The Story Behind We Were Just Kids by Brave Machine

We were just kids is one part love letter to the church that grew up in and one part critique of that church and the American church in general. The first verse details some of what I experienced playing on the worship team at this church. The sound guys would keep my bass guitar turned down so low that you could not even hear me. And of course, playing worship music is not about being seen and heard as a means of drawing attention to yourself, but your instrument should at least be turned on. I developed a technique in those days of keeping my bass guitar turned most the way down so the sound guys would set the sound and then when the church service was actually taking place I would turn the volume knob back up so you could actually hear me a little bit. The second verse makes reference to a time when I got into a bit of a scuffle with the pastor’s kid. I don’t even remember what it was about but an older boy joined in on the side of the pastor’s kid who was younger than me. Amusingly, much later in life that pastor’s kid became a preacher himself and unfriended me on Facebook when I gently and privately called him out for plagiarism. 

Musically, We Were Just Kids started out a little more raw and with a punk feel but somewhere along the line I kind of smoothed out those rougher edges and gave it more of a pop anthem sound. I like them both but part of me wishes I had stuck with more of that punk sound. I do like what the song turned out to be in the end though.

Joe Wenger did some background vocals on this one. I confess that I do not remember the name of the guy that mixed it. I hired him over the Internet and as sometimes happens in those cases even if someone presents themselves as being able to produce professional results, that’s not always the case. The end result was a mix I think sounds pretty good but it took a long time to get it there. There was a lot of back-and-forth between myself and that person. I have no hard feelings toward them but I also am not going to seek them out to work with them again. Again that’s just what it’s like when you hire people that you don’t personally know over the Internet to do a job, you hope for the best.

Unlike many of the other songs on this album, We Were Just Kids didn’t really go through too many changes musically or lyrically aside from the aforementioned popification of it.

The central theme of the song is about longing for true religion, a true pursuit of godliness and a rejection of church politics and the glitz and glam of mega churches. A rejection of church vision being dictated by business metrics. At a time when we see young people rejecting organized religion more and more I don’t see that the answer is to keep ramping up the entertainment aspect of your Sunday morning gatherings. Such things are shallow and without lasting impact often.

Next song: You Are Loved

Happy New Year, New Music

Hello everyone,

Hope you are all doing well! It is a new year and a new opportunity to build something great in this crazy world! 2020 was certainly a strange year for all of us but I don’t think we should focus on the negatives. Instead, what is something positive you can extend out into the world and improve someone’s day? In spite of all of the challenges of last year, it also carried some excitement for us here as our song We Were Just Kids was added to a couple of different radio stations back in October and received a number of plays there.


In a bit of exciting news here at Brave Machine, we’ve got a brand new song coming your way on January 29th! It is titled All Hail the Experts and I can’t wait for you to hear it.

We love you all,

Brave Machine

We Were Just Kids on LTN Radio

After last week’s exciting debut of We Were Just Kids on Some Sort of Rock Show and streaming worldwide wherever you listen to music, we’ve got some more news today!

LTN Radio has added the song to their playlist! If you are not familiar with LTN, it stands for Love Thy Nerd and they focus on reaching people in various nerd cultures through gaming, podcasts, and their facebook community.

Exciting We Were Just Kids News!

Hello again everyone,

We Were Just Kids has only been out for a day and we’ve already got some exciting news! First, our radio debut happens tonight on Some Sort of Rock Show! That’s right, they’ve added We Were Just Kids to their playlist this weekend and you can tune in on WJTL 90.3 Friday night and Sunday night or listen on the WJTL App.

And the second bit of news for today is that the lyric video for We Were Just Kids is debuting on the Spreading Light Music Youtube page! Check it out below:

We Were Just Kids Out Now!

brave machine - we were just kids

Hello everyone! I hope you are all doing well. Our brand new song We Were Just Kids releases today, October 15th, and is available wherever you stream or download music! I’m super proud of how this one turned out and I hope you like it.

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