Honesty - Steve and Sandi Padilla

Originally released on the 1994 CD "Threshing Floor" Sandi Padilla - Vocals Steve Padilla - Keys/Guitars Dave Hawley - Lead Guitar Dan Elliott - Bass Evan Parandes - Drums Sorry, these are so long! My cynical side comes out today... 54 DAYS, 54 SONGS - DAY 11 Can I Be Honest with You? After being invited to play at the GMA New Artist Showcase in Nashville in 1993, we all walked around the convention floor in downtown Nashville. I had only been a Christian for 3 years and now I was seeing the dark underbelly of a profit-driven business intent on marketing to an in-crowd of church-goers. It all seemed so plastic to me. Branding and marketing companies competing for your dollar promising to make you the next Michael W Smith or Amy Grant while posing as some deep spiritual movement. And all with a thin veneer of religiosity. I felt that the more I pushed back at this ridiculousness the more I was pushed away. What happened to the Keith Greens and Resurrection Bands from the 70s when Christian contemporary music was new? When people drove to gigs in their vans and stayed at people’s homes? Here in 1993, I was witnessing the birth of the Cadillac age of Christian music. Christian alternative bands like the 77s, Vector, The Choir, Violet Burning, Daniel Amos were brave new bands wanting to express a raw honesty of their faith walk yet were continually being pushed out of the path of the CCM industry. By the end of the decade, these bands and others would be turning to secular venues and labels to sustain their careers. We decided as a band to not wait and we took our music and message to the streets. We began to play in bars, clubs, coffee houses, college campuses, all the while singing about a life changed through faith in Jesus. Out of this birthed one of my most cynical songs to date - “Honesty”. Part of the lyrics are, “Honesty won’t get you too far, because it won’t take too long ’til they know who you are.” If we are truly honest with our walk then we must be willing to give up everything because people hate the truth. Most people think they are just fine and all problems in their lives are because of those around them. Coming out of denial is the 1st step in growing spiritually. We are broken people seeking love and attention from every place but God Himself who is so desperate that He will give His grace to anyone that asks. That is a crazy kind of love and to grasp the depth of that love we need to grasp the depth of our moral and spiritual corruption. The video is from when the band played for the show “Backstage” which was a local cable show in Sacramento, CA in 1995. It features Dan Elliott on Bass and Ed Scola on drums. The audio is from the CD so it’s not in sync, just for “looks.” 😛 The CD recording features Dave Hawley just doing some amazing guitar work. On the recording, we put samples of politicians and TV preachers. This was before YouTube so I had to sit in front of the TV for hours recording on to a cassette tape until we found a televangelist scream out “The day of miracles has come, Haha.” Pure gold!

Added 28 Jun 2026