The first purpose of our band was to play at two parish festivals. This was a clear, achievable goal, and we planned our practices around it. We picked set lists of songs that people would recognize and sing along to, even if they weren't the kind of music we wanted to play. We spent a lot of time hashing out the set list, trying to create a good flow. If our show wasn't balanced and enjoyable, we wouldn't provide the festivals the kind of entertainment they needed. We were there to help those parishes make money, after all.

These creative limitations helped instead of hurt, I think. The restrictions inherent in any medium are essential to the art. The edges of a canvas help define what gets painted inside. How you frame a photograph - including what you leave outside the frame - is a huge part of what makes good photography. Music is no different. By understanding the purpose of those parish festival shows, we were able to choose music and practice in a way that worked well in that medium. It gave us a context in which to work together. I don't think the band would have come together at all without that specific purpose, even if it put limits on our creativity. Open-ended freedom might seem like the best environment for letting the creative juices flow, but it frequently leads to decision paralysis. And so, we soldiered through some tough practices, and played some music that didn't necessarily appeal to us, and came out better for it. Now we're a band.

And now that external restriction is gone. We don't have any shows in the near future - I'm working on some smaller-scale shows, maybe just acoustic stuff, but those haven't materialized yet. And instead of getting ready for a specific show in a particular kind of environment, we're just being a band to be a band. We took a few weeks off, and missed the creative outlet. I miss playing music with these incredible people. But, now, what are we creating? We have to define it for ourselves.

We'd like to record some music. When I announced the shows on my Twitter, a lot of people were interested in punk and emo music written by a Catholic priest. I was really touched by that. We are operating in the smallest and most specific niche possible, and it turns out there's other people here, too. I would love to be able to take some of our artistic ability, our experience of the world, and love for emo music and distill it into a record. But recording is hard, and we're a bunch of amateurs. We'll see what we can do. But, I have to admit, I am extremely excited to try.

We were able to do just a little bit of songwriting for the second show. A song that I had originally written back before ordination, but never really put together, took shape and got new life when we played it as a group. This process is really cool. Each of us has a different perspective, a different drive behind our music. Bringing all that different creative energy into a single piece was really awesome, and I enjoyed it immensely. There's a couple more songs in the works, too. I think you all might have some very cool music to look forward to.