Originally Published in HM Magazine
August 2014
When I first worked with Tommy Green on a professional level, I met him in an alley parking lot behind a popular bar in Austin. It was the first day of the music portion of South by Southwest, and Sleeping Giant was scheduled to headline this magazine’s showcase. He was huddled around his bandmates, the group trying to figure out where their instruments were when I approached him. I was actually taking a mild guess it was him; I could only see this dude from behind, and the aura Sleeping Giant carries is so unassuming, it’s easy to misplace them as dudes hanging out in an alley behind a pub.
Green sports cutoff jean shorts, Chuck Taylor kicks and a quarter-length baseball tee, but the major difference here is probably that Green didn’t mean to be hipster at all. He probably cut off the jeans because he got hot, wears high-top Converse because they’re affordable and the baseball tee is that of his band’s and he might not have any clean shirts left.
That difference in intention is what makes Sleeping Giant, the band he fronts, so genuine. “Normal,” as Green would have it described. “We try to be as normal about the things we believe as we can be.” Unlike normal, when Green goes to work, he goes to a stage. He goes to a place where, when he’s in his element, he’s unstoppable. I’ve seen him make Sleeping Giant play the same song three full times because it’s what he was led to do. I’ve seen him baptize people from the stage using bottled water left there by the festival staff. I’ve seen him stay after the show and pray with every person who wants it and I’ve watched him not leave until the last person has been met with one-on-one.
You kind of want to be him. You want to have his conviction; it’s infectious. Their fans aren’t just dedicated; they’re ravenously passionate and habitually die-hard, an outspoken choir of gatherers that treat Sleeping Giant performances as worship services.
Talking to him tonight, he’s at home with his wife in Salt Lake City, and he’s just as raw, unfiltered, and energetic as he is on stage. He buzzes like a neon tube. It’s another indicator that out of the overflow of his heart, his mouth speaks. And, lately, he’s been speaking a lot about prison.
He wants to go there.
Where was your heart, and how did you want to relay that message when writing Finished People?
Honestly, we almost broke up. We almost didn’t make it before this record came out. There were big changes. Amazing people, some of my closest friends — (former bandmates) Eric Gregson and J.R. Bermuda — out of the mix in the last couple years, stuff getting harder and harder to do on our own.
We thought it would just be hard to make tours happen. We all had families, that kind of thing going on. There were a lot of grown-up demands, really good demands: ministry, family, normal stuff at home. We almost didn’t make it because both Eric and J.R., initially, were like, “I can’t do this anymore. It’s not the way I would like to.” I still had a heart to keep going.
That was really hard. … There’s this song on the record called “Violence.” It features Levi the Poet, and it’s about how the kingdom suffers. That’s initially where my heart was, but I started writing years ago, probably in 2012. I saw a documentary about Russian prisons and the eastern European prison system. In the documentary, this dude gets interviewed. He says, in essence, “The people on the outside — when they look at us, the people in these prisons — they call us finished people.” I remember just crying. I didn’t know why. I just started crying, thinking about being totally given up on. To still have maybe 30, 40, 50 years left, but according to society, you’re just done. There’s no value for who you are. I was really struck by it. I just started crying and writing about it.
In Matthew 25, Jesus was like, “I was sick, I was hungry, I was in prison. Nobody came to visit me,” that whole thing. That’s where my heart was when I started writing. In the midst of it, I wanted to write about enduring. I really felt like our relationships — even in the band — were really strained. I told them, “I still want to keep going, but I don’t want to lose you guys as friends. I don’t want to ruin what you guys have helped to build. I don’t want to wreck what we’ve done together. I don’t want to just put out a record to put out a record. I still have a vision for this doing something.”
We’re nobodies. There are a billion other Christian bands. There are a ton of other people who have more credibility — even more favor — and they tour more than we do. Who are we? I still had something in my heart to keep going. We hurt each other’s feelings in the process, and we had to fight through it, so the record was going to be about enduring, trying to stand strong, even when you suffer.
Then, in the midst of the recording process with Andrew Glover in California, I was telling Andrew about the documentary. As we were recording that song, “Finished People,” he said, “The record should be called Finished People.” I was like, “You think?” He’s like, “That is so good, man.”
I was in one place, so it took a different direction in the midst of the recording as we got to putting everything together. It’s a long answer, but that’s where I was at. That’s where the band was at.
That’s actually a really good answer.
That’s where the title came from. It’s the concept that we’re all finished people. Without the Lord, we’re all gone. If you’ve been saved, you already feel like that: “Who would I be without Jesus?” For real. I think that’s the thing. We’re all finished people. We’re all dead. By the grace of God, we’ve been given a second chance for a new life. We’ve been able to enter into this new birth. Now, we have hope.
That’s a strong thing, especially because of the scene we’re a part of. In hardcore culture, metal culture — in general, people admire prison culture (laughs).
“Who we really are is extremely powerful, but when we give our power over to our job — or someone else or we feel victimized by circumstances or when we start losing what Jesus paid to give us — that’s when we struggle.”
Tommy Green
Vocalist, Sleeping Giant
Everything about it. It’s a fantasy, almost.
That’s the thing going. If you’re not free in your thought processes, if you haven’t been given the freedom of the Holy Spirit to control yourself, you’re going to be a slave to something else.
Looking at the people of the world, we call them finished. They’re locked up, and we forget about them. They’re the bad guys.
Really, there’s a whole generation of people, and they’re still enslaved. They’re totally in bondage. They even want that, on some level. It’s the hypocrisy of a world in bondage to all sorts of things, but looking down on outcasts or those outside a societal norm.
A dude in prison that has the Holy Spirit within him is more free than some dude that’s not in jail that doesn’t know Jesus. I fully believe that. It’s an extension of the concept of admiring prison culture. We want to be in jail. We love it. Not to be stupid, but that’s where I was: “Who’s really free?” For the person that loves Jesus, the Holy Spirit gives them the ability to be in charge of his or her self. I can control myself now.
I’m a total nerd. You ask that type of question, you’re going to get a dude talking in circles and crying.
It’s funny you mention prison culture. If you’ll humor me for a second, I just went through my first training course to minister to prisoners. I was a drinker, and a lot of times I felt abandoned, so I drank. I’m sure you’ve felt abandoned. I think a number of kids in our culture feel abandoned. They gravitate to the other people that feel abandoned. I always thought to myself, “Now that I got a hold of it, I want to go help.” Theoretically, prison is a form of rehabilitation, a rehabilitation of the spirit. It’s touchy because, like you said, “the world” writes them off .
I can see night-and-day prayer, worship, healing, miracles, signs and wonders, a drop in gang violence, an increase in unity and health — all in prison, because the power of God hit it. I’d love to see that happen all over the nation, where it’s almost like revival. Where, for some reason, there is such a radical drop in crime, alcoholism and drug use.
I believe that anyone who gives up on someone in jail, they don’t have the heart of God. They don’t have the mind of Christ. Jesus wouldn’t do that.
It’s not just physical jail. There are so many metaphorical jails.
Yeah. Alcoholism, sexual abuse and addiction, perversion, immorality, popularity, fear of man, all of this stuff. The Apostle Paul said, “Whoever sins becomes a slave of sin.” My friend, Eric, told me that a stronghold is a lie you believe that protects you from the truth. There are a number of strongholds we all walk around; we don’t want to see the truth, completely.
You’re right. Tons of metaphors, even if you’re not a Christian. Is there stuff in your life you actually feel like runs you? That’s where you feel like you’re a slave to something. You will be a slave to anything that dictates how you live, what’s going to control your thoughts.
Some people would argue their job — commercialism, corporate culture — would “run” them, and it prevents them from being free. Not everybody is called to do what you do.
Absolutely.
Photos by Kyle Lehman for HM Magazine. Reproduced with permission from HM Magazine.