Teenage rockers Arise The Dawn blaze their own trail in the Duluth-Superior Christian rock scene with fast riffs, thundering drums, a pounding bass and scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs vocals

— Russ Ballard

Before Beau Musch became the lead singer of the Christian rock band Arise The Dawn, he had to prove he could scream.

The band based out of Mission Covenant Church in Poplar, Wis., had its nucleus in place, but one piece was missing from the group’s brand of intense, high-energy heavy metal — a singer who possessed a guttural growl that could scare off a pack of wolves.

“Me, Brock (Larson), Jared (Gehl) and Jake (Wynn) were playing together,” said Nathan Nelson, the group’s drummer, “and then one day at youth group someone said that Beau could scream. And we asked him to show us, and he got up on stage and went (insert your own howl here). He had no fear, so we were like, ‘You need to be in the band.’”

Now, for about the past year and a half, Arise The Dawn has performed incendiary sets with songs like “Reasons,” “Emergency Appendectomy,” “Whatever Happened to Pluto?” and “I hAte gRamEr the MostesT” to metal fans around northwestern Wisconsin and northeastern Minnesota. They also spread their sound to the Twin Cities recently by advancing through a few rounds of the Club 3 Degrees Battle of the Bands.

But understand, Arise The Dawn isn’t your father’s Christian rock band. Not even close. Think Metallica on steroids following an old- fashioned Gospel revival meeting.

Arise The Dawn’s sound is a mixture of metal, screamo, rock and “a tinge of punk.”

“It’s kind of funny because we all have different styles that we like and we all kind of bring that to the table,” Nelson said. “It’s kind of a mixture of all of our favorite styles of music.”

Jake Wynn, 16, shreds the air around him with his lightning quick riffs on lead guitar; Nate Nelson, 18, provides plenty of thunder on the drums; Jared Gehl, 18, gives each song a firm foundation with his pounding five-string bass; and Brock Larson, 18, is the group’s jack- of-all-trades on rhythm guitar and keyboards. Then there’s Beau Musch, 18, filling arenas with his primordial yowls and playing rhythm guitar for good measure.

But aside from dishing out heavy doses of speaker-melting metal, Arise The Dawn never forgets their mission — to bring Christian-inspired music to the masses. Each of their shows contains a segment they call a “talk” — where the name of God is proclaimed to the crowd.

During a recent three-song set played at a battle of the bands in Duluth, Minn., Beau Musch shelved his howl momentarily to tell the audience what Arise The Dawn is all about.

“We believe in God, so we try to put something positive into our lyrics,” he told them. “We want there to be a little more meaning behind our songs. We want them to be able to encourage you.”

The crowd loved it.

“Usually we get a very positive response,” Musch said. “I’m not scared of a negative response — if it happens, it happens. It just feels good to speak out when everybody is listening to me. You could have a bad reaction if you get too preachy. But you don’t want to cut God out it because that’s our complete goal with this band. You try to throw something in there so that they definitely hear what we’re about.”

“One of the hardest things that we’ve had is trying to come up with talks — how to word it in a way that’s not going to offend people or turn them away,” Nelson said.

But before the first chord roars out of their speakers, they make sure to talk to God.

“We always start our recording sessions or concerts with prayer,” Gehl said.

Nelson added that prayer helps the band “get our mind focused on what it’s really about and why we’re here.”

Playing Christian music in a genre generally known for spiritual darkness, Arise The Dawn hopes their audiences see their spiritual light.

“As a metal band, we can show that you don’t have to be all messed up on drugs, sex and stuff,” Gehl said.

And to help ensure they are each living lives acceptable to Jesus Christ, the band members said they have each other as accountability partners.

Their mentor, Aaron Armstrong, CEO and owner of DeepWater Music, has enjoyed helping hone their musical gifts and recording tracks for an upcoming CD.

“Working with Arise The Dawn — it’s a total trip,” Armstrong wrote by e-mail. “We’ve spent many nights in the studio past 12:00 working on their songs, their sound and their team.

“I absolutely love these guys like a dad. I taught them privately from up to one-four years, and I’ve worked with them as their producer for about 17 months. I’m so proud of these guys, not only for their music, but for their desire to serve Christ in their own unique way. I think, for followers of Jesus, they help us ask the question, ‘What unique things in me would God like to use?’”

And if using those gifts includes screaming out song lyrics and cranking all their amps full tilt, then the members of Arise The Dawn are grateful and honored to serve Jesus as a metal band.

“The Bible says to make a joyful noise,” Wynn said.

Arise The Dawn makes a joyful noise indeed.

Editor’s note: To find out more about Arise The Dawn, learn of upcoming shows or to listen to their songs, go to www.myspace.com/xarisexthexdawnx