Republished from the Sept/ Oct edition of Travelogue:Â
    By any standards, Sojourn’s all-ages music venue, The 930 Listening Room, has gotten off to a fantastic start this year. New venues often remain unknown to even neighborhood locals for up to a year, incur huge financial losses for at least as long and have difficulty booking credible acts, especially in cities with plenty of mid-to-large sized venues such as Louisville’s Headliners Music Hall, Uncle Pleasant’s, The Rudyard Kipling and Phoenix Hill Tavern. Yet under the leadership of pastor/elder Mike Cosper The 930 has had a banner first-year. Much of what has made this possible is a large team of Sojourn volunteers, and at the top of this list is the person Mike picked to be the day-to-day promoter and operations manager of the music venue, Kevin Janes.
    I caught up with Kevin recently for breakfast at Quill’s, and we talked about the short history of the venue, where it’s headed and some of the potentially controversial issues: why is a church investing time and money into running music shows? Where are the contemporary Christian bands? How do local singer-songwriters get their foot in the door? The answers were soft-spoken but straight-forward. Some of them may surprise you, but all were enlightening.
Travelogue: Why is Sojourn running music shows?
Kevin: Basically the vision is an extension of the gospel. God is the creator and we are His creation, made in His image, so we all have a nature about us that is creative. As Christians, we want to affirm this in other people, to celebrate the fact that they’re creative because they’ve been made in the image of God. We want to affirm the God-given talent and drive people have to create works of truth and beauty.
Travelogue: So celebrating good art is in itself a gospel thing, whether or not it is used to evangelize?
Kevin: God cares about art. We see that in the last third of Exodus with his instructions for the building and adornment of the temple. But that’s not to say that we don’t view The 930 as part of our mission to reach out to people in love.Â
In nearly every show we’ve done, music-lovers and bands have come in, asking, “So this is a church? What kind of church are you? What do you believe?” And that has opened doors for a lot of people in our community to share the gospel.
Travelogue: Like the example in Dominic Gratto’s story “More Than A Show” from the August Travelogue?
Kevin: Yes. I myself am with the artists from the time they arrive to set up and do sound check till the time they leave - usually six to eight hours - so I’ve had lots of conversations with them that start with, “So what kind of church is this? What’s your goal with this? What does your church teach?” I’ve had great opportunities to talk about how the music venue is an extension of our vision and part of the gospel mandate.
Travelogue: Has there been any resistance from the artists, or fear that they’re going to be prevented from singing some of their songs?
Kevin: No. There hasn’t been any resistance to playing here. We tell the artists up front about who we are but we don’t try to manipulate their shows in any way. I’m not going to book someone who is extremely controversial in that they use language that is degrading or hateful or do things that aren’t uplifting at all. But we don’t prohibit artists from doing what they do.
Travelogue: So these are all artists that you bring in or do we use outside promoters?
Kevin: We’ve hosted the Kentucky Homefront radio show. Also, there is one independent promoter I use: Billy Hardison with Production Simple. He brings in most of the really good indie rock, alt country and singer-songwriter shows to town - all the hot stuff you hear on WFPK. He’s booked two shows with us for the fall: Amiina and Jose Gonzalez.
Travelogue: Talk a little about Kentucky Homefront. Are they coming back to The 930?
Kevin: Kentucky Homefront is a radio show on WFPK Wednesday nights at 8 pm. They’re keeping alive the spirit of Kentucky roots music so it furthers our aim to be able to host a reputable group like that and let them record live in our facility. They will be taping with us in October, November and December of this year as they continue looking for a permanent home.
John Gage, the producer, is a great guy and the whole deal has been a blessing to us. Not only do they bring great acts to our venue, it gives us exposure - mainly as a venue, but also, they had the Sojourn worship band perform on one of their shows, so they got to do original worship songs from “Before The Throne” and some old hymns on WFPK.
Travelogue: Are you open to using other promoters?
Kevin: We’re looking for quality. We’re careful about who we let book shows. We want it to be reputable. Right now it’s just Production Simple and Kentucky Homefront because of their histories. I’ve been approached by other promoters but the quality on some of their shows that they’ve brought to other venues has been lacking.
Travelogue: But the majority of shows are ones that you book yourself?
Kevin: Yes. Mike Cosper has booked some shows, too. Especially those first few months.
Travelogue: We’re a church. Why haven’t we booked Christian bands?
Kevin: There are plenty of other churches already doing that. You can’t crowd out the market and bring in the same acts over and over. Also, we don’t want The 930 to just be a blessing for us or a preaching to the choir kind of thing.We’re reaching out to the community, showing that we value art and affirm that all truth and beauty comes from God, no matter what kind of marketing stamp is put on it, like “Christian” or “secular.”
We’re bringing in bands that don’t often get to come into a city like this and play in an all-ages, smoke-free, alcohol-free “listening room.” Obviously some styles of music lend themselves to sweaty, smoke-filled rooms with clanging bottles but many of the artists we’ve brought in have been blown away by the chance to play to a crowd that is actually listening to them, who came to hear great music.
Travelogue: Going back to the “sacred” and “secular” thing -
Kevin: The false dichotomy of “sacred” and “secular” is harmful because it suggests terrain outside of God’s control or care. David Dark, who wrote a great book called “Everyday Apocalypse,” said “There is no truth out there that is the devil’s. All goodness, beauty and truth is the Lord’s. There is madness at work when we think what God is giving us is merely spiritual, separate from the everyday. If it is truthful, it’s gospel.”
We are called to help renew culture with the gospel. We can’t do that very well just booking Contemporary Christian Music and catering to fans who are already Christians, who are already going to those concerts in churches all over town. We’re not opposed to booking Christian bands but it will not be a regular practice. We have brought in plenty of artists who are Christians, even though they aren’t marketed as “Christian bands.” We’re bringing in Derek Webb and Sandra McCracken on Wednesday, October 24.
Travelogue: So it’s partly a matter of getting people to come to our venue who are not already Christians, partly a matter of celebrating great art that is beautiful and truthful, whether the lyrics are about God, relationships, nature or whatever, and partly about filling a need in the community?
Kevin: Yes.
Travelogue: What about local acts? You’ve featured a lot of top local talent like Jamie Barnes, Chemic, the Muckrakers and Ben Sollee. What about new or up-and-coming acts, maybe even members of Sojourn who are wanting to get started, looking for places to play?
Kevin: I listen to everything when people send me electronic press kits. I usually get about a dozen a week and I listen to all of them. Bands can send in their kits to me at music@the930.org.
Travelogue: But you can’t fit them all in?
Kevin: No, and sometimes in the case of relative unknowns it doesn’t make sense because of the size of our facility.
Travelogue: We have two rooms - what are their sizes?
Kevin: We can get 250 standing in the smaller room or 450 sitting in the larger room. We want to provide a space for up-and-comers, and we have done that with some artists, particularly mixing them with other talents or having them open shows. But to book an artist who isn’t really ready for The 930 in terms of quality or appeal isn’t just bad for us, it’s bad for them. If someone is wanting to make it in the music business but they don’t yet have a following that can even come close to filling a certain venue, then to play that building can only hurt them.
Travelogue: So for instance, a show that draws 20 people to the local coffee shop might be a great success, but 20 people in a room that seats 450 looks like a failure.
Kevin: Yes, and it’s hard to take a financial risk on someone who is an unknown quantity, too. There are plenty of smaller venues like coffee houses that would be great to help them get started, hone their craft and develop an audience.
Travelogue: You mentioned financial risk. What would you say to people who might question why a church is devoting capital to putting on concerts when perhaps the money could be used to help the poor?
Kevin: Everyone needs the gospel. We do plenty of things for the poor and homeless, and we should - more and more. But the person who comes to hear a show, even if they’re affluent, needs Jesus, too. In fact in some ways they need Him more because they’re less likely to know they need him.
Travelogue: But is it wise stewardship of financial resources?
Kevin: We believe so. There is always a risk, and some shows are going to lose money. Some have lost money. But some have not. When we’ve ran a show at a loss we’ve been able to pull from other events budgeted for the 930 that came out ahead. Generally speaking, ninety percent of all music venue expenses are recoupable through ticket sales so the amount of cash the church spends per year on the venue is minimal.
Travelogue: Is it a goal to make money with the shows?
Kevin: We’re a non-profit so we can’t. The goal, financially, is to serve the public and the artists well. If we were about making money it would take away from the ministry to the artists and listeners. We only need to break even.
Travelogue: What are some of the expenses involved?
Kevin: Room fee, stuff like lighting, waste disposal, sound board, and for the bigger shows, advertising expenses in LEO and on WFPK, and artist fees like the contract guarantee, riders for things like artist hospitality services, plus incidentals like the complimentary coffee and tea we serve to listeners.
Travelogue: What do you do if a show makes a big profit over and above expenses?
Kevin: In the industry there is something called an 80/20 split, meaning that after everything in the contract is paid for, 80% of what is left goes to the band and 20% to the venue. Sometimes we do that but sometimes we’ve been able to give 100% to the artist. That is definitely something that they see as a blessing, to be treated that way by their host.
Travelogue: So we’re developing a pretty good name among artists and their agents?
Kevin: The artists have loved us. Many of the fall bookings have come from artists this spring who told their agents how much they enjoyed the experience, and the word spread.
Travelogue: Will we eventually reach a point where we’re running shows all the time?
Kevin: No. Of course this is still the trial-and-error year but I envision us running 3-5 shows a month, so in that, we’re more like a Kentucky Center for the Arts than a bar that runs shows all the time.
Travelogue: Has it been hard to book enough bands to fill a consistent schedule, given that we’re so new and so many of them are used to playing buildings with more of a history in Louisville?
Kevin: Not really. We thought it would be harder but again, it’s easy because we have a really nice facility with a great sound, it’s an all-ages, alcohol-free venue where people come to listen, and because of our philosophy in terms of how we treat the bands and the listeners, and our vision for being a positive force within the arts community.
