Daiana Feuer on August 13th, 2015

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In 2010, roommates Will Wadsworth and Jeremy Horton started inviting friends over to jam on gospel songs at parties in their living room. What began as a social thing for people looking to wail and sing the Lord’s praises soon began sounding so good they took it out of the house and into music venues. Forget church, this band decided to bring gospel into the indie spectrum. Kim Garcia, Jeff Murray and a few others came to form the core of the ensemble.

They were pleased to find that Los Angeles, an eclectic spiritual haven of all and no religion, truly embraced the fun, passionate rock ’n’ roll approach taken by the Eagle Rock Gospel Singers, as they came to be called. The band has finally released their first full-length album, “Heavenly Fire,” a rocking, modern approach to traditional music, and are embarking beyond the confines of their neighborhood into the big bad world. We’re pretty sure they’ll walk into a big enthusiastic “Amen” wherever they go — and if not, they have a song with that title.

You’ve played a lot in Los Angeles but you’re about to stretch out nationally for the first time, right?

Jeff Murray: I think the farthest we’ve gone is San Diego and Santa Barbara. Right now we’re in Oregon and this is the farthest we’ve been from L.A. And then in the fall we are going all over, as far as Washington, D.C., and winding up at Austin City Limits.

What are you looking forward to about playing a large festival?

Will Wadsworth: We feel like people will dig it as much as we dig it, hopefully. That’s the goal. To share the fun with as many people as we can. We’re going to be ourselves and do our thing. We love what we’re doing.

How familiar were you with gospel and roots music history before getting in this band? Did you have to take a crash course in the who’s and what’s of gospel?

Will Wadsworth: A few of us came into the band already familiar with gospel music from the ’30s and ’40s and ’50s. People like Washington Phillips and Sister Rosetta and Mahalia Jackson, the Louvin Brothers, Bill Monroe. We also are into the Alan Lomax recordings, the back-porch gospel. We’ve covered Sacred Heart, Woodie Guthrie. We’ve covered everything running the gamut of American gospel music from the turn of the century to the 1960s when you hit the Staple Singers. They’re one of our favorites too. We love it all.

Jeff Murray: It’s a broad spectrum. Will, Jeremy and Kim were really familiar with gospel music history. And soul music like Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, Stax Records, all that good stuff. Everyone has a background and history with different kinds of old music.

But the new album is all originals?

Jeff Murray: Right. It’s all originals written by different members of the band.

||| Stream: “Little Light”

Did you make an effort to take a modern approach to the songwriting process?

Jeff Murray: I think we’re trying to stay as true as possible to the gospel songwriting style but still bringing our modern influences. For example ,we worked with Matt Wignall, who produced for Cold War Kids and Deep Sea Diver,  and he brought his touch to the sound of our music. We’re hoping to bring a modern twist while staying true to the roots.

I think when the fiddle and electric guitar come together on songs, that brings out some more modern moments.

Will Wadsworth: There’s a little bit of that on “Heavenly Fire.” The violin player and electric guitar kind of wailing and sliding into each other and veering off together. We listen to everything. We love David Bowie. We sometimes love hip-hop. The Beatles and The Stones. We listen to a lot of modern music and that comes into the songs. And we recorded analog so that gave the recordings a warmer, older sound. Wignall is really good at that.

You took a cool approach to mic-ing the vocals.

Jeff Murray: Yeah, some of the group vocals we did a horseshoe around one mic and tried to do it in one take, not a lot of overdubbing going on. We would double those tracks to give it a fuller sound. On some songs we actually had a bunch of friends singing at once. “MMLJ” had a bunch of singers in the room at the same time, probably seven or eight people.

||| Stream: “MMLJ”

There’s a stigma that religious singers are prude. Do you encounter that? Are you sinners, saints or something in between?

Jeremy Horton: I’m a Christian but I’m a regular guy. I don’t consider myself prude by any means. I don’t think the stigma towards being Christian is as big of a deal as people might think.

Will Wadsworth: I think we’re all something in between. I definitely would not call myself a saint by any measure unless we’re totally kidding. We love the music we do. I’m a proud Christian, but through this music I just want to share something exciting and fun. People will respond to that on a level that’s purely about the music, and other people will respond to the music and the message. Before I was a Christian I gravitated towards gospel music because it was the most punk rock thing you could listen to in one sense of it. If you listen to some of that early gospel, it’s all screaming and shouting and fierce dirty blues-driven guttural music. That struck a chord with me as a kid and still does today. That transcends age, ethnic, racial and religious boundaries. And that’s what amazing about it.

I’m a proud Christian, but through this music I just want to share something exciting and fun. People will respond to that on a level that’s purely about the music, and other people will respond to the music and the message. — Will Wadsworth

These songs require you give your all to perform them but would you say there’s something about this music that lends itself to accessing an emotional cathartic performance?

Kim Garcia: I didn’t sing this way ever! It’s been a really new thing for me. I mean, I was in choir in high school. Now we’re doing a lot of screaming and shouting and I’ve never done that before. It’s been like a release every time we play. It is a cathartic experience, I’d say. Singing this way takes a lot out of you in a good way.

Will Wadsworth: I think the music does lend itself to a sort of serious desperate crying out and pulling everything you’ve got and putting it out on the table. This kind of music has traditionally been a very honest experience to the point of being passionately violent. Some of my favorite gospel is really intense. It’s a cool vehicle for us to be able to let it all out there.

||| Stream: “Heavenly Fire”

What are some of the interesting risks musically or recording-wise that went into the album, “Heavenly Fire?”

Will Wadsworth: One of the risks is that we are recording to tape. You only have so many attempts before you ruin the tape or make the producer angry. We had to practice to get the songs down in one take. The vast majority of the instrumentation was done in a single live take, which took more preparation. So that’s a risk. If you screw it up, you just wasted your money and time.

Jeff Murray: I think it was a lot of fun to record this way and challenge ourselves. We all had a blast.

Kim Garcia: Another risk is that we might call ourselves a choir and we’re not a regular choir at all. It’s more a rock and roll band with multiple singers. There’s electric guitar and a full band.

Will Wadsworth: People hear that we are gospel music and automatically make assumptions. We’re going to shake up those expectations.

||| Live: The Eagle Rock Gospel Singers celebrate their album release with a show tonight at the Echo.