Popular rock band Seventh Day Slumber has been rocking it out in the Christian music scene for 23 years and 13 studio albums. Collectively, the band shares a testimony of being saved by the faithfulness of God. The individual stories belonging to lead vocalist Joseph Rojas and his bandmates: son Blaise Rojas (drums), Weston Evans (guitar), and friend Ken Reed (bass), are also worth checking out.
Death by Admiration, their latest album, took the world by storm when it dropped in early February. The new record’s songs speak of the danger of idolization and the human letdowns that inevitably accompany it.
Since the artist never fails to enunciate their message better than we can, we spoke with vocalist Joseph Rojas to hear more about his honest perspective on this vivid record. Each track has a story behind it, and listeners often discover that it is far deeper than they may interpret on their own.
Album’s Theme and Meaning
Joseph: Death by Admiration has a couple of meanings. The first is that sometimes, we feel like we’re bigger than we are because people have put us up on a pedestal. Being in a mindset where it’s all about you can lead to a dark place where you end up dying inside. That’s one meaning.
But to me, Death by Admiration is about a difficult time in my life. A lot of people look up to me, and a lot of people come to me for help. But I was the singer in a Christian rock band, and I was hurting deep inside. I’d poured out so much, and I wasn’t getting poured back into. I ended up becoming an alcoholic.
I was so afraid to let anyone down because of their admiration for me. It was killing me not to share. That’s why I named it Death by Admiration. I wasn’t trying to be fake for people—I love them, and I care about them. I never stopped loving Jesus. I never stopped doing ministry. That was my passion. But I didn’t want people to see the stuff I was dealing with, because I didn’t want it to hurt them. I ended up holding it in so much that, honestly, it was killing me.
God healed me from that. This happened several years ago, but it feels fresh when I think about it. I am still connected to that pain. And that’s a good thing because it helps me to connect with our listeners in a real way. When God healed me from the alcohol addiction, I told myself that I will never make the mistake of forgetting my pain.
“Death by Admiration”
Afraid to be with me myself and I sometimes Get lost in the chaos of my mind I don’t want to lie to you, but it’s all I do And I’m so afraid of losing you.
I saw that Tyler “Telle” Smith, who sings for the rock band The Word Alive, was going to be in Nashville, so I reached out. He was open to writing with us. My son Blaise, our drummer, and I had already decided this song was going to be the title track because we liked the melody a lot. We got to the session, and Telle happened to have some lyrics that fit exactly what the theme was.
For him, he was talking about the fans. He loves people. So, he says, “I try to be everything, but everything just left me broken. How could you know me well? I didn’t know myself.” It’s like, you see me in this one way, and I don’t want to tell you who I am because I don’t want to lose you.
We were also talking about the late Chester Bennington, former lead vocalist of the popular rock band Linkin Park. That level of admiration must be tough when you’re hurting. People say, “Man, your song saved my life.” But what if you’re the one that feels like dying?
“Fatal Love”
Addiction is always fatal It hurts the ones you love the most. You’re sleeping with a devil That just won’t seem to let you go. Goodbye to fatal love.
“Fatal Love” is about addiction. It’s an acknowledgment of how deadly having an addiction to anything—drugs, pornography, alcohol—can be. It’s an acknowledgment that you don't have any control over it, that if you don't get out, it will end in death.
Ultimately though, the song is encouraging. On one hand, you’re talking about this deadly disease and this deadly relationship you have. On the other hand, there’s an element in the song where you’ve overcome it as well. I’m speaking to someone, saying, “I overcame this, you can, too.”
“Solemn Oath”
Musician Jeremy Holderfield wrote “Solemn Oath” with us. It’s about somebody you trusted, a friend, who did you dirty. They broke the solemn oath. It’s someone talking to their friend, being honest: “You hurt me, you broke my heart, you broke the trust I had in you.”
Jeremy and I wrote this song like eight years ago. It was originally for a side project that we were going to do. Blaise has been wanting this song on a record since he was a little kid. I said, “Man, this record is probably the heaviest record we’ve ever done. So, this could finally go on there.”
The style of guitars that Jeremy wrote back then is relevant today, musically. Our guitarist Weston Evans just revamped a couple of things. And then he played pretty much all of Jeremy’s parts the way that Jeremy had written them.
“What I’ve Become”
I built myself up so I can tear me down again I never thought I’d get this low I hate what I’ve become.
Blaise wrote a lot of the lyrics for “What I’ve Become.” He wrote something down that I said on the bus one time when I was talking about my alcoholism and how I felt. I said, “I regurgitate myself and I eat it up again, I’ve got an appetite for self-abuse.”
Those weren’t lyrics, they were just me talking. Later, Blaise told me, “I put a song together. I’ve got these lyrics; I want you to check it out.” Then, he and I got together and refined it.
“Pushing myself until I break/ Until my body starts to shake/A game to see just how much I can take before I fade away”: That’s another part of this song that I relate to. I’ve messed up so much in my life—even after becoming a Christian. I used to purposely sabotage my own success, subconsciously, because I thought I didn’t deserve it. I think deep down inside I knew the mistakes that I'd made and hadn’t forgiven myself.
“Halos”
“I’m talking to your memory But I can’t hear anything And now you’re gone and I’m so consumed with the thought of your last words. I’m questioning everything Now it’s too late.”
Weston, Blaise, and I wrote this song. We’d pretty much written the album. But after a tour, Weston sent us the music and said, “I don’t have any lyrics, but there’s something that I want to write about.”
We have this hardcore supporter of Seventh Day Slumber named Joe. Anything we believed in, he supported it. He ended up getting sick suddenly and died. It devastated all of us.
But what we didn’t know is that Weston had been living with guilt. He said, “Joe wrote to me three nights before he died, and he said, ‘Hey man, I need to talk to you.’ But I was too busy for him—even though he's always supported us.”
Weston continued, “I don’t even want to say this. That’s why I’ve kept it in for so long. That message is still there, unopened. I never got the chance to tell him that I appreciate him or to find out what he needed.” We all assured Weston that Joe loves him. We’ve all got those moments, things left unsaid.
I have a very similar experience. I had a friend who was saved at a Seventh Day concert. She often threatened to kill herself, and I always tried to talk her out of it. She eventually got involved with drugs.
After a lot of ups and downs, she went to a treatment facility. She was there for about a week, she got out, then she relapsed. She called me; told me she was going to take her life. I told her, “Look, I love you, but I’m going to call the cops, have them sent to your house.” I sent the police to do a welfare check on her, and she told them she was fine.
She texted me two days later, saying “I need to talk to you.” I told my wife Lori, “I can’t deal with this right now.” Then my friend took her life.
“Halos” is about living with the things that you never got to say to someone.
“Snake Mouth”
Every word you speak is poison If you could only hear yourself But you hold your head so high While looking down on everybody else. You talk about the Savior But close the door that leads to him.
We wrote “Snake Mouth” with Miguel “Miggy” Sanchez from the metal band Relent. The song is about people who, like the Pharisees, tie heavy loads on men's backs and won’t lift a finger to help them. It’s about super righteous people that can't wait to let you know about every mistake you make and what a horrible person you are. They think they have their fingers on the scale of heaven, even though Jesus is like, “You’re no gatekeeper.”
Miggy comes in and rocks hard. It gives me chills every time I hear the song. That’s what “Snake Mouth” means: a brood of vipers.
“Light the Way”
Light the way, light the way So I can see who I’m meant to be. Shatter me, shatter me It’s when I’m broken that I’ll finally see who I’m meant to be.
“Light the Way” was the second song that we wrote with Telle. It’s a power anthem. From Telle’s perspective, he didn’t write this song as a Christian song, instead, he wrote it as a positive song. He wrote the melody and the chorus.
Then Blaise and I wrote the rest of the lyrics about longing for a purpose. We don’t always know what that is, but we know we need it. We wrote that song about wanting to live for God, even if you don’t know exactly how. It’s about that place where you first fell in love with God. “Light the Way” is saying, “God, I don’t even know how to take the first step. All I know is that I want to live for you, so light the way.”
“Landmines”
“Landmines” is a big, powerful anthem. It’s saying no matter what you’ve thrown at me, no matter what people have done to me, I’ll keep moving forward.
It’s an anthem for all of us who have people who have plotted against us or were jealous. They laid all these landmines, but we fought our way through them. The whole idea behind the song is “no matter what you throw at me, no matter how hard you try to keep me down, I serve a God that never leaves me. He’s more than the entire world against me.”
“Some Things Never Change”
Blaise and I were working on a different song when my middle son, Caden, came home from a Bible study. He’s 17. He told me they talked about how hurtful and toxic gossiping can be.
Caden shared that there were kids in the Bible study group who were hurt badly by the gossip, to the point where they didn’t want to live anymore. I deal with people every day like that on the road. But now my son was telling me this, seeing it for himself in this Bible study.
Blaise had already written a sick melody that had no words. Weston had written the guitar arrangement. When Caden shared that, we were like, “Let’s write these lyrics.”
“Solemn Oath” is about someone who broke the trust that you had in them. But “Some Things Never Change” doesn’t even have to be about someone you love. You can be devastated by a stranger gossiping about you. We need to think about what we’re saying about other people, whether we know them or not.
Another cool thing about this song is that it’s the first time Blaise is featured singing.
“Can’t Say Sorry Enough”
Blaise and I wrote “Can’t Say Sorry Enough” with Disciple’s Josiah Prince. It’s so fitting for this record because some of it reflects what I went through with alcohol. My wife had to see that. She kept me alive through that difficult time, and she never turned her back on me. She still loved me, laid hands on me, and prayed for me.
After 22 years of marriage and all that I’ve done, she still wants to be close to me. I know that God heard her prayers: He healed me. Even though I know that she forgives me, I feel like I can’t say sorry enough for what I did.
When Josiah asked what I wanted to write about, I remembered the pain I had put her through. Josiah, Blaise, and I wrote this song for my wife in about an hour. To me, it’s honestly one of the most important songs I’ve ever written.
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