deadset

Under a busy underpass, in the backalleys of Prague’s Meetfactory, I approached Garrett Russell of Silent Planet after their blistering support slot on The Amity Affliction’s EU tour. As a long-time fan, metalcore enthusiast and amateur theologian myself, I’d been dying to ask for his take on the spiritual state of the scene.

The conviction and depth of Garrett Rusell’s lyrics have lent a prophetic air to every Silent Planet show I’ve been to. With his long locks and often barefoot presence onstage, he does leave quite a striking impression.

Watching tonight’s Czech audience scream every word back, despite lyrics that are dense even for native English speakers, the atmosphere felt not unlike a pentecostal church service. I asked Garrett whether he feels the same. He recognised the parallels, but not without an important caveat.

“Everyone has their liturgy, everyone has their hierarchy. Everyone wants you to be a priest-like figure. But that’s just setting both you and your favourite artist up for failure and disappointment”

A Higher Calling

The spiritual angle to Silent Planet’s music is no secret. Naming themselves after a C.S. Lewis novel, addressing topics of eternity, justice, morality, life and death…the writing’s on the wall even for those who appreciate the heavy breakdowns and melodies at surface level.

Merging spiritual topics and personal convictions with heavy music used to be a selling point in the alt scene (I also discuss it in this previous post). But these days, those crowds seem to be thinning.

Everyone has their liturgy, everyone has their hierarchy. Everyone wants you to be a priest-like figure.

Garrett Russell on the spiritual connection listeners have with the metalcore scene.

When I asked Garrett about the generational changes after almost 20 years in the scene (their merch that night proudly boasted “Silent Planet – since 2009”) he agreed that it’s really tough out there for creatives today. The battle for algorithmic attention and the Tik Tokification/streamification of the music industry as a whole has made it almost impossible to retain audiences, let alone make a living from music.

Consequently, certain topics of spiritual or political persuasion fall by the wayside. Garrett isn’t one to judge however. He acknowledges a completely different media landscape than the one he came up in, and can sympathise with these younger bands.

“It’s so competitive in the music industry today. A lot of bands and artists are simply afraid to speak up on certain topics. They don’t want to lose audiences or deals, which I understand as well. But that’s never been for me.

It was different back then [20 years ago]. Bands in our kind of lane, like mewithoutYou, Emery…they didn’t wake up every day and be like “Let’s try to make music like Zao or Norma Jean”, you know? Everyone was just experimenting and being weird, making this specific type of music just for ourselves.”

The contrast between this creative freedom and today’s newer bands is a salient point. With heavy music’s revival being fueled by streaming and revival trends, younger artists seem to be mimicking the canon of Myspace-era/peak Warped Tour bands more than ever.

The pressure to perform for an invisible, instantly gratified audience and get that one viral video is proving hell for artists. Even veterans like Devin Townsend have commented on the fact that every artist today has to be a content creator too. And that’s without even addressing the advent of AI ‘music’…

A Digital Age

Silent Planet’s newer material such as “Under Your Skin” and “Mindframe” incorporates electronic elements more than in the past, with the latter featuring lyrics addressing technological enslavement.

I suggested this matches exactly the kind of world younger bands find themselves in – digitally saturated and overrun by technology. Does Garrett bring these lyrical ideas to the band, or does he let the world’s current events speak to him when putting the songs together?

“You know sometimes you hear about an author who is writing a story, and then they realise they have to kill off a character because the story demands it? Like, ‘I really don’t want to kill this character, but it’s where the story is going!’ That’s how I feel sometimes writing these songs.

The other guys in the band love dance and electronic music. So when they sent me some of these newer demos, I just sat with them and listened literally hundreds of times to figure out what each song was trying to tell me. And I guess yeah all this stuff about the digital world with smartphones, AI, and surveillance…those are the kinds of topics that naturally came out.

We write whatever feels right for us at that time. The new record has like two straight up indie rock songs. Then there’s definitely going to be some fast riffage too, and some of what I call car alarm-core too [imitates sliding pitch noises and heavy guitar chugging].”

It’s this honest approach to songwriting and reflecting the world around them that has allowed Silent Planet to endure through the years. While other artists have pivoted to anniversary tours or throwback-focused content (nothing wrong with that), Silent Planet move forward, reinventing their sound to match the chaos around them.

A House Divided

Part of that chaos in 2026 includes the unraveling of contemporary American Evangelical Christianity. As an American artist still publicly representing Christianity, he no doubt finds himself in uncomfortable situations.

Before Trump’s first presidency in 2016, there was some semblance of authenticity and earnestness in faith-based expression in alternative music. With a second Trump term, deepening culture wars and the rise of Christian nationalism in the US, the pendulum has noticeably swung the other way.

“I don’t think anyone caught it tonight,” Garrett laughs, “But I had to take a moment to call out Pete Hegseth you know. Did you see all that insane stuff he was saying this week?”

He’s referring to the weeks before Silent Planet’s show in Prague, where US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth was publicly quoting Old Testament verses to the military, and announced the creation of the Office of Religious Affairs, aimed at instilling ‘strong Christian values’ back into the US military. This proud ‘Christian nationalist’ identity has even been called out by watchdog group Global Extremism.

The conflation of evangelical Christianity, American nationhood, and identity politics is a perfect storm of conflict and controversy right now. It’s with this militaristic, chauvinistic interpretation of the gospel that I bring up Hayley Williams’ recent onstage quote at a New York concert in September, “Christian nationalism is the greatest threat to democracy”, and Garrett smiles ironically.

We discuss the topics of American identity, Christianity and getting outside the religious bubble. It’s an ongoing battle that is shaping the very landscape of modern Christianity today.

“It’s definitely different from the Tooth and Nail days,” he reflects, referencing the record label known for Christian metalcore and rock in the 2000s and 2010s.

“Nowadays, there’s even more baggage around the label of Christian that it’s hard to know what Americans even mean when they say I’m a ‘Christian’. Like, do you mean you’re MAGA? Or are you really like a ‘little Christ’? You never know what’s really going on in someone’s head.

Maybe that’s why we always seem so happy to play here in Europe. We’re a bit too weird for the metalcore scene, but also maybe too … something else for the American rock scene?”

As for the rest of the band? Garrett says they’re all on the same page when it comes to basic human ethics for sure (the band also released a merch collab with Dying Wish, Callous Daoboys and END amongst others to support Palestine relief efforts last year), but he’s probably the most outspoken when it comes to faith and spiritual topics.

“Ultimately, that’s a hard question to answer when people ask if I’m a Christian. I have decided on this answer: ‘I’m trying to be’”