For those who are unaware, Convictions is a Christian rock/metal band hailing from Ohio. The four-piece consists of vocalist Micheal Felker, bassist John Fleischmann, guitarist Joshua Canode and drummer Zach Schwochow.

They're currently signed to InVogue Records, a label known for working with bands such as Hotel Books and Dayseeker. Both bands are joining Convictions this August and September on The InVogue Records Tour.

I had the chance to chat on the phone with guitarist Josh about his band, his faith and the meaning behind the two merging together. You can read the riveting interview below. It's an intense and extremely interesting read.

What is the meaning behind your band’s name?

We thought of the name before we even wrote any of the music. It really does mean what it says. We do write about our convictions. We want to be a band that does write about things that not everyone else writes about. There are a lot of bands in the Christian music industry that are just all about sunshine and daisies. We talk about rougher and darker stuff. I think that there’s some power in talking about darker stuff. I know that personally for me, when I listen to a band, if it’s all just positivity, that’s cool when I’m trying to be happy, but I think the music that’s impacted me the most in my life has always been music that’s written about darker stuff, and that’s kind of what we’re about. We always say, “You’ll listen to the Convictions album and you’ll get some feels," but in a good way.

“Healing Hands” gives me the feels.

That’s crazy. People like that song and we did not know how that song was going to do ‘cause it was kind of a weird song on the album, but everyone likes that song. Zach and I had the hardest time writing that song. We changed it like five times ‘cause we just felt so weird about it, but I’m actually really happy with that song. So yeah, that’s what our name means. We write about our convictions. It really is what it says it is, you know? We want to write about things that are different. We’re a Christian band that writes about stuff that Christian bands don’t write about. I never heard of Christian bands when I was growing up on the Christian radio or anything like that. There was never a Christian band writing about anything I could relate to. It was always just like, “Oh, since I’m a Christian I’m supposed to feel like okay, like God will take care of it.” Sometimes it doesn’t feel like God can take care of it, you know? We want to be that band that’s real about it. Yeah this sucks. Life is not always easy. Life is painful, and I think art should reflect real life. I think that if art doesn’t reflect real life, then it’s not really art.

What message does your music send out to your listeners? “Aggressive Worship” is a term you use a lot.

"Aggressive Worship" is basically just what we call our music. It ties back into what the name of the band means. They go hand in hand ‘cause "Aggressive Worship" is just the songs we write about. "Aggressive Worship" is music that's written that’s not the typical Christian song or anything like that. It is more of an experience. We always say to people, “Come experience 'Aggressive Worship' with us.” We try really hard to put out an emotional leveled field when we get on stage. We try to meet people at eye level. We feel something when we play the music and want them to feel it too. "Aggressive Worship" ties in with the name and experiences. It’s a little hard to describe but it’s something that we just try and portray live. When we play live we really do put a lot into our live show. When we’re on stage, we do actually pour our hearts into it. There will be times where we just get really emotional on stage and I’ll just be like, “Oh man, this is crazy. The music is making me feel some crazy stuff right now,” and that’s what it is. It’s more of a live thing. I think it all comes down to the amount of emotion that we really do put into our music and that can come across as pretentious to some people, when we’re like, “Yeah, we’re so emotional onstage,” but we really are. Genuinely, that’s the goal of the band: to put everything in and lay it all out when we get on stage. Just put all the emotion in.

Now, Convictions is a Christian band, so what made you want to go into a genre where religion generally isn’t really favored or at least actively promoted?

I think it’s the reason we’re Christian: ‘cause our faith is that important to us. I wouldn’t want to be doing something where it’d be fake. It’s just us being honest with ourselves. I think that the term “Christian band” is just a little silly ‘cause I don’t think that music necessarily has a religion; a guitar chord doesn’t have a faith. We do write about our faith and in that sense I do consider us a Christian band. I think that it would be dishonest if we didn’t write about our faith or if we didn’t consider ourselves a Christian band. We do get some hate, you know, for being a Christian band because people don’t think that you can be into this kind of music and write about that kind of stuff, but we’ll tour with bands that are Christian bands and you’d be surprised- a lot of the people we meet that aren't Christians are actually a lot nicer to us than the people that are Christians in the industry.

Do you want to talk about the hate that you just mentioned?

It’s not anything crazy. We don’t get a crazy amount of hate but I don’t think that Christian bands get as much hate as they used to. I think it’s become a little more accepted. There are a few people that’ll comment on something and be like, “Oh, this Christian bullcrap.” There’s someone who’ll comment on something and say “Hail Satan” or something. It’s all just internet trolls; it doesn’t mean anything ‘cause there are people that will comment and will disagree with what we believe in and then there will be people who don’t agree with what we believe in but they like what we’re writing about. That’s a big thing that we [the band] are all about too. "Aggressive Worship" isn’t really just something for Christians. It’s for everyone. We don’t write the music just for people who believe in God. A lot of our biggest fans aren’t even Christians. People comment on some things and they’ve been hating us, but it all comes back. We’re just like, “Hey, you know, we respect what you believe and you don’t have to believe the way we do,” and sometimes people will be like, “Wow that’s really cool,” because there aren’t a lot of people or bands that are like that.

Right, right. I’m religious. I’m not Christian but I also listen to a lot of music that isn’t really on the religious side, if you know what I mean.

Yeah, of course. I don’t think that music has a faith. I think it’s really just the intention behind it. Even if there is a Christian intent behind the music, I think that you’ll be able to tell. There are tons of, I guess you’d consider them, secular artists, but there are some secular artists that put out songs that actually have a lot of faith-meaning behind them, but they don’t call it a Christian song. But it definitely has a lot of faith and I can definitely feel things from when I listen to it. I think that it’s more about honesty rather than putting a label on it.

Well, you just released the new album. What are you working on right now?

Right now we’re just focusing on touring. We’ve got a lot of stuff we’re working on. Hopefully some overseas things will be happening. There’s nothing I can really talk about that much yet, but we have a lot of touring planned for the next year. We’ve been talking about ideas for the next album but we haven’t really started anything yet. I have some song ideas and it’s turning out really cool. We’re basically just planning to tour a lot this year and that’s our main goal right now; to get on the road and tour for the new album.

What do you like doing besides making music?

I’m trying to think. Almost everything I do is involved with the band. I can get really passionate about movies and TV shows. I like really inspiring things and TV shows that really hook you in, like "Breaking Bad" or something like that. I’m a pretty normal dude other than being in a band. I play a little bit of video games but I’m not super into it. I really like the "Legend of Zelda" games. Our bassist John and I are really into that.

What’s your craziest tour moment?

It would probably be when we got our van and trailer stolen in Texas. We put up a GoFundMe and our fans really supported us. We were about to board a plane the next day to catch up with the tour and just rent a ton of stuff and then we got a call from the cops saying they found our van. A lot of the things that were missing were just things that were in the van. The trailer was still there. It was crazy.

When did this happen?

It happened back after we played So What Fest. We basically slept at a hotel, we woke up and the van was just gone. Everything was gone. I walked outside and it was just gone. I was like, “Oh my gosh.”

I would’ve walked back into the hotel and tried to wake up again because what you’re describing feels like a nightmare.

Yeah that’s basically what I did. Like, there’s no way I can’t find it. They parked it somewhere weird, I don’t know. It was crazy. We had to alert the authorities and border control. It was really, really crazy. We had to put up a GoFundMe because we had nothing; we couldn’t go on. People were donating so much money. I woke up the next day and it was like, $10,000 already and I was like, “Oh my gosh.” We got the plane tickets to go fly out and go catch up with Like Moths To Flames in Florida, and right before we boarded the plane we got a call from the cops saying they found our stuff. It was unbelievable. It was like a movie. It really felt like someone was filming me in a stupid movie. It was really, really insane. We shut the GoFundMe off and tried to give people their money back but almost everyone was like, “No, just keep it. We want to support you guys.” It was such a crazy experience. It really was.

Was this right before Gideon got their trailer stolen?

Yeah, it was right before that and then they got their trailer stolen. We actually gave them a little bit of money because we got so much from our GoFundMe.

We felt that it was the right thing to do because we just got a ton of money donated to us and they just got their stuff stolen. We’ve only played a few shows with those guys but I know the pain, it happened to me.

Okay, last question. Give us one reason why anyone should check out Convictions.

If they want to hear heavy music that’s honest and real, because I think the heavy music industry is kind of a lacking land. It’s kind of all just a big, emotionless ball where people are just so concerned about writing catchy choruses and heavy breakdowns. People are always thinking about the intent behind the music and the honesty, and that’s all we’re about.

Yeah, we’re on a pretty rocky road right now.

I think that’s why a lot of the bands getting big these days are really good bands. There are our friends in Silent Planet. They’re getting a lot of hype right now and they’re amazing. They’re great in the music industry and honest and it’s really cool to see really good bands getting really big.

Josh and the rest of the dudes in Convictions are easily, like Josh says, some of the realest, most honest people in the business. They give everything they have into their music, from jaw-dropping live performances to their new killer album, "I Will Become."

In the meanwhile, you can check out their music video for "Charlatan" below and see for yourself how driven and talented these dudes are. The song is about corruption in faith and the video was shot on their recent tour with Like Moths To Flames.

You can keep up with Convictions via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Like Josh said, they play heavy music that's honest and real. You're more than likely to find something you like about the band.