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Face Down
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Date Aired
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June 18, 2021
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Running Time
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19:51
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Previous Review
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Todd (VO): This episode is bought to you by Audible. It's time for summer. You got plans? 'Cause I got plans. And wherever I go, I'm gonna have something to listen to to take along with me, like this copy of Motley Crue's biography "The Dirt", which I may or may not be using for research. Wherever you're going, Audible is the perfect companion for it because you'll always have just the right thing to listen to at your fingertips.
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...
Todd plays "Face Down" on the piano.
THE RED JUMPSUIT APPARATUS - FACE DOWN
A one-hit retrospective
Todd: Welcome back to One Hit Wonderland, where we take a look at bands and artists known for only one song, and guess what? Pop punk is back!
Clips of live performances from Machine Gun Kelly and Travis Barker and All Time Low...
Todd (VO): Yeah! Kind of. Sort of. But yeah, it's like the mid-2000's all over again! We're all gonna put on Vans, grow out our bangs, protest the Iraq war. [image from the Rock Against Bush, Vol 1 tour] No blood for oil, Dubya! [video for Olivia Rodrigo - "good 4 u"] And so, as today's rappers and pop stars try to reverse engineer that moment in history, I think it's worth looking back at it. Although the...
Todd: ...band we'll be looking at today was... kind of an outlier.
Video for The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - "Face Down"
Todd (VO): In 2006, the pop punk/emo moment was either at its peak or on its downward slide of relevance, depending on who you talk to. But in the midst of the MySpace era, one band managed to break through the crowd of eyeliner and tattoos and score one big crossover hit.
Todd: That band was...
Clip of someone holding the CD for their debut album Don't You Fake It
Todd (VO): ...The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.
Todd: But despite their silly name, they were daring enough to take on a topic as heavy...
Todd (VO): ...as domestic violence, [video for Simple Plan - "Untitled"] while their peers sounded like they were mostly upset about...
Todd: ...being grounded.
Ronnie Winter: Do you feel like a man when you push her around?
Todd (VO): Yes, their one hit, "Face Down", was no whiny high school breakup song. No, it seethed with rage.
Ronnie: Face down in the dirt
She said...
Todd (VO): And despite its dark subject matter, it propelled its way almost into the Top 20, which was a big deal for a song in this genre.
Todd: I've always wondered why this band didn't stick around after that first hit.
Todd (VO): I won't say that "Face Down" was my favorite song ever or anything, but I've also never forgotten it, and just for uniqueness, I think it should be a little better-remembered than it is. [video for "My Friends Over You" by...] New Found Glory never had a hit this big. [...and live performances of...] Taking Back Sunday sure never did. This song charted higher than every single My Chemical Romance song except "Welcome to the Black Parade".
Todd: I mean, look at this:
Image of the singles section of their discography page on Wikipedia, with the following chart peaks that Todd points out highlighted with a red circle
Todd (VO): #24 on the Hot 100, #3 on the Alt-Rock charts, and #1 on the... [that chart peak highlighted is zoomed in closer]
Todd: [beat] What?
Todd (VO): [while opening the links for their songs that made that chart in question] Okay, none of these links on Wikipedia work! I think that's made up.
Todd: That can't be right.
Clip of interview with Richardthinks.org, proving that yes, this actually is real
Ronnie: It's number three on the Christian Rock charts. Basically like, the only thing that we care about anymore, and, um...
Todd: [beat] Huh.
Todd (VO): Okay, this episode is going to be very different than I thought it would be.
Todd: Well you know what, I never would have guessed! But, there are definitely worse ways to channel your love of God than being righteous against the injustices of the world!
Todd (VO): So yeah, let's see who this "Red Jumpsuit Apparatus" were.
Todd: You know, that explains why I saw so many people wearing their T-shirts when I was living in the Bible Belt.
Ronnie: Still I'll never understand why you hang around
I see what's going down
Before the hit
Todd: Okay, so... since I have to radically adjust the direction of this episode, why don't we start way back?
Video for One Bad Pig - "Godarchy"
One Bad Pig: Who are you gonna be?
Let's live for Godarchy
Todd (VO): So, Christian punk started sometime in the mid-'80s, but no one's really sure when or where. [image of cover for Rolling Stone magazine issue with articles about The Sex Pistols and The Beach Boys] After briefly being big, punk rock had gone...
Todd: ...back to being an underground thing, so...
Todd (VO): ...no one was really tracking this alternative subculture's tiny oxymoronic subgenre.
Todd: 'Cause, you know, what even is this?
Images of Jesus with a heading reading "Jesus is psychedelic", a Black Sabbath-themed cross, and a Christian rapper behind a backdrop of crosses
Todd (VO): There was spiritualism to the hippies, and even to metal, and rap.
Todd: So, Christian versions of those don't seem that crazy.
Video for The Sex Pistols - "Anarchy in the U.K."
Todd (VO): But punk rock was always about subversion! [Images of someone praying...] Christianity emphasizes obedience. [...and punks at a church] How can you be both?
Todd: It's a question that's always existed, and I don't think there's ever going to be a really successful answer for it.
Clips of Green Day - "Longview" and Blink-182 - "Man Overboard"
Todd (VO): But punk rock started growing in popularity again in the early '90s, and just blew the fuck up in '94 with Green Day. By the early 2000s, pop punk had become so mainstream that there was not even really a hint of subversiveness anymore; it was just an aesthetic. And so many religious kids want to listen to something that at least resembles good music. So naturally, this is when Christian punk bands start really finding an audience.
Todd: So that leads us to 2003, in Jacksonville, Florida...
Clips of interview with Ronnie Winter to blairingout.com at the 2007 Warped Tour, and another interview with the band
Todd (VO): ...where a young drummer named Ronnie Winter starts writing songs that would not fit for his math metal band. The band's guitarist, Ronnie's brother Randy, saw the stuff he was writing and liked it, and so, the Winter Brothers... [album cover of Johnny & Edgar Winter - The Ultimate Collection] No, not those Winter Brothers. They started a new band [image of the band's logo] with a name made up of random words that mean nothing.
Todd: I did always think that...
Clip of...
Todd (VO): ..."The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus" sounded like something from The Venture Bros. [clip of Red Jumpsuit Apparatus live performance] They started developing a following on, naturally, [image of Coldplay's profile circa 2005 on...] Myspace, because it was the mid-2000's and that's where bands went. Ronnie says he always intended for the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus to be a Christian band, but the label forced them to keep it hidden.
Todd: I'm not sure how true that is.
Todd (VO): Ronnie says now that, "Oh, we were always secretly a Christian band. We had Bible references in our lyrics if you look really hard."
Todd: I guess. I don't know.
Image of Genius page for..
Todd (VO): Before they got signed, one of their songs was called "Ass Shaker".
Todd: I certainly would not have guessed they were a Christian band based on their single!
The big hit
Video for The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - "Face Down"
Todd (VO): The record label asked Ronnie what he thought the single should be, and he was pretty emphatic - it had to be "Face Down". If he was to be remembered for one song for the rest of his life, it was gonna be that one.
Todd: So, let's take a listen.
Ronnie: Hey girl you know you drive me crazy
Todd (VO): In the 2000s, the words "pop punk" and "emo" started getting used interchangeably. There are people who care a lot about the distinction between those genres. I am not one of them.
Todd: This song certainly has elements of both; like it's got, screamo vocals, even.
Ronnie: One day she will tell you that she...
Todd (VO): I think this might be the highest-charting song ever with screamo vocals, so... that's pretty unique.
Todd: Although I remember the pop stations played a much less screamy version of it.
Audio of radio version of "Face Down", with the screamo vocals mostly removed
Ronnie: One day she will tell you that she...
Todd: Yep. "Cut out the screamo, now you're mainstream-o".
Todd (VO): Now, "Face Down" may or may not have been Christian rock. And the slam against most Christian rock is that it's the same exact music as better secular bands with cheesier lyrics and nothing new added.
Todd: Is that fair to apply here?
Ronnie: A pebble in the water makes a ripple effect
Every action in this world will bear a consequence
Todd (VO): Well...
Todd: ...I'm not going to tell you that these guys are groundbreakers.
Todd (VO): Musically, this song isn't super original. In fact, the entire song is based around...
Todd: ...you guessed it, the Pop Song Chords.
Single bar of Nick Long's "Four Chord Song" over opening of Journey - "Don't Stop Believing"
Todd (VO): Pop song chords - [while the following text floods the screen] they're back! They never left! But also, they're back!
Todd: So, no. They're not reinventing the wheel.
Todd (VO): They sound quite a lot like any other Warped Tour band. If All-American Rejects or Yellowcard or Motion City Soundtrack had a song that sounded like this, you wouldn't bat an eye.
Todd: But of course, the thing is that All-American Rejects would never have written this. Not with these lyrics!
Ronnie: Cover up with makeup in the mirror
Tell yourself it's never gonna happen again
Todd: Now the slam against most emo music was that it was all just really whiny.
Videos for The All-American Rejects - "Swing, Swing"...
Tyson Ritter: Did you think that I would cry?
Todd (VO): You know, it was juvenile and pity partying and self-obsessed,...
Todd: ...and because so much of it was...
...and Plain White T's - "Hate (I Really Don't Like You)"
Todd (VO): ...angry breakup songs by teenage boys, it was even arguably...
Todd: ...a little sexist.
Tom Higgenson: Now that it's over
I don't even know what I liked about you
Todd: [pinches his fingers] Little bit.
Todd (V0): You cannot say any of that about Face Down.
Ronnie: Do you feel better now as she falls to the ground?
Todd: This is not about teen angst; it's about a woman in an abusive relationship. And it was absolutely furious on her behalf. So weirdly enough, it was the Christian band who wrote the most progressive hit song in this genre!
Ronnie: A new life, she has found
Todd: I'm not gonna tell you that this song is perfect. For example, I did not know 'til like, just now, that I had the lyrics to this chorus completely wrong. Like, here's what I thought the opening line to this was.
Subtitled video for "Face Down" with Todd's misheard lyrics...
Ronnie: Do you feel like holding on when you push her around?
Todd: Now I always wondered about that because it didn't really make sense. But here's what it actually is.
Subtitled video for "Face Down" again...
Ronnie: Do you feel like a man when you push her around?
Cut to Todd sitting in disbelief at his piano
Todd: Well, the line makes more sense now. I don't get why he pronounced "man" with two syllables.
Todd (VO): To make it rhyme more with "around"? It still doesn't rhyme! It's not like they needed an extra syllable to fit the meter - the second stanza doesn't have an extra syllable.
Ronnie: Well, I'll tell you, my friend
Todd: I guess he just wanted to ask this horrible wife-beater if he felt like a [picture of a...] Mayan?
Todd: I... what? Actually, I think that's the only part that bugs me.
Todd (VO): I always liked this song. Part of me wondered if I was being too nice to it just 'cause it took on a heavy topic and it had a decent hook.
Todd: Because you can tell teenagers wrote this. It's a little cliche. You're not going to learn anything new about domestic violence or gain a different perspective.
Todd (VO): But one thing it does have is its anger. It feels really genuine.
Todd: Like "Oh fuckin' big man, hitting a woman? Fuck you!"
Todd (VO): And the focus is always on the right places. A lesser, dumber band would have made this a romantic song, like that stupid Shawn Mendes video.
Videos for Shawn Mendes- "Treat You Better"...
Shawn Mendes: I know I can treat you better than he can
Todd (VO): "Oh, you need to get out of this abusive relationship because I'm in love with you!" Not really the point right now, dude!
Shawn Mendes: Better than he can
Todd: Shut up.
Clips of Hawthorne Heights - "Ohio is for Lovers"
Todd (VO): So many of these bands sounded phony and contrived with their screamo-ing.
J.T. Woodruff: So cut my wrists and black my eyes
Todd (VO): "Face Down", I always sensed that there was something really sincere going on there.
Todd: And now I find out that, uh, yeah, unfortunately, they do know exactly what they're talking about.
Clip of a 2019 interview with the band
Ronnie: Domestic violence is something that I grew up in. It was part of my every single day life, and my brother Randy. Living with parents who are just, you know, warring against each other. That's essentially what it was, so.
Todd: So you can tell why Ronnie wanted "Face Down" as his legacy.
Todd (VO): I think that's also why this doesn't really strike me as a Christian rock song. Not only because there's no references to God, but also because most Christian music is scared to deal with these topics. And if they do, they always handwave it away that Jesus will solve them. That's not this song. They were not afraid to go there.
Todd: But if there is one way that Ronnie's religious beliefs come through, it's in his faith that good will win out in the end. Justice will come.
Ronnie: One day, she will tell you that she has had enough
Todd (VO): This poor victim will get the courage to walk out and leave this abuser on his ass. Which is... optimistic. What I know is that getting someone out of an abusive relationship is not easy. A lot of times, people in those situations are too scared of retaliation. Not to mention they have all sorts of other things holding them back, and they'll just resign themselves to taking it forever.
Todd: But Ronnie says he's gotten hundreds of letters from people who were inspired by this song; who found the strength to leave bad situations because of it. Winter even did PSAs about it.
Clips of a vintage PSA from the NCADV
Ronnie: If you know someone who has been abused, you can have them contact the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
Todd: I've got nothing bad to say about that. And I easily could, you know?
Todd (VO): It's another four-chord, whiny-voiced emo song by a freaking Christian band. But yeah, I'm gonna stand up for it. I don't think this is a great song, but it is a good song. [Clip of Simple Plan- "Welcome to My Life"] And in a genre where sheltered crybabies like Simple fucking Plan were one of the biggest names, yeah, I think "Face Down" is worth defending. This is a band that deepened pop-punk, but they've never gotten credit for it.
Todd: In fact, they seemed to disappear entirely after this! What happened there?
The failed follow-up
Clip from the same 2019 interview with AltPress
Ronnie: "Face Down" got the most promotion because it was our first single ever.
Todd (VO): Ronnie says that "Face Down" is not wildly better than any of their other songs - it was just the one that got the most promotion because it was their debut single. They have plenty of other songs that are just as good.
Ronnie: It's not the only good song that we have, and it's not the only good song on that record even.
Todd: Well, I'll be the judge of that. So here's their second single.
Video for The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - "False Pretense"
Todd (VO): This is their second song, "False Pretense." Judging from the YouTube comments, [clip from the movie] most people know it from a training scene in a terrible Karate Kid ripoff called Never Back Down. That movie was not nearly good or popular enough to turn this into the next "Eye of the Tiger" or anything, but, uh, that's the most traction this song got apparently. The song and video had been around for over a year before it wound up on that soundtrack, and it just didn't really do anything.
Todd: Which is shame because, actually, it does kinda kick ass, I'm not gonna lie.
Ronnie: In sacrifice, false pretense, you'll hurt again
Todd (VO): Oh, and don't worry about that spare "sacrifice" in there. This is also not a religious song. It's about a backstabbing fake friend. It's probably also about his parents.
Ronnie: Set a false pretense, betray, you're not gonna be willing to change
Todd (VO): Again, I'm not convinced that they're a Christian band yet. That sounds like a retcon to me.
Todd: But I'm told that even for out and proud Christian punk bands, this isn't super rare. This is not the only punk band I've ever listened to and had no idea they were religious.
Todd (VO): The genre seems pretty flexible on how many of their songs get to be explicitly Christian, which, again, I don't get.
Todd: I say you're not a Christian band without at least 50% Certifiable Christ Content, or CCC as we call it in the biz.
Todd (VO): This only barely reached the rock charts, and it certainly didn't approach the Hot 100 like "Face Down" did. Why not?
Todd: Eh... [raises his arms in a shrug] I don't know. Getting a hit is hard!
Todd (VO): It's not like they flopped, exactly. They earned a following out of this, and the scene kids still really liked that first album. Yeah, there are some good tracks on there. "Damn Regret", that was the name of another one I liked. But yeah, not everyone gets to be a superstar, for whatever reason.
Todd (VO): Maybe the label didn't believe in them and didn't promote them? Maybe people were just getting tired of this sound in general? I mean, it was still there in 2007, but it was not nearly as big as it was five years earlier. Maybe their name was too stupid? Or maybe they weren't distinct enough to stand out from the crowd?
Todd: Or maybe The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus just never really fit into the scene to begin with.
Todd (VO): They don't really look the part. They had no interest in dressing up their image. Maybe the Hot Topic crowd looked at Ronnie's curious Lynyrd Skynyrd haircut and lack of eyeliner, and suspected he wasn't really one of them.
Todd: Or maybe... they smelled the Jesus all over this band.
Image of respective Genius pages for..
Todd (VO): Like I do notice that "Ass Shaker" was given the cleanlier title of "In Fate's Hands" after they got signed.
Todd: Maybe they were noticeably Christian after all.
Video for The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - "Your Guardian Angel" with text overlay
Todd (VO): And as evidence, here is the third and final single from that album, "Your Guardian Angel."
Ronnie: I will never let you fall
I'll stand up with you forever
Todd (VO): ...There it is.
Todd: There's the strings, there's the overwrought testifying.
Todd (VO): The MySpace kids seem to have fond memories of this one too, but uh, I'm sorry. This blows.
Ronnie: I'll be there for you through it all
Even if saving you sends me to Heaven
Todd: Can't even bring themselves to say "going to Hell." They have to say they're being sent to Heaven. Ugh.
Did they ever do anything else?
Todd: They put out a new album in 2009.
Video clips for The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - "You Better Pray", again with text overlay
Todd (VO): By this point, pop punk - and really all rock music - was dropping quickly. So unless you were a super sellout band like Boys Like Girls or something, you didn't really stand a chance at crossing over.
Todd: But anyway, here's the first single off that album, "You Better Pray."
Ronnie: Boy, you better pray
Todd: Oh, I better, huh? Yeah, here we go again with the preaching.
Ronnie: We don't seek you out
Todd (VO): Okay, so, it's, "you better pray that we don't find you and kick your ass", is what they mean.
Todd: Okay, see, my fear with Christian rock is that you'll get drawn in and you'll get tricked into hearing a sermon.
Ronnie: Boy, you better pray
Todd (VO): I think it's kind of the reverse in this case. This is like they're trying to trick Christian kids into listening to normal music.
Clip of the video, which features an attractive teacher stripping and dancing on the desk
Todd (VO): See? What is this? If this is Christian music, give me that old time religion. Yeah, I still don't think they were a Christian punk band at that point.
Todd: Or a punk band at all anymore! I mean, what's going on here? Didn't this used to be an emo band?
Clip of the band performing “Pen and Paper”
Todd (VO): Yeah, fans did not take to this mainstream Shinedown/Nickelback thing they were doing. The album’s considered kind of a sellout. It did not do well, and that was the end of their time on a major label.
Clip of the band performing “Reap”
Ronnie: No one said that this would be easy
Todd (VO): They’ve been self-releasing their music these past ten years, and they seem to be doing pretty well. And once they no longer had a label breathing down their necks, they were pretty done being coy about who they are.
Image of the track listing for the album Am I The Enemy? on the band's Wikipedia page
Todd (VO): Look at the titles on this third album. "Salvation", "Angel in Disguise", "Don’t Lose Hope", "Fall from Grace". Yep, here we are.
Todd: They went full-on Christian rock, and that’s where they’ve lived ever since with several #1 hits on the Christian Rock charts.
Clip of The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - “Shooting Star”
Todd (VO): If one were cynical, you could say they wound up there because they couldn’t hack it in the secular market, but I don’t know that.
Todd: All I know is they started writing songs with names like [picture of the Musixmatch page for...] “Jesus is My Rock Star.”
Todd (VO): They do still mix in some secular-themed songs too, but this is still very much not my shit, so I will be checking out of this conversation.
Todd: But in case, like, you were scared they’d become like, Kirk Cameron or something, no. They’ve stayed pretty progressive.
Image of an interview article with the band on AltPress
Todd (VO): They wrote a pro-LGBT song recently about how the church needs to cut it out with the anti-gay stuff already, so...
Todd: ...you know, heart’s in the right place.
Did they deserve better?
Todd: Deserve better... well, morally, they're in good with Jesus at the very least, but musically? Um.
Ronnie: Face down in the dirt, she said
Todd (VO): Well, the first album's pretty solid so...
Todd: [shrugging] Yeah, I guess they deserved a little better.
Todd (VO): They seem like pretty talented, creative guys but, ugh, I'm not really into the screamier, post-hardcore stuff to begin with. Certainly not Christian post-hardcore, so I'm not really one to judge that.
Todd: [raises his hand] Judge not, lest ye be judged.
Todd (VO): Let's say that stuff is exactly as successful as it could probably ever be. Meanwhile, "Face Down" remains one of the more unique entries in the genre. And they're all about being uplifting now, but this song probably did more good than a hundred more explicit uplifting songs.
Todd: So, yeah. Remember, there's always a way out. And Christian Rock on, I guess.
Ronnie: Finally had enough
Closing Tag Song: Vitamin String Quartet - "Face Down"
THE END
"Face Down" is owned by Virgin Records
This video is owned by me