Adam Up

Adam Up is the ninth studio album by ApologetiX released in 2003. Four songs would be featured on their next album (though "Wherever You Will Sow" was a live version), while another three were later included on their first live album.
Although over two thirds of the 500-plus parodies we've written are still waiting to be recorded, it seems we seldom venture into the vault when we're selecting songs for a fresh parody project. This CD is a prime example; we started almost totally from scratch. Consequently, we didn't know exactly what kind of theme would develop until we had rough ideas for all of the parodies.
When the dust cleared, we noticed that two of the most powerful new songs had something (or somebody) in common... Adam. One told the story of Adam and Eve and the other the story of Cain and Abel, but both were told from Adam's perspective. Those stories have been told so many times that it's easy to sleepwalk through them when you're reading Genesis, consequently missing the fact that they're true stories about real people.
But they are indeed real people. The Apostle Paul speaks about Adam as a real person and not a symbolic figure (Romans 5:14, 1 Corinthians 15:22-45 , 1 Timothy 2:13-14), as does Jude (Jude 1:14) and the Gospel of Luke traces Jesus' genealogy back to Adam and his son Seth (Luke 3:38). Paul also mentions Eve in 2 Corinthians 11:3 and 1 Timothy 2:13. Jesus Himself speaks about Abel (Matthew 23:35, Luke 11:51), as does the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 11:4, 12:24), who also mentions Cain (Hebrews 11:4) as do John and Jude ( 1 John 3:12, Jude 1:11).
Having Adam give a play-by-play account of those two famous events really seemed to add something special to the songs and the entire project. With that in mind, it seemed appropriate to get Adam's name in the title. This CD features a large variety of Biblical characters from Adam up to the Apostles, in fact, everyone from Adam up to people today. All the previous ApologetiX projects have discussed both Old and New Testament characters and themes, but this is the first one that went from "Adam up," hence the name.
On a more humorous note, we've released so many CDs over the years, it's getting hard for our feeble minds to remember just how many we have, especially if you count the Christmas EP CD, let alone the numerous studio and "live" cassettes we released in the early 1990's that are now (and forever) out of print, even though some of our diehard fans insist on including them in discographies on their websites :)
So what number album or CD is this for us? Depends on your criteria for counting. The group Chicago cornered the market on albums named after numerals long ago. Now if somebody asks about this one, we can just say, "Add 'em up." Of course, we'll spell it "Adam Up." It won't be the first time ApologetiX spelled something differently, will it?

Lineup

J. Jackson - Lead Vocals
Karl Vaughn Messner - Guitar/Background Vocals
Keith "Stan" Haynie - Bass
Bill "Veal" Rieger - Drums

Guests

Bill Hubauer (The Neal Morse Band) - Keyboards
Everlife - Vocals
Steve Carroll - Keyboards
Krista Haynie - Vocals
Debbie Messner - Vocals
Chris Rieger - Vocals