By Cheri Perkins Mantz
Catholic Herald Staff

GERMANTOWN:  The last place one might expect to find a married college
professor with nine children is rocking on stage with a rock band. But, then
one probably never met David Wang, founder and vocalist for Critical Mass, a
Canadian Catholic rock band.

The band performed at St. Boniface Parish in late February for about 150
young adults.

"The biggest challenge is being a Catholic band," said Wang in an interview
with your Catholic Herald. "Catholic Christians think we would play liturgy
music. But we play rock music you listen to in the car or on your MP3
player."

Besides Wang, Critical Mass consists of Luke Kupczyk, guitar, Scott
McKendrick, bass, Lawrence Lam, keyboard, Paul Kieffer, drums, and Tracey
Doyle, percussionist.

While some of the other musicians in Critical Mass have dabbled in
non-Christian music, Wang never has.

"There is definitely a different passion to our work when you are trying to
reach the church, as opposed to trying to make personal gains," he said.

Surprisingly, Wang, 43, was raised without religion, but found Catholicism
later in life. Married to wife, Jodie with whom he has nine children ranging
in age from 2 and 13, he is a professor of computer and electrical
engineering at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Aside from teaching college, Wang and his wife also homeschool their
children, and, like most everything else in Wang's life, music is a large
part of this, too.

"We homeschool our kids and they have a terrific understanding of faith,"
said Wang. "We make sure there is Christian music and media always playing.
I believe a lot of what our kids absorb is done so subliminally through the
media. However, my kid's favorite music is from Christian bands. I really
believe that the message is getting through to them. Only time will tell,
but so far so good with my kids."

Among parenting, teaching and music, Wang has to be very time conscious.

"Personally, I do a lot of practicing in the car," he said. "It's one of
the advantages of being a vocalist. I have also learned to parallel task quite
well. Writing lyrics usually happens in bits and pieces. I will get an idea
and then I will make sure I jot it down right away. I don't spend a lot of
idle time. I have to be very organized."

"My faith is everything toward my music," said Wang. "I'm a convert and it
frustrates me to see people taking their faith for granted. Basically, I was
sick of people kicking the church, so I made an album that kicked back."

"I had no religion (before marriage)," he said. "My wife was a convert to
Catholicism from the United Church, which is similar to the Methodist Church
in the U.S. I joined her church before we got married, but I always
considered myself a cafeteria Catholic. However, we joined a weekly rosary
group and that was when our lives started to get transformed."
One of the challenges Critical Mass has had to overcome is demonstrating
that their music is not liturgical music.

"At times we've found non-Christians are more receptive to our music," he
said. "They'll actually give it a chance, when Catholics may have a
preconceived notion. We believe it's time for Catholic artists to step up
and raise the bar. Catholics won't listen to mediocre music. For Catholics,
the music has to be as good as secular music, or they won't listen."

"We have been writing stuff that we hope may be useful in a liturgy,
however, it is definitely a different style than what is on our CDs," said
Wang. "We believe (liturgical) music should be a background to what is
happening in Mass, where we encounter the true presence of Jesus in the
Eucharist. If people spend time going, 'wow, isn't that music cool,' then we
have failed. Integrating music, and trying to incorporate some Latin and
Greek back into music, as requested in recent statements by Pope Benedict,
is very challenging!"

The Wang family are members of St. Mark and Blessed Sacrament churches in
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. They go between the two churches because,
according to Wang, it's difficult to juggle a church schedule and seven kids' sports schedules. Considering a large portion of Wang's life is dedicated
to Catholic music, it may come as a surprise that he doesn't participate in
his church's music program.

"I would not subject a choir to a member with nine kids," he laughed. "We
used to sing in our parish choir, but it got too unmanageable. However, we
sing with gusto from the pews!"

As a father, Wang believes music is a great way to reach out to kids.

"I think a lot of parents need to realize what a huge influence music is to
kids. Catholic music doesn't necessarily mean liturgical music."
When it comes to his own children, Wang isn't sure that they will follow in
his footsteps, and that is just fine with him.

"They have grown up with my wife and me singing in front of large audiences,
so this seems pretty normal to them. I'd love for them to follow in my
footsteps, but they are pretty focused on sports right now," he said.

In 2000, the band won Best Album of the Year by the Canadian Gospel Music
Association. During World Youth Day 2002, Critical Mass played at the papal
welcoming ceremony and during the papal visit, seen by 600,000 people in
attendance and televised. Their third album, "Grasping For Hope in the
Darkness" was released in September 2004.

Despite their rock sound, Wang and the members of Critical Mass aren't
pushing new, alternative ideas.

"Ironically, we want to bring the church back to more traditional thinking,"
he continued. "Respect for the sacraments and clergy; we want to draw
attention back to that."
The band often performs at Catholic retreats as a way of conveying its
message.

"Our message in our retreats is two-fold," said Wang. "Number one, get back
to confession and number two get back to understanding that Jesus is truly
there in Mass. We find if we can get kids to understand these points, then
Mass is never boring, even if the priest is not super dynamic or if the
music is sub-par. Regular confession gets the kid in a totally different
mind frame about themselves. If we get these two points across, we find the
Holy Spirit often works to draw the other truths of the church home to the
youth."