Esterlyn: Shining Bright
03-17-2008
by Kevan Breitinger
A conversation with vocalist/guitarist Luke Caldwell of Esterlyn feels like an up-close and personal pipeline directly into his heart.
CMCentral (Kevan Breitinger): Hey Luke, I’m glad to speak with you.
Luke Caldwell: Yeah, not a problem.
I spent most of the day yesterday with the new album. How’d you come up with its name, Lamps?
Well, I had been reading in Matthew 5, verse 16, where it says to let your light shine before men so they can see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. In my own life, I try to evaluate my light and see if I’m shining in such a way as to make others see and wonder about its source, whether it be through love, or joy, or peace, or any of the attributes God has given to me. I wonder if I’m reflecting God in a way that impacts the people around me.
And that got me thinking about lamps. I love antique shops and vintage things like old lamps. I thought it would be cool to be able to show this concept visually. On stage we do a big thing with lamps, and on our video also. It’s a neat way to encourage myself and others to shine for the Lord.
You know, it’s funny, Luke, I got a sense from reading your Bio that you guys are more into your mission than you are your music.
I would say that is the heart of the band. We love music and we want to create the best music we can. It’s not secondary in every sense. We spent a lot of time trying to identify who we want to be and what we want our sound to be; we take that aspect of our craft very seriously. And of course, this is our debut, so we’re still growing in it.
I was a youth pastor for five years, and I started doing missions in the 8th grade when I went with my dad to India at age 12. I’ve led 3 different missions trip to Europe, so we’ve always had a heart for ministry, and to share God’s love. We started as a worship band, and now it’s moved into music ministry, in the sense that we have a purpose in what we do, in what we’re saying. It’s more than just playing music.
I know you guys came out of the Calvary Chapel machine, and most of their bands have the same orientation.
Yeah, my dad started the Calvary Chapel in Boise, Idaho, when I was like 2 years old, so I’ve been in it my entire life. I’ve seen God work in people’s lives for so long. He started that church with 15 people and now it’s over 5,000. God did an awesome work and always has. We always had people living with us in our house and so I’ve been inundated with ministry everywhere growing up.
Thankfully, God spared me, a pastor’s kid, from doing the whole rebellion thing. I’ve lived a life of always wanting to serve God. I dealt more with legalism than the other side of it. I never drank, I never smoked, I waited until I was married to have sex. I was just always in it, the life of faith, and saw how real, how true it was. I’ve been in full-time ministry now for ten years and it’s been awesome.
What a great testimony you have!
Well, I’m thankful for my family. Growing up I saw my parents and the church leaders live out their faith, not just talk about it on Sundays. So that was really influential in my own life.
That’s interesting. Imagine if all believers actually modeled the truth that they were hearing. We could have that kind of impact on the whole world.
I think of that when I read through the gospels and see the amount of love and passion and truth in the way Christ was
living his life. The twelve disciples He had were transformed by His example and went on the change the world. If we’re really living out the life God has asked us to live, we’ll make a difference in people’s lives.
I’m not opposed to going mainstream; we’re doing a House of Blues tour soon. But God has specifically instilled in this band a desire to challenge and encourage the church to live out their faith. Because we believe in exactly what you’re saying: if believers legitimately and passionately fear God in the way He’s called us to, and we’re in love with Him, we will make an impact. Not to say that that’s not happening, but-
No, let’s not kid around- it’s not happening and it’s wasteful.
We have a lot of room to grow. Those people are few and far between, that’s for sure.
I’m excited to hear your passion for that message. Did you do most of the writing for the album, Luke?
It was definitely collaboration. There were a lot of different elements that went into it. Lyrically I wrote mostly everything. From my time as a youth pastor I know things that students deal with, the issues they deal with and also the ones I face in my own life, so we wanted to cover those types of topics. And musically a lot of times I’ll start a melody on the acoustic guitar, but I’ve also surrounded myself with talented people. The guys in the band helped out tons with the musical aspects of the album. We’re all thankful for the end result, but it was a team project for sure.
Yeah, you have some great players in your band. Your bassist is phenomenal, and the drummer really stuck out too on the album.
We appreciate that, because we want our art to ultimately glorify God with its excellence. I want to create something that I’d want to listen to myself (laughing). It’s hard, because what I listen to is a lot better than what I can do myself. It challenges me to do the best I can with what God has given me. And we try to pull the best out of each other, and our producers did a great job of that too.
I liked “Seasons of Gray” especially. What was your favorite track?
Wow, that’s hard. “Seasons of Gray” I wrote about a relationship I had previous to my marriage. I had a lot of pent up anger and bitterness toward the whole thing and I guess I didn’t want to let go of it. It took a while, but it was awesome to see how the Lord worked it out. He showed me that His love is the same for everybody, no matter how they hurt you. God’s love has no bounds. And that impacted me on a personal level when I was able to see that person doing well and rejoice in it because I knew that God was the one doing the work.
But every single song is like that for me. I wrote “Faster, Faster” about a girl in my youth group who was addicted to cutting herself and struggled with a lot of depression and frustration. She had a lot of hurt and not much love. Every single song has a lot of meaning to me. God gave me “This Mystery” right before we went into the studio. It’s written to challenge people to see that God is the most beautiful mystery and amazing puzzle. I don’t even know how to explain it. The way God works is so beautiful and intense and mysterious, and I wanted people to open up to the deep things God desires to do in our lives.
We tend to like everything so pinned down. It’s hard for us with our human natures to embrace that mystery. Is there anything you wanted to get across before we wrap up, Luke?
Just that we are simple guys without anything to prove. This was a calling for us. God has made it clear to us that this is what He wants us to do. We are so encouraged that He has opened up so many amazing doors for us to tour and record. We’ve been on the road with Stellar Kart and Fireflight, and we’re going out for 3 months with Kutless. We just really want to be sincere in what we do and make a difference in lives through the art that we create.
We’re also starting a website called http://www.bealamp.com , where we’ll be interviewing different pastors and youth pastors around the country, and people we run into. We’ll talk with kids at the concerts and each of us will do a video on what it means to be a lamp and how we can do that in our sphere of influence to make a difference. We just bought the website and we’re in the process of getting the material together.
That’s a great idea, and it’s nice to see the youth pastors get some props, too.
Totally. They really have something to say. There’s a lot of amazing people out there, and the technology now gives us a chance to help those people share what God is doing in their lives.
That’s some exciting stuff, Luke, and I’m glad we had the chance to let readers know about it all. Thanks so much for your time.
Oh, no problem, we love CMCentral. We always check it out to see what’s going on, pretty much every day. You guys do a great job.
Good to hear, thanks. Take care, brother.
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