Jennifer Knapp - Back To Basics

Popular Christian singer/songwriter Jennifer Knapp on coming out, losing a couple fans, and finding happiness.

Jennifer Knapp made a name for herself with "Undo Me" from her hit first album, Kansas, in 1998. Her raw guitar and vocal range call to mind Melissa Etheridge or Melissa Ferrick; the major difference between 36-year-old Knapp and these well-known lesbian folk crooners is that "Undo Me" is about God and Christianity.

"It's time / To get down on my knees and pray / 'Lord, undo me!' / Put away my flesh and bone / 'Til You own this spirit through me Lord, / Undo me," Knapp sings. Much of her early work follows the theme of utilizing music to send a message about Christianity. A largely Christian fan base quickly followed her rise to fame as she released her second album, Lay It Down, in 2000 and her third, The Way I Am, in 2001. The pressure of an intense tour schedule forced her off the road and onto a hiatus in 2002; the same year she started a relationship with her female partner. It wasn't until April of this year that Knapp came out publicly and made her return to the music world with the May release of her newest album, Letting Go.

Prior to her Sept. 2 show in Boston at Caf� 939, Bay Windows sat down with Knapp to discuss her new tour, her evolving faith, and coming out in the Christian music community. The Kansas/Australia transplant's voice slips from a Midwestern lilt occasionally into an Outback drawl that's reflected in her Letting Go. Her voice has deepened in the past decade, and her newest tracks seem to embody a maturity and control over both her music and, one can assume, her personal life.

Bay Windows: What would you say the message of your new album is?

Jennifer Knapp: I think one of the pervading themes is dealing with the fact of me getting back into art, getting back into music. There are a few things on it, knowing I was going to have to kind of run the gauntlet of my Christian fanbase, dealing with the fact that I came out as a lesbian. ...There's a song on there about my grandfather that kind of shows his perseverance and that we continue to persevere despite the ironies of our lives.

BW: Do you feel like you have a different fanbase since coming out?

JK: I don't think so...I think the fanbase that I've had has been largely people that I connect with intellectually and once we get together, we're in the concert setting, you really get to talk to people...it's that same kind of environment that we kind of tend to think about the deeper parts of ourselves. The way that I tend to write music is kind of psychological and deeply personal. It tends to bring those kinds of people out to my shows. There's a faith factor to it. There are people, you know, obviously, that come from a very strong religious background, but I think one of the things that I'm really enjoying is just the fact that people come in with their spiritual nature from all walks of life end up showing up. It's not just the Christianity in the past. ...I'm really appreciating that at the end of the day, it's a conversation you have with people over a like subject or a like commonality that you kind of find a reason to sing the same song. It's really interesting.

BW: I read that you've been in a relationship with a woman since 2002. What made you decide to come out publicly this year?

JK: It mostly had to do with the fact that I had on the surface what would appear to be an extremely conservative fan base, because of the fact that I'm largely known within the Christian music industry. The records that I've released in the past have largely centered around talking solely about Christianity. There are a couple of reasons why I thought it was really important to let [my sexuality] be known. I knew there were people who weren't going to buy my record just simply based on that fact alone. I also thought it was really important we get the word out that this record wasn't necessarily a record about my faith as well. ...When I started getting back into the music scene, what people wanted to talk about is, 'Has she lost her faith? Because of the fact that she's partnered with a woman, has she turned into some kind of freak?' I just think it was part of the natural, ongoing, organic conversation in kind of keeping the vulnerable faith that a lot of my music and a lot of the conversations and the people are drawn to it really need. You kind of have to give up a little bit of your own vulnerability and be quite honest with where you're at. It's not like I wanted to necessarily make a conversation with this record about my personal relationships, but I also knew on the other hand that that was going to show up, and I didn't really want to see something that we hedged around and didn't really talk about.

BW: Was there a backlash from the Christian music community after you came out?

JK: Yeah, sure there was backlash. ...There's the attitude that retailers and radio stations won't play any of my past work. That's a pretty obvious backlash. There was a general, like, agitated conversation that somewhat gets a bad rap with Christianity and homosexuality, but it's been pretty predictable. By and large, I was really prepared for that, but what I wasn't prepared for was just the amount of positive conversation that has started just from me being honest with who I am. ...You know, that set process of vulnerability when you begin to share what you've been through or to share your own story when you get enough courage to share it. You start finding out that other people are going through the same thing or through the same processes. That's the part I didn't really anticipate, was just how positive that experience has been for me and just how mostly at the end of the day, people are just really happy that I'm happy and at peace. It's a rare thing to feel like you've been able to find somebody that you can love and share your life with no matter what context that comes in. That's been the amazing part so far. Not necessarily the bad stuff, but the overwhelmingly good stuff.

BW: Has your faith evolved since coming out?

JK: I think it's had to a little bit, or a lot really, in the sense that on the surface -- especially right now, the climate in America, there's definitely a huge conversation going on right now as to accepting the morality and the religious acceptance of people who are in the LGBT category and whether or not they can continue on their lines of faith. I've certainly had to go through that process myself, privately, and with that when you really get to the bottom of it...like, can I be a person of faith and yet have what everyone else tells me is this amazing disqualification? You have to go through that process and wonder if you really are disqualified from being a spiritual person and being a person capable of love when there are people outside saying that you can't do that, that you're in some way flawed or mistaken in who you are. It's not the first time around I've had an experience when it comes to my faith. There are all sorts of issues that I've kind of had to pass, and this is just another one of them that makes it a challenge and it's a beautiful challenge, as well.

BW: Has your music evolved since coming out?

JK: It hasn't really evolved that much except for...because I'm not writing within the scope of just writing about Christianity, it's given me a whole world of things to be able to write candidly about. ...There's a process when you're trying to write for a specific church or a specific congregation, certain things that are a little bit taboo to talk about, or difficult or...it's kind of a funny thing. In terms of popular music, what you're trying to do -- or at least what I'm trying to do -- is write a song or a piece of music that can be entered into and shared with a lot of different people. It was certainly a challenge of doing that in Christian music, considering the fact that there's 34,000 different Christian denominations in the world. Everybody practices a different way. The nuances and how they go about that are different.

I think the thing that I've experienced in not necessarily writing for that audience in particular is feeling like I can be a lot more candid and not have to worry about whether or not I'll face the criticism of a particular viewpoint of faith, but rather approach it from a different angle. I just feel like I have the opportunity to speak very candidly without the repercussions of feeling like I'm falling out with a particular denomination or church or a group.

BW: I read that you went on a hiatus in 2002 because of a stressful touring schedule.

JK: Yeah, [that] kind of centers around some of the things that I'm talking about. Was I going to continue to write for just the same people? I don't mean this to disparage the past work that I've done, or the Christian music industry, but there's a certain point where I'd write songs that people...they'd go, 'Oh you can't really...that doesn't fit on this record. You can't sing about that here.' I think as my faith was evolving, some of the harder things that I wanted to question and not really feeling like I had the avenue or the place to do it was getting increasingly difficult on top of just the fact that I had no personal place at all. I was on the road 200 days a year for about three or four years, and just didn't really have time to contemplate the things that actually inspire you to creativity in the first place. The questions and the questioning of the human experience and even at that point...I kind of felt like I had to step back. At that point I kind of thought I had destroyed the whole thing and that I wouldn't be able to do it anymore at all.

BW: Does this tour feel different?

JK: You know, it's like a lot of things in life. You do something repetitively -- over and over and over again -- and you forget the joy of what you initially started to do in the first place. It just becomes the act that you know how to do physically and you forget to connect with it on an emotional and a spiritual level. The time away just made me miss actually the community of it and meeting people and not just feeling like it was a complete and utter drain to go out and talk with people. It sounds like a really terrible thing about my character [laughs], but that's the truth of it. I'm well-rested and I have an idea of knowing what that takes now a lot more, knowing how to preserve that quality in me that makes it -- hopefully -- that ability to just go out and enjoy what I do. It's not factory work. It's a really wonderful thing to be able to go out and experience just the live performance and the music itself and the creating of the music itself, but even more to be well-rested and have a sense of being able to answer in to that conversation that music in the community that it brings.

BW: Are you living in Australia right now?

JK: No, I actually just moved about a year ago back to the States. I did spend the previous five years in Australia and share a dual citizenship with both countries. It's certainly found a place in my life. It's a home that I connect with. Right now I'm getting a little bit homesick, which is weird, to talk about a country that I wasn't born in, but that's the way it is. It's quite dear to me to be able to have a sanctuary that Australia ended up being for me, and just building new relationships and friends that weren't really based on music was a huge part of it for me.

BW: Are you following or participating in any political same-sex marriage movements in the U.S.?

JK: As a general rule, I've never historically been a very good activist [laughs]. Even when it came to my work in the church and evangelism and missionary work...I think all of those things are important, but I don't tend to be a group participant [laughs]. I've definitely been aware of some of the issues that are coming out. I think I tend to land on a global side of social justice, and of course those things are obviously important and the conversations around gay marriage and what do we do about it -- is it good? Is it bad? Is it evil? Is it holy? All those things are intensely important to me, but I think a little bit ahead of me at what length will I be a participant of the conversation as a new opportunity for me? I'm still trying to figure out how I as an individual and as a private individual navigate that, and then you add on the public figure of that, it's a lot to take in. People do follow and do take very seriously the words that come out of my mouth that go into print. I think at the end of the day, most of those categories fall into an attitude of social justice that I think especially given my history within my faith and the kind of conversations I've had with my community, people are certainly asking for me to be educated and give a humble opinion.

Jennifer Knapp will be performing at Caf� 939 in Boston (939 Boylston St.) on Thursday, Sept. 2 at 8 p.m. For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit www.jenniferknapp.com or www.cafe939.com.