to the last few minutes.
Like I said, as before, I wish you the best & I have to say I really
appreciate you spending this hour with me tonight.
THEO: & I
appreciate it very much too, Aaron, & it went too quickly & you're
definetly on the vanguard for bringing me out to the world & bringing
SWAYBONE. Thank you so much.
AJ: I actually appreciate your honesty,
too, & you're talking to hundreds of people & sharing something that
is, on one hand, it's very personal, but yet it can speak to a big audience
& it's not personal at all & everyone can relate to it. So, I
appreciate your candid nature. That's what I want when I have a guest. Someone
who wants to share & really is passionate about what they're talking about
too.
THEO: Right on. Thank you, Aaron.
