Any former emo/scene/hardcore folks out there?  Well Dan Smotz and I are from these sort of circles of musicians in the Midwest making loud, angry sounding music often with a message of empowerment and I hope you can relate to us on some of these subjects.  We get into Dan's and my own thoughts on "Christian" music and how his faith has evolved over the years, thoughts on growing up in fundamentalist households and where our experiences overlap in that department.   As far as his solo stuff under the intuitive moniker, Smotz, Dan takes us through a genre bending experience where roots in the aforementioned musical stylings which Dan is familiar with such projects like his full band, The Dawn Retreat, while also heavily geared toward using rap as a lyrical force, sprinkled with a toe tapping jazzy riff here and there such as in "Nicotine" (which is featured on this episode).  It really is a unique listening experience. He also has a band called The Dawn Retreat Dan is a super busy guy, being a media producer by day.  If you need multimedia work done of all sorts, audio, video, graphic, et al, get ahold of him at goulashmedia.net.  He also has a podcast called "The System is Down" which you can find anywhere you find podcasts by typing those words into a search bar, also the same for the show's facebook page.  His podcast is on this general concept of things which make people a bit uncomfortable with topics so far centering around religion, mysticism, and conspiracies.  In fact, I was a guest on his show which you can find at tsidpod.com The charity project I've been promoting to build a water well for a village in Malawi to provide clean drinking water to 300 please visit donorsee.com/project/823 to donate or download the DonorSee app for a more direct user interface.