"Disappear" by Number One Gun (ft. Stephen Christian) (repost), Sunday, January 7, 2023

This Is All I Know is the final album by Number One Gun. The band from Chico, California, became one member--Jeff Schneeweis—in 2007 on the band’s The North Pole Project. The other members went on to form the band Surrogate and work with other bands such as Emery.  There was a lot of controversy surrounding Number One Gun's last album, related to the late fulfillment of crowd-funding. Some backers for the 2014 album claimed as of 2021 they hadn’t received what they had been promised. After releasing This Is All I Know, Schneeweis declared that Number One Gun finished and started releasing music under the moniker Lael. This Is All I Know is the end of the Christian Rock era.

HEAVY IS UPON US. Just as Anberlin had announced their farewell in 2014, several other bands called it quits. In 2017 the band Yellowcard, along with Anberlin drummer Nathan Young, recorded their final album and gave their farewell tour. After Anberlin ended, Stephen Christian was busy first in Nashville as a songwriter and then as a Worship leader in New Mexico. He released a worship project titled Wildfires and an Anchor & Braille project titled Songs for the Late Night Drive Home. He also offered guest vocals on Fireflight's "Safety" and Number One Gun's This Is All I Know including today's song, “Disappear.” Stephen and Anberlin reunited in 2018 to play a show with Underoath in Tampa, Florida. Anberlin has remained active, but Stephen announced in late 2023 that he would be taking a hiatus from touring with the band and Matty Mullins of Memphis May Fire would step in on the band’s 2024 tour dates. In the announcement, Stephen said that he wanted to step back from his touring duties to focus on his family and his other ventures such as his pastoral role. 

HATE IS OVERRATED. One of the reasons I started this blog was to indulge in the stories of disappearing artists. Sometimes bands get a farewell tour. I remember watching Anberlin's farewell tour around this time in 2014 on Yahoo!'s concert series. Of course, Anberlin was one of the successful acts that not only had a farewell tour, but subsequent "welcome back" tours. Anberlin determined that being an independent act works because they have fans who will go along with whatever they do. Smaller acts didn't always have that luxury. What about bands that recorded one or two albums only to be dropped from their record label. Sometimes we get press statements. Sometimes we get "we're looking around for another label” statements. Most of the time casual fans aren't scouring the Internet for an article about whatever happened to Acceptance or Edison Glass. Thanks to podcasts, I've been able to become more connected with my music, but still there are a lot of bands left unaccounted for. And how long does it take us to recognize a band as missing? While the pandemic had been a time of great innovation for bands with large, established fan bases, we may be asking ourselves whatever happened to their opening acts? As rock radio stations disappear, the stations that are left contain bands that can't crack the top 10. Without an active fan base, the big bands will stay big, and the smaller bands will, well, disappear. Is it survival of the fittest? No, it's truly a battle of the bands.

Read “Disappear” by Number One Gun on Genius.