Thousand Foot Krutch’s alter ego, FM Static

Thou­sand Foot Krutch front­man Trevor McNevan per­forms at Faith Bible Chapel in Arva­da as part of the Cre­ation Fes­ti­val: The Tour. The band has toured with KoRn and Sev­en­dust. Pho­to by Eliza Marie Somers

If you like your rock ‘n’ roll on the heavy side with a slice of met­al — Sev­en­dust and KoRn — then Thou­sand Foot Krutch is a band you need to Google. And if that’s not your style — a lit­tle pop­pish punk alter­na­tive suits you more — try FM Sta­t­ic on for size. The com­mon threads of these two bands are singer/songwriter Trevor McNevan and drum­mer Steve Augus­tine.

It’s a case of duel iden­ti­ties, but it allows McNevan and Augus­tine to explore their musi­cal inter­ests with two cur­rent CDs — TFK’s “Wel­come to the Mas­quer­ade” and FM Static’s “Dear Diary” — that are as dif­fer­ent as a mocha lat­te with whipped cream and a dou­ble espres­so dark.

The for­ma­tion of FM Sta­t­ic in 2004 came out of McNevan’s song­writ­ing for oth­er bands that are not as jagged around the edges at Thou­sand Foot Krutch (TFK), which McNevan start­ed while in high school in Cana­da.

“FM Sta­t­ic was an expres­sion of myself,” said McNevan of the soft­er side of rock. “And Steve also likes that music so we decid­ed to explore and express our­selves in pop/rock. It’s more like sum­mer rock, the lighter side, and it’s been a lot of fun.”

Thou­sand Foot Krutch at Faith Bible Chapel in Arva­da, Co. Pho­to by
Eliza Marie Somers

Both bands per­formed as part of Cre­ation Fes­ti­val, The Tour, at Faith Bible Chapel in Arva­da in Octo­ber. Also appear­ing were Jars of Clay, Audio Adren­a­line — UnPlugged, B. Rei­th and This Beau­ti­ful Repub­lic.

FM Sta­t­ic will get the show going in sup­port of “Dear Diary,” a con­cept album about a boy going through high school and then McNevan and Augus­tine will come back out to show off their hard rock­er side at TFK.

“As musi­cians, the live show is so impor­tant to us,” McNevan said. “Both bands have dif­fer­ent ener­gies. We want to make you feel some­thing dif­fer­ent with each band.”

But McNevan’s first love is TFK, which has toured with KoRn and Sev­en­dust. “It’s been 12.5 years now with TFK. It has a spe­cial place with us, and we feel that we are just get­ting start­ed. We just haven’t giv­en FM Sta­t­ic as much time.”

TFK is find­ing quick suc­cess with “Mas­quer­ade” and might just be on the brink of break­ing out with its “Fire it Up,” which is includ­ed in the trail­er for the “G.I . Joe” movie along with the Ver­sus tele­vi­sion net­work using the song to pro­mote its Indy­Car cov­er­age. But that’s not all for TFK, the new EA Sports NHL game will include music from TFK’s “Mas­quer­ade”

“This is our most aggres­sive record to date,” McNevan said. “It hits the nail on the head in what we want­ed to do – adren­a­line rock. It’s ped­al to the met­al music. This was a nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion for us as a band.”

Thou­sand Foot Krutch has toured with KoRn and Sev­en­dust. Pho­to by Eliza Marie Somers

TFK is also culling new fans when it hits the road with main­stream heavy met­al bands Sev­en­dust and KoRn.

“It was great tour­ing with those guys,” McNevan said. “We make music for every­body. Our faith is our lifestyle not a genre of music. They write songs about how they view life and so do we. We are not a preachy kind of band. It’s a lifestyle. We don’t try to press it on any­one. They respect us for our music and for who we are. It was a blast hang­ing out with them and some­times faith came into con­ver­sa­tions, and we were just hon­est with each oth­er.”

And how does McNevan relate his Chris­tian­i­ty to oth­ers?

“Well, some­times I think being a Chris­t­ian has a neg­a­tive stereo­type — we come off as hav­ing all the right answers and that’s wrong,” he explained “We believe in the Bible and try to live our lives as an exten­sion of that even with all our imper­fec­tions.

“God called us to love one anoth­er and that’s what ‘For­ward Motion’ is about. It’s impor­tant to talk to one anoth­er and to love each oth­er. It sounds eas­i­er than it is. We all have peo­ple in our lives that are not easy to love, but we have to, despite all our imper­fec­tions.”

Trevor McNevan fronting FM Sta­t­ic at an artist show­case in Nashville. Pho­to by Eliza Marie Somers