Acclaimed as one of the best rock albums for many a moon, 'Buzz' by GUARDIAN put the band with production maestro Steve Taylor. Tony Cummings reports.

"And what's weird about that song, too," adds Tony, before we can all laugh too hard, "is that Steve just thought that was such a special song musically, and I've never spent longer on a song trying to get a guitar sound. I went through 20 different amps, every guitar that I had about twice, and different configurations. And Steve was just, 'Okay, that sound is too crooked. Okay, that's not.' And it was so weird, because he was just looking for a character that would jump out. And man, I'm telling you, we spent like three days trying to get a sound for just that one song. And with him it was just an intangible thing. When he heard it, he said, 'That's it! Okay, let's cut it,' and that was it."

Other songs were less introspective and more investigative of the culture around them, such as "Psychedelic Runaway", which reflects a trend that has returned to junior high school campuses in America. "It's a crunchy pop song that sounded kinda Cheap Trick-ish when I started writing it," reveals Tony. "I started thinking about the concept, like how it wasn't just 30, 40 and 50 year-olds going to Grateful Dead concerts before Jerry Garcia died. There were teenagers again going to Dead concerts, and re-experiencing it. And Lollapolooza, and all those things..."

"Pot and acid are coming back," adds David, "and they're recycling some of the ideas we should've already learned didn't work then."

"It's like that whole concept: 'It happened in the '60s, it still happens today.' We shouldn't be surprised, I guess," says Tony, "but it just really bothers me that young people just haven't learned. But it also shows that young people are still searching. They're still looking for something to fill that hole, you know, that void in their life, with acceptance and discovery. It's on the rise again. That's basically what that song deals with."

With songs dealing with issues like depression, conviction and the struggle with faithfulness, 'Buzz' will continue to reach Guardian's audiences, whether they be within the church or outside of it. The band doesn't pretend to attract the same audience as some of its Christian music counterparts but carries a burden for the kinds of kids that may be reached at a Guardian concert.

"Maybe it's a rock 'n' roll thing," David says, "but I'll get guys coming up to me and saying, 'You know, man, I just can't quit smoking pot. I just became a Christian, but do you really think it's wrong to smoke dope?' And those are questions that Steven Curtis Chapman probably doesn't get as much as we do. Tony was just counselling this one guy recently who was involved in an affair with a married woman, and he was trying to justify it to Tony... We just deal with a lot of stuff like that."

"Rock 'n' roll's definitely going to draw the more 'fringe' type of people," Tony explains. "I really believe that there are different parts of the musical body. I toured with Michael W Smith, and I saw what he was able to do. He had a different kind of a thing than what Guardian can do because of how big he was. Guardian has a different kind of thing that what he can do because he isn't able to have the same kind of one-on-one contact. I believe God has different bands in different places. We always have people coming up to us and saying, 'You guys should be huge!' And in the back of our minds we're thinking how that would be great. I'd love to sell half a million or a million records. But then that changes everything - how you're perceived, what you do, where you play - the whole thing. We've talked about this before, and I asked myself, 'What if, for the season that Guardian plays, this is where He has us because of the one-on-one contact we have with these kids?

"I can imagine girls writing to Amy Grant and saying, 'My dad molested me,'" Tony continues. "I can imagine that because she's a woman, and they can relate to her. But I get it all the time. I have all these young girls and guys coming up to me and telling me things I can't believe. I just wouldn't think they'd go to the guitar player of a Christian rock band to confide in and ask advice for all these things.

"So, sure I'd like to grow and be able to do all those things we've thought about, but we always have to think about the fact that it's not just what we want to do, but it's out of obedience to God that we be where He wants us to be in order to do His purpose."

Tony Cummings worships at the Kings, Tavistock and would like to acknowledge material previously published in HM and CCM magazines.