Transcripts

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LEIF ENGER: Lead singer and guitar player Joel Hanson says it never fails. At concerts around the country, fans come to the stage saying, do you guys know who you sound like?

[PFR, "GOLDIE'S LAST DAY"] Puppy love, puppy love

Yes, she gave all she had

Not like a brother or sister

More like a mom or a dad

JOEL HANSON: People actually said sometimes, they expected us to speak with accents from the way we were singing. And of course, we do, but it's Norwegian. [CHUCKLES]

And we thought, OK, if everyone is comparing us so much to The Beatles, and let's just take it to the nth. Let's just go ahead and do something that would be a little bit Sergeant Pepper-ish or whatever. And go ahead and do it.

And add a little Queen in there with all the big background vocals and stuff, you know. Let's just give them a whole other thing to chew on.

(SINGING) A thousand words

There's nothing left to say

Wish you could have been there for Goldie's last day

LEIF ENGER: That's the title cut from the group's newly released CD, "Goldie's Last Day." Their first, the self-titled "Pray for Rain" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Gospel Rock Album. Since then, the band has called itself PFR because of a legal dispute over the name.

Now, between tours, Hanson lives with his wife at an evangelical Bible camp on Lake Shamineau, half an hour from his hometown of Brainerd. It was here, leading music for kids at summer camp, that he first got together with Patrick Andrew and drummer Mark Nash.

JOEL HANSON: I was so amazed that these two guys, who were 17 years old, who had great abilities for how young they were. They just understood their own talent, and they understood music real well. Had a great ear for picking up the things that I'd been writing and adding to them, adding their own feelings to them, adding harmonies that really developed well.

LEIF ENGER: Hanson was 22 at the time and now, at the seasoned age of 27, finds himself in an unusual spot, fronting a rock band whose spiritual inspiration is Jesus Christ and whose musical inspirations run from The Beatles and Queen to country star Vince Gill to the Rembrandts.

Hanson says he was like a lot of teenage kids who wanted to be rock stars until a conversion experience changed the message of his songs.

JOEL HANSON: I wanted to start writing about something that had changed my life drastically. Scripture says I was dead in sin, and Jesus came to save me. And that is the most exciting thing I've heard since that day. And that's why we write about what we write.

[PFR, "I DON'T UNDERSTAND"]

(SINGING) I retreat by myself at the back of my brain

I cannot see what you're showing me through this pain

I have found

LEIF ENGER: PFR's blend of Midwestern Christianity, pounding guitars, and delicate Lennon-esque vocals has put the band in position to make a serious run at the Christian music charts. The group's first album sold 50,000 copies. "Goldie's Last Day" is already getting airplay on both Christian and secular radio stations.

Hanson says the band has never intended to serve both markets, and he's wary of any success the world might have to offer.

JOEL HANSON: I think the strain that we're seeing is, jeez, there's people out there who have nothing to do with Christian music that are really into what we're doing. And we'd love for them to be a part of what we're doing, but we never want it to be at the expense of how we write.

We don't want it to be, well, OK, we want you to cross over, but we don't want you to write about god anymore. I don't think we could do that because that's really taking away from what we feel, is our strength. That's the thing that ties us together.

LEIF ENGER: When PFR plays out 1993 at the Brainerd High School auditorium, it will be Hanson's first appearance there since his own graduation nine years ago. He, and Pat Andrew, and Mark Nash expect a big hometown crowd.

Families, and cousins, and in-laws, and probably, a lot of high school kids, all come to see three hip evangelical Minnesotans singing with British accents, spreading god's word through lyrics and smooth guitar.

Leif Enger, Mainstreet Radio, Brainerd.

[PFR, "BY MYSELF"]

(SINGING) Cornered at a costume ball

By a handful of disguises

So I tried them all on

And they were all the right sizes

I wore them obliviously

Though they would choke the life from me

I got here by myself

But I know that I will never leave