INTRODUCING: The Homeless Gospel Choir

“If you knock on my door and you ask me to be a part of your church, I say ‘okay, I just wanna be the boss. I’ll come, but you got to let me speak on Sunday morning. I want an hour to speak and then I want to keep half the money, whenever you’re done with that. If you can keep up with that, I’ll come. If there’s a hat I get to wear the hat because I get to be the boss,’ and then at the end they’re usually not interested anymore!” It’s fair to say that Derek Zanetti is not someone who is a fan of organised religion. The brains behind one man folk-punk outfit THE HOMELESS GOSPEL CHOIR is in discussion about his 2014 album I Used to Be So Young, where the line ‘Jesus Christ did not die for you to be an asshole’ is repeated throughout the record.

He’s not a man of faith in the slightest and explains that this refrain is definitely a stab at the conservative right in his home of the USA. “The more that I understand about who Jesus was, the more I realised he was just like a cool chill hippie. He brought extra wine to the party, he’s a socialist for the most part and I feel that the image we have of him, through Western eyes and the prosperity Christian gospel of America, is super busted and broke. So, I just wanted to write that the people who are representing Christianity are so fucking far off from that welcoming, loving embrace that he taught.”

Derek formed THE HOMELESS GOSPEL CHOIR in 2009 as a platform to do what punk has always tried to do – represent those who have been marginalised, speak out against power and oppression and deliver a big middle finger to the face of capitalism with unabashed glee. The vast majority of his work is little more than him and an acoustic guitar, with friends coming in to cameo on other instruments as and when he needs them. However, his fourth album, entitled This Land Is Your Landfill and out next month via Hassle Records, is the first as a full band project, something Derek has wanted to achieve ever since he started the outfit. He’s also refreshingly honest about why this hasn’t happened before.

“I wanted to make sure that I was gonna be in a place and position where I could equitably pay the people who are coming out with me so that they didn’t have to worry about losing their apartment when they got home or they could pay for their cell phone bills or they can pay for food when we’re on the road. It would have been easy for me to go ahead and ask a bunch of like young college students who like punk rock music to play with me, but I wanted to do something that was a little bit different and inclusive, actually have a band and people with voice who can take ownership over the thing that we’re doing.”

It is a fertile time for punk right now, given everything that’s going on in the world, and Derek even admits that he would trade it all for a non-Donald Trump in a heartbeat. But for now, he offers up some poignant advice about the genre, which speaks even louder now given that, at the time of the interview, coronavirus was of little concern outside China. “Hopefully, while we’re here, we’re able to create a little comradery and ease so we can suffer through it together. Hopefully punk rock becomes a gathering place for people to come, share and bear one another’s burdens and develop friendships and communities so that we can face big challenges like Donald Trump and worse, you know, together, so people don’t have to feel so polarised, alone and afraid.”

This Land Is Your Landfill was also inspired by the passing of Derek’s father, a man who he was not close to in any sense, and Derek candidly explains how his journey of self-discovery through this helped shape the album. “All I could hear in my head was this really weird noise and these louder songs and a bunch of different voices from mine. Eventually it all worked out in my head and I was able to form it properly together, with friends, equitably as a band, which was so sick. The music sounds exactly the way I’ve always dreamt it!”

Given Derek’s enthusiasm for the work he’s just done, it would be a real shame if This Land Is Your Landfill didn’t push THE HOMELESS GOSPEL CHOIR up to the next level. The world is horribly rocky, but if people can find catharsis in this, it will have all been worth it.

This Land Is Your Landfill is set for release on April 24th via Hassle Records.

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