A year ago they were a cluster of unknowns who won the GMA Spotlight award for best unsigned group. Now life is a spin cycle for members of Christian music's new buzz band, Jars of Clay. Suddenly they're famous, and their schedules are jammed with appearances and interviews. But as we discovered, they still have to do their laundry.

It was my first day at my new job as managing editor of Crossroads, and I was already besieged with press releases, letters and prerelease CD samples from record companies. I was about to add a few more to the mound on my desk when several of my co-workers made a dive for one of the CDs on top. It seemed everyone wanted to get a first listen to Jars of Clay.

My background is primarily in secular music, so I really wasn't familiar with Jars of Clay. But the staff's excitement over the group made me curious. I reclaimed the disc at the end of the day so I could listen to it on the way home.

By the time I pulled into my driveway, I'd listened to about half the CD, and I really liked it. I was convinced we should make Jars of Clay the new artist feature in the first issue. I threw on my shorts and headed for the gym in my apartment complex.

There was only one person in the gym, a hip-looking young guy using the Universal machines. I hopped on the Stairmaster and started reading my Billboard. The guy looked over and said, "I see you're reading Billboard. Are you in the music business?"

"Not really," I shrugged. "I sorta write about it."

"Really. That's great. I'm Steve Mason. I play acoustic guitar in a Christian music group called Jars of Clay."

I nearly fell off the Stairmaster. "No way," I sputtered. "I just listened to you in the car on the way home!"

Then it was his turn to look shocked. It turns out all four members of Jars of Clay (Mason, 19; Matt Odmark, 21; Dan Haseltine, 22; and Charlie Lowell, 21) live in an apartment in my complex, about three buildings down from me. Talk about bizarre; I hadn't even heard of them that morning, and in one day I discover that they have one of Christian music's most anticipated releases and they're my neighbors. Needless to say, I decided to interview them myself.

The fact that the Jars lived near me turned out to be fortunate. Their schedules befitted rising music stars, so setting up an interview got tricky. Finally I suggested to their publicist that, since I lived in the same apartment complex, maybe I should just interview the guys while they did their laundry. That's how I ended up in a laundry room with Jars of Clay.

DB: Now you guys are successful musicians, all the magazines want to interview you, and the questions on everyone's mind is, What kind of detergent do you use?

Dan: Whatever happens to be lying around.

Matt: When I buy detergent, I like to get All with bleach alternative. I like the word alternative, and I think I'm pretty alternative.

Charlie: I would have to say it doesn't matter as long as I buy Downy along with it. It makes my clothes so stinkin' soft. And it smells good.

Steve: That's why I buy Purex; I like the smell. In fact, when Matt and I go to the store, I'm like, "Is this the kind I buy?" And I take off the top and smell it to make sure it's the right kind.

DB: Tell me again how you guys became Jars.

Steve: Dan, Charlie and I went to school at Greenville College in Illinois. Dan and Charlie were already doing some songs. Charlie was taking studio classes, and we struck up a friendship, and along with the friendship we struck up a few songs. We entered the GMA contest after we finished our third song. We ended up winning that and got some responses from record labels.

Charlie: I mean, we weren't expecting such interest from the industry. They were calling our dorm all the time. That's when we decided, "Wow, maybe we need to take this more seriously. Let's move to Nashville for the summer and see what happens." We ended up staying down here. At the time, we had another guitar player from Greenville, but he got married and left the band. I called Matt, who I'd known since we were kids, and he came down to play guitar with us.

DB: Who rooms with whom?

Steve: Dan and I room together, and Charlie and Matt. It's been interesting living with three other guys. The best thing is the CD collection. Between us we have about 700 CDs.

DB: Everyone expects this to be a big album. How does it feel to be on the verge of a big hit so early in your career?

Steve: I try not to pay attention to all this.

Charlie: We're really happy with how the album came out, but we try not to put too many expectations on it. At this point, we're just thrilled to have been able to do an album and have a single out.

Matt: Right now all our needs are taken care of, and we're just honored just to be doing this; playing music.

Steve: We're trying to keep a healthy balance between the industry side of things and the ministry side, to take some time and maintain our priorities. We're trying to stay as uninvolved as possible in the business side, to keep our heads in what we're here to do...

Dan: And it's funny, when we first started it was almost exactly the opposite. We thought we wanted lots and lots of control in all aspects of what we were doing. But the more we got involved the less control we really wanted, because it was taking a toll on our ministry focus. The more you have to make decisions about photo sessions and all that stuff, the less time you have for the task at hand. We realized those kinds of decisions were best left to the record company.

DB: Why Christian music?

Dan: I don't think for any of us it was really our decision to make. It think we all knew that if ever anything like this would happen to us, it would be in Christian music. That's probably because growing up we were all involved in music where the church is concerned. We were all in youth groups or were worship leaders. Going into Christian music just seemed like the proper route. And obviously we want to give back to God what He's given to us, to use our talents. We grew up understanding that that's what would happen.

Charlie: I think we had a burden to do something with young people, to give them something real to go after.

Steve: By no means do we intend to spite the mainstream, though, because we really have a healthy respect for many bands out there. I mean, they're doing the same thing we're doing, it's just that they have a different calling.

DB: What do you want your audience to get from your music?

Dan: I think the biggest thing we want to give them is a dose of reality. It's our stance that there's just too much falsehood, too many people who use the premise that when you become a Christian your life is perfect; you know, you sober up or everything just falls into your lap. I think what we try to say is that yes, Christianity is a great thing and the rewards are immeasurable, but the struggles are still difficult. That's what makes us human and so dependent on a Savior.

All our lyrics are very personal, and most deal with stuff that we've been through or that people we know have been through. We concentrate on personal experience, so we hope people will learn from our struggles. The word "I" says a lot.

Steve: People have gotten really cynical about religion and religious figures who have fallen publicly, and we just want to show them the "humanness" that's still a part of everyone, even when you become a Christian. We still have to deal with our faults and our frail nature. We're going to fall daily, and we need God's grace to help us stand up again.

DB: What was your first live concert?

Dan: I know that: Juice Newton and Alabama.

Matt: Donny and Marie Osmond.

DB: You guys are making this up.

Matt: No, really. At the Darien Lake Amphitheatre in New York.

Charlie: My parents took me to see Air Supply.

Steve: My first concert could have been U2's The Joshua Tree tour. That would have been quite an experience. But NO, it wasn't. It was Rich Mullins, when he was doing the Never Picture Perfect tour.

DB: Describe what your lives will be like in 10 years.

Steve: In 10 years, we'll all be married...or I'd like to think we'll all be married.

Dan: The age we'll be then, around 30 or so, we'll really be too old for this kind of thing and this kind of audience. We could possibly do more than harm than good if we were still performing then because we'd be out of touch with youth. For me, I hope other doors will open then, so maybe I could produce other people, maybe work with bands that are our age now and support them...

Steve: Okay, so Dan would like to be Brent Bourgeois. Charlie and I talked about doing a Windham Hill thing, you know, do some easy listening piano-and-guitar, but I don't know...

DB: If you couldn't be yourself anymore and you had to be anyone else in the world, who would you be?

Steve: Hmmm. Maybe Sam Walton. No, wait, he's dead. I would've loved to have been C.S. Lewis. I mean, because I don't consider myself an artist. I consider people like him an artist. Someone who intrigues me and draws me in creatively. He did that.

Charlie (smiling somewhat lasciviously): I think I'd be Gary Chapman.

Matt: Ooooh!

Steve: Whoa, then I take that back. I wanna be Harry Connick Jr.

Dan: I really don't know.

Steve: You wouldn't wanna be Sting for a day? Brent Bourgeois? Audrey Hepburn?

Dan: I could be [DC Talk's] Mike Tait. That would be a great ride, because Mike Tait is the kind of person that I see as a great example of Christian joy.

DB: Okay, let's do a comparison thing. With the Beatles, people used to say Paul was the cute one, John was the smart one and so on. How do you guys describe yourselves?

Dan: Charlie's the chick magnet.

Steve: Yeah, Dan and I will spend a whole evening talking to some girls, making jokes, being funny; or at least trying to be funny; throwing the vibe out and being moderately successful...

Dan: And then Charlie will do something silly or awkward, without even trying, and girls will go, "Oh, he's so cute," and then...

Steve: Then it's all over. It's all for naught. And it's not even like he's trying or anything. But anyway, I'd say that Dan is John; I think he'd be the smart one.

Charlie: Oh, then I'd be the dumb one...

Steve: No, no, no. I'll take Ringo; what was Ringo? I'll be Ringo, I think Charlie would be Paul and Matt would be the quiet one.

Matt: I wouldn't really call me the quiet one. I mean, maybe next to you...

Steve: Next to me, everyone is mute.

Matt: Steve's decibel level is somewhere around a large jet. I think he should be the loud one.

Steve: No really, Matt is the grounded one. He gets us back in line.

Dan: Charlie is the peacemaker/servant in the group. He does his best to keep tension at a minimum. I'd call him reserved.

Matt: Yeah, reserved.

Steve: Reserved. And fiercely handsome.

Dan, Matt, Steve: Chick magnet.

DB: Do you fold your laundry while you're in the laundry room or do you wait until you get back home?

Steve: I fold it in the laundry.

Matt: Me, too.

Charlie: Most of the time in the laundry, but it depends on the weather.

Steve: Yeah, but we know you're supposed to do it in the laundry, right away. We know what's right!