Friday, 30 June 2006 18:00

Go ahead, throw all of your Christian puns out at the Evangelicals. Chances are, they’ve heard them all before. “They’re on a crusade to spread the gospel of Oklahoma’s indie scene to the masses!” “They’ll convert any nonbeliever who dares oppose them!” To engage in this silliness, however, is to miss the point.

“The term ‘evangelical’ isn’t an inherently Christian word,” explains the band’s singer/guitarist, Josh Jones. “It just means anyone who is zealous or enthusiastic about a cause, and I supposed you could say we are zealous and enthusiastic about music and life.”

This exuberance shows in the band’s winsome pop stylings, which have drawn the inevitable comparisons to Norman, Okla.’s favorite graduates, the Flaming Lips and the Starlight Mints. Jones, however, prefers to describe his group’s sound as “grindcore meets Wizard of Oz,” hard and galloping but with a candy-coated exterior.

The less-than-divine inspiration to form a band came after Jones did a few days behind bars on what he calls a bogus burglary charge.

“It kind of put things into perspective,” says Jones of the incident. “I can either go around getting arrested…or try and write some music and not be a burden on society.”

Now resolved to rock for a (somewhat) higher cause, Jones teamed with the rhythm section of Kyle Davis (bass/keys) and Austin Stephens (drums) to form his new project. Signing aboard Misra Records of Austin, Tex., the group gained exposure with a slew of gigs at SXSW ’06. In the sweetest of ironies, the band then released its debut, So Gone, on 6/6/06, our anti–Lord and Savior’s birthday. Now comes the sometimes hellish process of promoting the new record.