“One Time” by Earthsuit, Wednesday, November 20, 2024

 

Earthsuit formed in 1995 when Adam LaClave and Paul Meany started attending the same church in New Orleans. The two led worship at the church, forming a band that would eventually play at the Cornerstone Festival and sign to Sparrow Records. The band expertly mixed funk, jazz, reggae, and blues with rock and hip-hop. Their debut album, Kaleidoscope Superior, released June 20, 2000, was a moderate success in Christian Rock, but beyond the somewhat lackluster commercial success, the band was what some of the biggest names in Christian Rock were listening to from Martin Smith of Delirious? to Kevin Max of dc Talk to Rebecca St. James, for whom the band wrote a song on her 2000 album, Transform.

LORD, HIT ME ONE TIME, INFILTRATE THE MIND. Earthsuit’s sound was a bit eccentric to be commercially viable in the Christian market. Influenced by The Police and The Beastie Boys and adding various New Orleans flavors, half of the album sounded akin to a jazz version of Linkin  Park’s Hybrid Theory; the other half sounded like a jazzier 311. Interestingly, the Hybrid Theory was released four months later in October 2000. The rise of Earthsuit coincided with the launch of TVU, a Christian Rock music video station for alternative, hard rock, and hip-hop. One of the shows that the television station debuted was a TMW or Ten Most Wanted, a sort of copycat of TRL on MTV, which kind of down the top songs of the day as voted by viewers. The biggest song that year was probably P.O.D.'s “Southtown” or “Rock the Party” (Off the Hook), but Earthsuit’s “One Time” topped the chart for a long time that year as well. The video featured the band jamming in what looked like an abandoned gas station. Lead singer Adam LaClave is presented as the hipster frontman, walking on a horizontal escalator and wearing Bono-style sunglasses. Earthsuit toured with some of the biggest Christian Rock acts on Festival Con Dios in 2000, the former Newsboy Phil Joel’s Strangely Normal tour, and teen singer Katy Hudson. The band also headlined a tour in 2001 with Ill Harmonics and The Benjamin Gate. 

ANYONE THIRST THERE’S PLENTY OF NEW WINE. Earthsuit was dropped from Sparrow Records, following their debut album due to a lack of commercial success and the band’s creative differences with the label. Earthsuit released a final album in 2003, The Rise of the Modern Simulation,  before breaking off and splitting into two bands: Adam LaClave formed Macrosick. Which broke up in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina hit. LaClave then formed the band Club of the Sons. Paul Meany formed the group MUTEMATH. LaClave, Meany, and other Earthsuit members continued to collaborate after the end of the band. In MUTEMATH, no longer needing to distinguish himself from LaClave, Meany dropped the rap vocals and only sings. MUTEMATH was by far a more successful band than LaClave’s efforts, but the impact of Earthsuit can be felt in Meany’s future efforts. MUTEMATH took the progressive instrumentation of Earthsuit to become a commercially successful touring rock band with a radio hit. LaClave took the more quirky aspects of Earthsuit. “One Time” is the best-known song of Earthsuit, a Christian Rock band that faded into obscurity, Meany told Andrew Beaujon in his examination of Christian Rock Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon of Christian Rock: “Most people didn’t care when [they] broke up. “One Time” sounds quite different from the Paul Meany of MUTEMATH, but listen to Kaleidoscope Superior with its Christian lyrics lifted from the book of Revelation, and you’ll hear parts of the experiment that would work later. MUTEMATH distanced themselves from the Christian music industry, even suing their label for putting their album in the Christian section of record stores. I really wish we could’ve heard what a mature Earthsuit sounded like. It may have sounded more like sci-fi rock rather than the Christian “new wine” drinking song “One Time.” Sadly, we’ll never know.