It is shortly after 8:00 AM on a Sunday morning and I have coffee brewing in the next room. Last night was the first snow fall of the year. We got maybe an inch, it is unlikely to stick around but driving home in it last night was a bit treacherous. Two days ago I had the experience of sitting in a large, beautiful, theater filled with friends, family, and strangers, and watching them watch a movie that is heavily based on my life and in which I feature prominently. The film is called Witness Underground and it was showing as part of the 22nd Annual Sound Unseen film festival. This was the Minneapolis premiere and a lot of people turned out for it.
I want to take a moment here to answer some of the most recurring questions about WU, tell some backstory of why Witness Underground exists, what motivated it, why I participated, and what it has been like for me. I’ve said some things online about it on social media platforms but haven’t written about it (or much of anything else, honestly) here on my blog so it’s high time I do something about that.
Here are some of the questions I have been repeatedly asked about Witness Underground since it hit the film festival circuit earlier this year and my answers.
Q. What is Witness Underground about?
WU is about something called Nuclear Gopher and the impact it had on the lives of the people involved with it. Nuclear Gopher began as a label that my brother Rhett and I used to distribute music we made as a band called The Lavone starting in the mid 1980’s. Over the years, Nuclear Gopher wound up the nucleus of a larger scene involving many bands, recordings, zero-budget movies, music festivals, and a website that united hundreds or thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses across the Midwest in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, the Dakotas, Illinois, and Missouri. Witness Underground tells the stories of myself, James Zimmerman, Cindy and Eric Elvendahl, and Chad Rhiger and our relationships to each other, the Watchtower Society (Jehovah’s Witnesses) and the Nuclear Gopher both during our time within the religion and heyday of NG and also after NG ceased to be and we exited the religion.
Q. What motivated the making of this film?
I did not make this movie, it was made by a director named Scott Homan. I did not meet Scott prior to the making of this movie but he had been aware of both myself and Nuclear Gopher. I am somewhat notorious within the local Jehovah’s Witness community for my many years of openly talking about my reasons for leaving the faith and for indirectly encouraging others to think critically for themselves about their religious beliefs. Scott is a former Jehovah’s Witness and filmmaker who wanted to tell his own story by telling the stories of others who have gone through similar experiences. He has made a series of short films on the topic featuring many other former Witnesses (the film series is called XJW Coming Out and it’s great). Witness Underground began when Scott connected with me online and asked me to tell my story.
That explains a little of Scott’s motivation, but it doesn’t really explain mine. I did not need to participate in this project, I left the Witnesses a long time ago and Nuclear Gopher had receded quite far into the rear-view mirror when Scott contacted me, but I wanted the story to be told and I had struggled for years with how to tell it. If somebody else wanted to take a crack at it, I was willing to cooperate. I had some ground rules though. First, I did not want the resulting film to be a hatchet job against the Jehovah’s Witnesses. There are enough of those around and felt it would have demeaned all the creative and wonderful things we did to simply use my life and music and former community as some sort of vehicle to get people to listen to anti-Witness propaganda. The movie needed to be about the love we had for each other, the role that music and creativity played in helping us all be better adjusted and happy within the Watchtower community, and the like. My hope was to humanize our experience, highlight both the joy and the pain we all went through, and create a meaningful document that honored a very important part of my life.
Q. But doesn’t Witness Underground attack the Jehovah’s Witnesses?
Attack? No. The Jehovah’s Witness religion is the context in which the events of the movie took place. It is literally impossible to tell the story of my life without talking about Nuclear Gopher and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The movie also delves into some of the reasons I left the religion and the fallout in my personal life that resulted from my loss of belief in their teachings. Do the Witnesses look good when this story is told? They do not. In many ways they come across as insular, mean, dishonest, judgmental, and cruel based on their policy of strictly shunning former members and many of their doctrinal teachings that are flatly contradicted by evidence, science, and basic reason. Some of that is in the movie because it had to be. Nothing else in the movie would make sense without it. But, and this is important to me, that is NOT the point of Witness Underground. The point of Witness Underground is to demonstrate to people that a person undergoing a crisis of conscience and seeking truth for themselves is not an inherently “demonic” or “diseased” person. They are sincere and can retain all of their love, humanity, empathy, curiousity, and the rest. If they become bitter, angry, resentful, suicidal, or spend the rest of their life obsessing about their former faith, it is only because of the cruel treatment they are subjected to. For a communal species such as ours, communal shunning (included being ostracized from blood family members) it one of the most painful psychological punishments it is possible to subject another person to. It can lead to years of therapy and self-harm in many many cases. Friends and family members of both current and former Witnesses need to know about this trauma and people facing their own crises need to know that they can have a fulfilling life and feel good about themselves even when their path takes them away from the Witnesses.
Q. I’m not a Witness and I have never been one. Why should I care about this movie?
While this movie may take place in the world of Jehovah’s Witnesses and their former members, it is not really about that. The movie is about stepping out of the constraints and boxes that we are born into and being brave enough to pursue our personal truths wherever they lead. In showing after showing the movie has resonated with members of the LGBTQ+ community, former Catholics and Evangelicals, the non-religious, people from all walks of life and backgrounds, because, simply put, the process of growing into being your true self is a universal process. While this film may be of particular interest to X/JW and indie music communities, it is not intended to be targeted towards them. Rather it is intended to use the experiences in the film to create a broader sense of connection among people with diverse experiences.
Q. How involved where you in the making of the film?
Less so than you might think. I sat down for an on-camera interview in Denver and spent a day or two with the film crew at my home in Minnesota shooting B-roll footage and a live music video shoot with the members of HighTV out in one of my out-buildings. I shared archival photos, videos, and recordings with the WU crew. The vast majority of the work on the film involved exploring the archival media and building a coherent narrative out of the interview footage of myself, James Zimmerman, Chad Rhiger, Eric Elvendahl and Cindy Elvendahl. I had very little to do with any of that effort, an effort that took two+ years of dedication and hard work to craft the resulting movie. I am very impressed by the resulting film, personally.
Q. Where can I see Witness Underground?
That depends. The film has played at several film festivals throughout the US this year. It will play at more. Some are virtual, some are in-person. You can find out when and where it is playing at www.witnessunderground.com.
Q. Where can I find your music/books/films/etc?
When Nuclear Gopher was operating (1989-2005) we started leveraging a music licensing philosophy called Creative Commons. Creative Commons allows somebody to publish media online for free distribution and sharing with others without giving up their rights to the works. It is what is known as “copyleft” instead of “copyright”. Due to this fact, many older Nuclear Gopher music and movies are permanently archived for posterity at the Internet Archive (archive.org) and are freely available for you to download, keep, and even use in your own derivative works provided that you share and share alike and also provide attribution to the original artists. Some Nuclear Gopher music is also available on streaming services such as YouTube, TIDAL, Spotify and Bandcamp. A collection of my blog writings is available as a free CC-licensed ebook called Hira-Hira, also at archive.org.
Q. Will Nuclear Gopher return?
Yes. Nuclear Gopher officially resumed operations this year in the wake of the film. The new Nuclear Gopher will re-issue newly restored and remastered versions of some older NG music, there will be a sound track from the film, and, most importantly, several new artists are already excited to have NG release and promote their future work.
Q. If the old Nuclear Gopher was just for Witness artists does that mean the new Nuclear Gopher is just for ex-Witnesses?
Absolutely not. The new Nuclear Gopher is for anybody, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack there of, completely unrelated to whether or not they have even heard of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Watchtower may have been the environment that incubated the Gopher, but it was always really about music, art, creativity, and a DIY ethos. We would have made our music if we had been raised Catholic, Buddhist, or with no religion at all because we love music and art. Nuclear Gopher was and is a nucleus for connecting a community of people through the power of art and music and I look forward to bringing it back to life for everybody and getting some more good energy out into the world. We all need it.
Q. Have your Witness family members seen the movie? What did they think?
I have no idea but I doubt it. Ironically, most Witnesses would consider watching WU to be against their religion. Several of my extended non-Witness family have seen the film and reached out to me with their thoughts. My siblings were invited years ago to participate in the film and share their perspectives, thoughts, and memories but elected not to do so. My father likely knows of the film through the family grapevine. The Watchtower shunning policy dictates that my Witness family members have no contact with me unless absolutely necessary so I don’t know if we will ever discuss Witness Underground, but I hope we do.
Q. If they do see it, what would you like to say to them about it?
Dear Reed, Robbie, and Dad. I love you with all my heart and I know from first hand experience how terrible this movie probably makes you feel. Instead of this terrible feeling, we could have had lovely and fulfilling relationships for the last 17 years. We could have eaten meals together and gone fishing and made music and laughed and been happy. My son could have known his cousins and Aunt Robbie and Uncle Reed and his grandfather and you could have known him. I could have been a really cool uncle to Ian and Felix and Petra and they would have loved playing with our rescue dogs. Life could have been peaceful, loving, and normal and we would have all been richer for it. It still could be. As long as their is life and love, I will never stop hoping we can be a family again, no matter our differences of belief. My door has always been open to you and it always will be. The film is a celebration of what was and a document of the tragedy of what is, but the future is not yet written.
Q. Would you say there are any lessons in this film that apply to the larger world and times we are living in?
Definitely. The processes of information control, in-group/out-group structure, end of the world mythology, and many other beliefs, teachings, and structures within the Watchtower Society are found in other parts of our culture and, while the specific beliefs vary, the patterns are common. The personality cult of Donald Trump, for example, has strong parallels to the Watchtower: leadership is idolized, critical thought is hampered and discouraged, adherence to a strict point of view is strongly encouraged, media consumption and information is limited only to approved channels with any unapproved channel being decried as fake/phony/dishonest/evil, people on the rest of the political spectrum are “un-American”, etc., and families are being torn apart by the divisions created. This movie demonstrates the conflict and division over belief systems and blind allegiance to cults and tribes and the pain it all causes. It illustrates the need for patience with ones’ self and loved ones if restoration of normal relationships is to have any chance of taking place. Where there is life, there is always hope, and one way to deal with the negative feelings and suffering that occur when families are fractured by religious or political or other factors is to create, create, create. Action, practice, activity, these are powerful healers and the way to move beyond the obsessive thoughts/judgments/wishes that these situations can create and help find whatever peace there is to be found.
Q. Now what?
I guess we’ll see, won’t we?