Tim Lambesis, the former frontman of a Christian heavy metal band recently sentenced to six years in jail for hiring a hit man to kill his wife, dropped another shocker for fans of the group: he and most of his bandmates were atheists.
“Truthfully, I was an atheist,” he said during an interview with music trade magazine Alternative Press, adding that the band, named As I Lay Dying, faked the faith in order to sell records.
“I actually wasn’t the first guy in As I Lay Dying to stop being a Christian,” he said. “In fact, I think I was the third. The two who remained kind of stopped talking about it, and then I’m pretty sure they dropped it, too.
“I remember one Christian festival where an interviewer wanted one of the guys [in the band] to share his testimony and he just froze up and let one of the guys who was still a Christian at the time answer the questions,” he told the magazine. “We laughed about it afterward, but we were only laughing because it was so awkward.”
Lambesis recently pleaded guilty to a felony count of solicitation of murder for trying to have his wife, Megann Murphy, killed by a hit man.
Lambesis said his band was far from the only group pretending to be Christians.
“We toured with more ’Christian bands’ who actually aren’t Christians than bands that are,” he said. “In 12 years of touring with As I Lay Dying, I would say maybe one in 10 Christian bands we toured with were actually Christian bands.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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