The curious tale of the luxury group, which escaped tragedy and embraced faith: NPR

The Luxury rock band began as in many other punk and indie bands in the 1990s, when students were just trying to make music with other people. Their cultural context was less common: they came from the small Georgian town of Toccoa, in a resolutely evangelical environment. Although the members were Christians, they often found that the places and retailers in this community did not know what to do with their words and presence on stage.

However, the Luxury star began to make itself known as early as 1995, with an expanding audience and nationwide touring projects. Then comes a bitter failure: On the way back from the festival, the group's tour van was involved in a life-threatening traffic accident, hitting the median and turning several times. Members suffered serious injuries, including more than one fracture in the neck, but survived and recovered.

Today, the band continues to make music, but there is another peculiarity: three members are also Eastern Orthodox priests. Their story is captured in the new documentary Parallel Love: the story of a group called luxury. Renee Mountain, of NPR, has been talking to director Matt Hinton, who joined Luxury in 1999 as a guitarist, and bassist Christopher Foley.

Highlights of the interview

On the improbable formation of the group

Hinton: I was not in the group at that time, but seen from the outside, what I saw, it is four people with very different influences. This kind of thing could only have formed a group in this context: in this small southern town of the & # 39; In the 90s, in this Christian school, they were sort of the only non-mainstream rock-and-roll guys. The drummer was in heavy metal and classic rock. The singer, Lee, was in The Smiths and that sort of thing. You had Father Chris, who is more in punk rock, and especially in Dc songs like Fugazi and Rites of Spring. And then Jamey, who is a kind of alternative guitarist. So these four guys had nothing to do in a group. And for me, that's what sets it apart.

On the 1995 car accident that disrupted their careers

Foley: Lee [had] A few days when he was in the intensive care unit, and they did not know too much he was going to get out of it, his internal injuries were so severe. It was just a terrible tragic accident. … Initially, the group was put on hold a little; Once everyone started healing, we just kept doing what we had done, getting together as soon as we could start writing music again. I think it was maybe a few years later [that] we began to realize how much it affected us and to change our trajectory. The celebrity, the fortune and the dream of living this rock star life are beginning to fade and what has become more important is our families.

On the current relationship of members with religion

Foley: I think that what first attracted me to the punk-rock scene, is this authenticity: people who come together, react against the evils of the world and want to change things. But the Christianity I belonged to while I was at university was just playing, in a sense, a note, and I longed for an agreement. I suppose you can not get more counter-culture than to join an old Christian tradition. And so, the more I discovered of the ancient Eastern Christian faith, it resonated deeply.

We would never dream of having a rock-and-roll liturgy or something like that. … But we also live in this world and we are products of our culture. And in a sense, what I liked about Orthodoxy was that it erased distinctions and dichotomies between the sacred and the profane. You know, we are trying to find a way to bring God among our talents by using them and offering them.

Hinton: The film is calling Parallel love, [because] you have two different trajectories that are parallel. This is not exactly the story of introducing rock and roll into Orthodoxy. They are people of faith who lead an authentic life and do what they feel good to do.