Breaking It Down With Dizmas
06-29-2007
by Kevan Breitinger

If all the bands we interviewed had guys as nice as the Dizmas guys, life would be so sweet! CMCentral had the pleasure of talking the other day with Zack Zegan (vocalist) and Josh Zegan (guitar/vocals). 

Hello, this is Zack and Josh from Dizmas.
 

CMCentral (Kevan Breitinger): Hey, thanks for making the time to talk, I appreciate it. I don’t know if you had a chance to read the CMCentral review of Tension, but if you did you know I thought the album was made for guitar lovers everywhere.

Josh: We’ve heard that a few times. There’s a lot of people that really enjoy the guitars, and others that really enjoy the audio sounds on the album, whether it be the guitars or the vocals, or the combination. But we appreciate what you said.

Well, everybody on the album was tight, but the strength of the guitars really stuck out to me. Who’s doing most of the writing?

We write the majority of our material as a full band, actually, which is kind of rare these days. Most people write individually or maybe at most two people will write the songs, but we all bring our parts together; it’s a team effort all the way around. When it comes to lyrics and vocals, Zack and I will do that ourselves later.

Being brothers, were you always singing together?

Not really. The band started in junior high, about nine years ago. The Lord just spoke to Zack when we were in junior high. Before that we had no intentions of going into music, nor did we have any skills or talents (laughing). We sang in our church choir, but that was about it.

Wow.

We tell kids at our shows that the Lord can use anybody. He’ll provide the skills if you need them, ya know?

Well, than how did this even begin for you?

Well, when the Lord put it on Zack’s heart, I don’t even know if he knew it was the Lord necessarily. But he said I’m gonna start a band, and our parents kind of laughed and said, “What band? You’re busy playing soccer, basketball, hockey, and everything else…” They kind of giggled and said ‘whatever.” But we started quitting our teams and they began to think ‘maybe this is something they really want to do.’ And they fully supported us. We did several ministry tours, and the Lord showed up time and time again.

So would you say that your faith was part of what motivated you?

Zack: Oh yeah, definitely. Honestly if it wasn’t for our faith in the Lord, I don’t know if all this would have come together. Not only us, but the faith of our parents and the people surrounding us. To have them trust the Lord and know that He was working in our lives…. They harnessed that and got us involved in our youth group worship team, and our church choir, to nurture those callings.

Wow, you’d never know you came from so far away because your harmonies are so tight. It seemed like every player brought their A-game.

Thanks so much. As far as the harmonies, we grew up in the choir, and we learned a little bit there. Even as a little kid, I remember singing in church one day next to my Dad, and he looked at me and said, “You know you’re singing harmony?” I said, ‘No, I don’t even know what you mean.” I always heard them, since I was little, these other melodies that went along with things. Even in that I can see God’s provision.

I would love to have that gift!  Also in the new album, one thing that I enjoyed is that there’s a lot of meat lyrically. I really enjoyed “Play It Safe,” the way it encourages you to take that leap away from safe faith.

It’s awesome that you hear that, but that’s exactly what we’re trying to say.  C.S. Lewis used the physical depiction of Christ as Aslan, the lion, in the Chronicles of Narnia. And He’s not a tame lion, He’s a wild lion.  At any moment He could destroy you with one swipe of His claw. But He’s a just God, He’s a good King, worthy to be praised and honored.

That’s the thing that we’ve learned in our faith, is that there’s a lot of Christians out there who would sugar-coat our walk with the Lord as a sweet, pretty thing, wrapped up in a nice little pink package. But the reality is that faith is a hard thing, a tough thing. Like Paul says, it’s a race. And I think of the times when I run, how I get wiped out. But at the same time, it’s not something we should be using as an excuse to run away from the hard things that faith presents to us, ya know?

We’ve talked about it as a band many times, that there are a lot of young people out there who say, ‘I’m seeking God.’ But you can look at their lifestyle and see that they’re using that as an excuse to pursue their own endeavors, sinful or not.

Exactly. The reality is that if you were really seeking God, you would be taking on these hard moments and the hard times. Whenever something tough comes along, you’d not necessarily embrace it, but you’d look at it head-on and trust the Lord. It’s not something that we’re just talking about as far as everybody else’s life; it’s something we’ve learned in our own lives as well.

I agree, and I also think that that seems to be almost a prophetic word that God is speaking through a lot of artists right now, in these days, trying to wake us up from our lethargy.

The Bible says every day we get closer and closer to the return of Jesus Christ, and I think we’ll see a need in Christians to get more radical, you know? We need to become more radical to stand out more. We have a lot of lukewarm Christians out there; you can’t really tell by their actions if they are Christians or not. And that’s really what “Play It Safe” is about. That’s just not excusable. The Lord said He would vomit us out of His mouth, and we wanted to make that clear to today’s youth and adults alike. We’re all in the same situation and we need to be unified in this. That’s what it’s all about.

Good for you. That’s a great message. You know you guys both sound so grounded, at an early age. I know you’re out on the road a lot, and becoming more well known, kind of on the edge of a lot of things right now. How do you keep your focus on the Lord in this crucial time?

I think the biggest thing is staying in the Word and talking to the Lord. Personally, and I think all of the guys would agree with me on this, the hardest thing is being away from your home church, not being surrounded by the believers that are around you every week when you’re home. So we really work hard at reading the Word of God, and our church has a podcast that we’re also signed up to as well.

Cool.

We listen to our church sermons every week, so that’s a huge blessing. We have a great pastor who every so often will fly out and meet us on the road somewhere.

Wow, he is a great pastor, you’re right!

Yeah, it’s amazing. We feel very blessed and honored that he would do that and that our church would spend the money and take the time to allow him to do that. We’re  blessed that God has put us in a church that really cultivates and encourages us.

Not to say that we’re perfect in any way, or even understand a lot of things. I was talking to a friend of mine who goes to Bible college and I was saying I was kind of jealous, wishing I could go to Bible college and learn everything that he learned. And he said right back, ‘don’t say that, you’re doing what I’m learning.’ But I think any kind of wisdom or knowledge that we’re sharing today really comes from a trial and error thing.

Yeah, you’re right about that.

We learn the hard way in a lot of cases.

A lot of the things that you’re sharing today I know will be a blessing to our readers, especially coming from someone so young. Talking to you guys is almost like watching a commercial for the fruit of a good church.

Wow, praise God, that’s awesome.

There are so many churches out there not doing a good job, I find myself really edified by all you’re saying. Here’s one quick question to wrap up: what was your favorite moment of the past week? And it doesn’t have to sound really churchy (laughing).

One thing that we did that was really fun, and it might sound real cheesy and dorky but we did it…. We’re in Pennsylvania at our guitarist John’s house. There’s a Christian bookstore out here that really supports us and treats us well, I think it’s called “The Servant’s Heart.” Anyway, we baked them some cookies and took some cookies to them. (Laughing)

I’m totally loving that, (laughing) that’s very high on my list of favorite moments heard.

Yeah, we try to keep the ministry going even on our days off (laughing).

Here’s another one. Recently we played in Abilene, Texas, and we were talking to the other band, Ever Stays Red, about what to do on the off day, and we decided we were gonna play softball. So we told the crowd at the show that night where we’d be playing, and we played a full on softball game with the kids from the crowd the night before. It was a blast!

I bet it was, what a great idea!

It was competitive, and we got exercise.

Yeah, and you kept it real, that says a lot. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you, for real, thanks so much.

Yeah, we enjoyed it too, thanks a lot.