The Evolution of E-Pop

By Brian Eichelberger

Our band E-Pop put out a little live CD last Sunday. I’m listening to it right now, it’s pretty good for a live CD. It’s humbling and exciting at the same time to think about how God guided our band and in his creative grace, allowed this music to come together over the last year or so.

I started forming the band last fall as an offshoot from the now-defunct “Acoustic Band” Pastor Tim Smith handed off leadership of the band to me; the original concept of the band being a folkey-acoustic-backporch-jam-sesh. I would steal musicians from the other Mars Hill bands, but I soon realized this was a major stress on the other bands. As weekly experiments with band members, styles, arrangements, and songs progressed, the Acoustic Band morphed into E-Pop.

First to permanently join the band was bass player Thaddeaus Wight. I knew Thadd in high school days we would cross paths as guest musicians at churches on the Eastside. Thadd is a great musician, songwriter, and teacher, and is now a husband he and his wife Marilee were just married this summer.

I met our drummer, Jordan Butcher, in January when he auditioned to play drums for the worship department. His energy (on and off stage) definitely drives us. Jordan moved to Seattle last year from West Virginia and works as a designer for a local record label. Jordan is a cool dude. A really cool dude.

Josh Myers, the keys man in E-Pop has been around Mars Hill on and off for quite a few years. Josh is a very prolific musician, a composer and producer, working on numerous projects for national record labels, television shows and movies. It’s an honor to have someone as humble and creative as Josh in our band.

The newest member of E-Pop is our guitarist Chris Bristol. I’ve been friends with Chris for a few years, as he has led worship at SPU and many local churches. Chris and I play together in another band called Barcelona I recruited him to fill in with us for a couple weeks, and it seems that he has joined us somewhat permanently. Chris is a great brother.

Those are some really great dudes that I get to be in a band with. They volunteer an incredible amount of time and the firstfruits of their creativity to serve the church. Over the last year, tons of other musicians have had some kind of a role in the band Zach Hodges played with us for quite some time before moving to California, Keisha Brown spent a few months singing with us, and Jared MacFarlane, Gabe Archer, Colin Jones, and Chris Benson have all filled in with us at one point or another. As the church continues to change, as well as the body of musicians who volunteer in the worship department, I’m sure that E-pop will continue to evolve.

Listening to this live CD, it’s so cool to hear the voices of the church body singing along with these songs. Above all, our goal as a band is to create music that encourages the church to worship God. We hope that when we play, you think about the creativity of God, and the miracle of Jesus Christ sacrificially becoming our sole Mediator for restored relationship with God.

The live cd was made for you to take with you away from our weekly time of corporate worship and be encouraged to continue worshipping, to respond to God’s initiation in the stuff of life.