Christian rock is on a mission

Christian rock: two words that can scare off the most forbearing music fan. For years, the practitioners of this most hermetically sealed of subgenres have been content to play to their own constituency, which sales figures show has grown since 2001, but things are shaking up a bit.

Just take a look at the lineup for this year’s Fishfest, the fourth annual package show sponsored by the spiritual adult contemporary station the Fish (FM 95.5), which will be held Saturday at Verizon Amphitheatre.

A safe-as-milk stalwart, veteran singer Michael W. Smith, anchors the lineup, but sprinkled throughout are a handful of acts that proffer a more aggressive, attitude-spiked sound than previous successful Christian rock acts such as ‘90s powerhouses dc Talk and Jars of Clay. Hawk Nelson and Kutless are simply a few more inspirational lyrics and a lot fewer expletives removed from Good Charlotte and Bowling for Soup. Could it be that there’s finally something in Christian rock for the secular fan to savor?

“There’s always been a lot of reverse discrimination with Christian music,” says Tim Taper, the Costa Mesa promoter and label owner who is producing Fishfest. “You know, if you’re Christian, how could you put out good art? Now it’s becoming an accepted thing.”

The Fish, one of 105 radio stations around the country owned by inspirational media behemoth Salem Communications, is an example of a media outlet playing to the old core strength of the Christian pop market -- that is, women ages 35 to 44. The Fish, which has a transmitter in Anaheim and is heard primarily in Orange County, is ranked third behind KFI-AM (640) and KROQ-FM (106.7) in that key demographic category. “The Fish is very family friendly,” says Terry Fahy, vice president and general manager of Salem Los Angeles. “If there’s a niche we’re trying to fill, it’s the young mom with her kids in the car.”

But there’s another layer in between the soccer moms and their kids -- high schoolers with their own Honda Elements. For this market, some Christian rock artists are trying to reaching out beyond the faith-based crowd with lyrics that don’t necessarily preach to the converted or proselytize. The message is more spiritual, less missionary. Fishfest acts Kutless, Hawk Nelson, Audio Adrenaline and Olivia all fall into this latter category.

“The message is the same, but these bands are doing it in a more nuanced way,” Taper says. “The lyrics aren’t alienating non-Christians. The songwriting’s better, the production’s better; everyone’s trying to raise the level of the genre.”

Some of these bands have crossed over the border virtually unnoticed. Young pop-punk quartet Hawk Nelson, for example, has been featured on NBC’s “American Dreams” as a faux version of the Who, and their songs have been placed in “Summerland” and “Smallville,” among other shows.

For the likes of Hawk Nelson and Kutless, radio stations like the Fish play a smaller role than websites such as Purevolume.com and Myspace.com, mainstream sites in which Christian rock bands are reviewed and downloaded alongside secular artists. “If an artist gets enough Purevolume hits, that could lead to club bookings,” Taper says. “Relient K, which just played the Avalon here, had over a million Purevolume hits. Their record came out, and it sold 40,000 units the first week.”

Scruffy power-pop band Relient K is one of the artists signed to Gotee Records, the label owned by veteran Christian artist Toby Mac. A former member of dc Talk who left that band to go solo in 2001, Mac, 40, is one of the major players of the movement. As a hip-hop solo act, he sells millions of records and sells out venues across the country; as a label owner, he has shepherded bands like Relient K, which recently signed a distribution deal with Capitol records for its 2004 album “Mmhmm.”

“I’m seeing a lot of mainstream artists taking interest in this music,” Mac says. “Many Christian labels have been bought out by EMI, BMG and Warner. Some of these acts are being exposed to audiences that might not even know that they’re Christian.”

Switchfoot, a San Diego band that worked the Christian rock crowd for seven years and released three albums on Christian labels before signing with Columbia in 2003, has sold more than 1 million copies of its album “The Beautiful Letdown” and has been embraced by secular fans while carefully sidestepping the faith issue -- instead, the band’s website refers to Switchfoot’s music as being suffused with “hope, love and faith” and “an intense longing for meaning.”

Nowhere has the Christian rock crossover been more convincing than in heavy metal. No small irony in that, as metal has for years personified the devil’s music for some of the more vocal members of the religious right. But Christian bands such as Underoath and Chariot have played to hordes of metal fans, many of whom are decked out in Slayer or Metallica T-shirts, and they make no bones about foregrounding their faith whenever possible.

“Underoath is one of the premier hard-core bands in the country,” Taper says. “They’re as heavy as any secular metal band out there right now. And they’ll come out and thank Jesus on stage, and these nonreligious kids will just be yelling and screaming.”

For the most part, the Fish has avoided harder-edged rock bands. Underoath is verboten, although Hawk Nelson, Toby Mac and Kutless might get a ballad dropped onto a play list every once in a while. The Fishfest, however, will appeal to both sets of fans; a side stage will feature the younger acts, and Smith and other adult contemporary acts such as Watermark will appear on the main stage.

“I guess the question is, would I rather be played on the Fish or KIIS?” Mac says. “I think both would be great, but personally it’s not a problem. If crossover is the apple of your eye, you shouldn’t have signed with a Christian label to begin with. My goal is not to worry about the politics of how the music gets played. If you make good music, it will go to the right places.”

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Marc Weingarten can be reached at weekend@ latimes.com.

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Fishfest

Main stage: Michael W. Smith, Audio Adrenaline, Toby Mac, Selah, Star Fish Winner, Kutless, Watermark

Festival stage: Hawk Nelson, By the Tree, Peculiar People Band, Day of Fire, Olivia, Hyper Static Union, Krystal Meyers

Where: Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, 8808 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine

When: 12:30 p.m. Saturday

Price: $25-$70

Info: www.thefish959.com or Ticketmaster, (714) 740-2000