I caught wind of a rumor recently relating to Focused, one of "Christian" music's original hardcore bands getting back together. With all of today's rumors I decided to get the facts straight from the source. This is an e-mail interview done with Gary Wilson, bass player for the recently reunited band.

Chet: What have the members been up to leading to Focused getting back together?

Gary: Well, 3 of the 5 original (Hope That Lies Within) members have gone on to better things....Dirk (Stavesacre), Andrew (Le Shok), Chris (Merbabies r.i.p), so they were not a part of the resurgence of Focused.
The idea came up as Brandon Ebel (Tooth and Nail Records) asked Tim to make another record. Having that in mind, new songs started to be written. It wasn't soon after that when everyone had decided that instead of being a project or 1 record, we wanted to be a band again.....so here we are.

Chet: Are you back together for just a short reunion, or is this permanent?

Gary: Permanent, this is for real...

Chet: I know that you used to be on Tooth and Nail records. Are you looking at any labels now?

Gary: We are taking our time this time around. The deal that looks the best is most likely the one we will take, although we have our eyes set on a few specific options.

Chet: Does the reunion include all of the original members, or is there a new line-up?

Gary: The only original members are Tim and Mikey, so the lineup looks as follows:
Tim(vocals), Adam(drums), Brett(guitar). Mikey(guitar), Gary(bass). This is probably the bet lineup yet!!

Chet: What's going on now with Focused? Are you writing new stuff for a record? Planning a tour?

Gary: We are currently writing the new record, and demoing virtually every song as we go. We want to write a record that we are proud of, as well as expand our music to where it's never been before. We are no longer one-dimensional. As far as tours, we most likely will be out in summer 2001. We want to focus more of our energy on writing right now.

Chet: What do you want people to know about the new Focused? Hopefully many of the listeners will catch the vision of the new Focused.

Gary: We aren't the band that you remember, but I definitely believe in the vision of this band!!!

Gary and Focused can be reached with any questions at focused01@hotmail.com. The Focused website will be up in about a month