There are a few truths for a minister in congregational life:
A bedside visitation will do more for you than a three-point sermon.
If you encounter the demonic, it will likely come from a copy machine or a choir member.
A casserole dish is more useful than a stole.
And no matter how long you’ve been in a pulpit, you can’t say everything that’s on your mind.
Even in the fragile free-wheeling Baptist church, where there are no higher denominational superiors to seek approval or permission from, a preacher knows they can only go so far. You have to walk the line like Johnny Cash if you want to survive and feed your family.
You have to come to terms with holding back. The institutional church requires a level of compliance. I have struggled with this restraint over the years.
I entered ministry because I saw the call of those like Martin Luther King Jr., William Barber II, Dorothy Day, Sister Simone Campbell, Walter Rauschenbusch and the Berrigan brothers, and wanted to follow suit. For them, the church offered a platform for the possibility of radical change—the pulpit a megaphone calling out the injustices of the world.
Oftentimes, I wonder if the prophetic power in the pulpit has been unplugged. Talking to fellow clergy, I know it has. However, this hasn’t prevented the call for justice, peace and the end of the status quo from alternative lecterns and unconventional prognosticators.
The one I recently stumbled across wears a lot of makeup and plays post-punk goth music. Let me explain.
Our household shares a lot in common with the Addams family. We’ve been told we’re a little creepy and kooky/mysterious and spooky.
Folks have a point. We watch movies like Beetlejuice and Coraline all year long and buy home decor at Spirit Halloween. No surprise, then, that Vision Video popped up in my spouse’s social media feed.
“Are you following this Goth Dad guy on Instagram?” she asked. That’s how it started.
The band and their lead singer, Dusty Gannon, aka Goth Dad, are a throwback to bands like the Cure, Bauhaus and the Chameleons. Their image pulls heavily from the horror movie genre. Gannon has stated that it was films like 1987’s Night of the Demons that inspired his look and sound.
Growing up outside Athens, Georgia, Gannon and other founding band members were looking for something different. They discovered it in record shops like the Wuxtry and Low Yo Yo Stuff. This supplied a building block to more obscure bands.
The sights and sounds of the goth, post-punk and industrial music scenes left an impression on Gannon, shaping much of his identity. At 20 years old, he carried this into an unlikely place, the U.S. military, where he enlisted in the Army and eventually became an Infantry officer.
Gannon would serve for the next 15 years, until transitioning back to civilian life in 2016. No stranger to playing and writing music, he would use this outlet to process what stayed with him as he headed back to Athens.
On his return, he’d meet bandmates Emily Fredock, Jason Fusco and Dan Geller through the service industry. Around the same time, Gannon created the “Goth Dad” character for social media, a persona that presents insightful tips into goth culture with humor and “dad-joke” like wit.
Even with a global pandemic stunting their budding collaboration, the band released their first album, Inked In Red, in 2021. They would tour, find their stage legs, and release a follow-up in 2022, Haunted Hours. Their audience continued to grow.
They released their third album, Modern Horror, last year. Many of the songs and lyrics were inspired by Gannon’s experiences in war, specifically his time in Afghanistan, and his current day job as a first responder. From the track “Dead Gods,”
Blessed are the children in their sights
Even when they beg to not die of starvation
Your hungry eyes look on with disgust
As your liar’s tome will justify your own abomination
With lyrics like these, Vision Video has found an audience.
Some are like me, Gen-Xers who still paint their fingernails black. Others are older Millennials who still remember Hot Topic’s better days. And yet, TikTok has become one of the band’s most followed social media accounts, proving younger listeners are finding meaning in the music’s message.
Part of their growth can be attributed to Gannon’s social commentary. Besides discussing all things gothy, he engages the issue of toxic masculinity, the importance of mental health, and his progressive beliefs.
My spouse and I saw this firsthand as we made the arrangements for a babysitter, slid into our tightest black jeans, and stomped out into the night with our Doc Martins to catch Gannon and the band’s new lineup take the stage at the Ramkat in downtown Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We were not disappointed.
After a high-energy set by the opening act, TREASVRE, Gannon and company appeared. Wasting no time, they pounced on the crowd that had come for nothing less than angsty affirmation wrapped in pounding basslines, distorted guitars and drumming that raises the dead and your blood pressure.
What holds this assembled chaos together is a dark romantic aesthetic. The lyrics come from a source that appears real and relatable, raw and vulnerable.
Listeners are left feeling as if they’re secretly reading a private journal entry or a love letter from John Keats to Fanny Brawne. There is talk of beauty and admiration, kneaded in with longing frustration at a world set on fire.
Before blasting the venue with a single from their new album, the band pulled out and donned balaclavas. With faces covered, Gannon poured himself into a microphone. Preaching a message of resistance and risk, he sang.
Come on baby
Pull up your balaclava
lets have a kiss
Lets watch it burn
We’re dancing through the embers
A lesson never learned
But soon to be remembered
Watching Vision Video, one sees that every song, every chord, is an experiment in crossing a threshold. There is a no-holds-barred spirit to take their art and message a bit further, and they want you to go with them.
And if the songs don’t state it explicitly, Gannon shares thoughts and stories between sets.
“We are toeing the line with fascism, and it transcends both political parties, but now these racist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic MF’ers, these Christian Nationalists, they’re going all the way. All the way for the power grab! They’re taking control. And they’re stripping every little right that we did have, but I don’t know about you, but I’m not gonna stand for that. Hell no.”
To cheers from the crowd, Gannon rolls on. Calling out the billionaire class and naming those who construct platforms of hate and benefit from societal discord.
Donald Trump.
Elon Musk.
J.D. Vance.
Peter Thiel.
Curtis Yarvin.
The Heritage Foundation.
Project 2025.
The show rolls on. People sway, jump, and gyrate as they mouth the words to hits like “Normalized,” “I Love Cats,” and a cover of Joy Division’s “Transmission.”
As the night draws to a close, Gannon jokes about going through the motions of performing an encore, suggesting we all have to pretend like we’re not going to do one but to act surprised when we do.
He then gives what I know as a benediction. He instructs the faithful that the only way any of us will get through this is by connecting with and seeing the humanity in each other.
He demonstrates by talking to a young woman near the stage, asking her name and telling her how much he likes her hair. The message is simple and straightforward—get to know your neighbor. That way, if someone comes for them, you’ll fight for them.
They close with their hit “In My Side.”
And my body’s bare in this murder scene
And it’s always there reminding me
That I feel your knife in my back
I can feel your knife in my side
I can feel your knife in my back
I can feel your knife in my side.
These words and the modest ring in my ears take me and my spouse out into an October night. We leave with a high that those who attend live music shows know all too well.
Moving with the masses across the parking lot, we talk about the show and about the stickers and shirt we grabbed from the merch table. We talk about the unapologetic message we heard.
The last bit refreshes and stings me, as I tell my wife how envious I am of Gannons’ ability to speak his mind. That what he and the band just offered felt more like authentic preaching and church to me than I was comfortable admitting to anyone besides her.
Driving home, I silently think to myself that if I ever find the nerve to preach like that, I’ll probably get fired, and that Sunday would be my last sermon.
And from somewhere, perhaps on the lips of what I know of as the Holy Ghost, I hear a challenge. A promise.
“Or maybe Justin, it would be your first.”
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Justin Cox received his theological education from Campbell University, Wake Forest University School of Divinity, and McAfee School of Theology where he earned his Doctor of Ministry. He is an ordained minister holding standing in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and American Baptist Churches USA. When not spending time with his spouse and daughters, he can be found writing and baking late into the night. His thoughts and reflections are his own.
