Image Credit: Raysa Suarez Williams
The PCA General Assembly is known for handling important denominational business, not launching musical groups. The notable exception might be the musical duo The Pharaoh Sisters. Austin Pfeiffer is half of The Pharaoh Sisters and a pastor at Salem Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He’s on a mission to help Reformed Christians make a joyful noise.
Born in Cincinnati, Pfeiffer moved out West and grew up in Oregon. He enrolled at the University of Colorado Boulder for his undergraduate studies, but before he went off to study and ski in Boulder, he had a life-changing summer. He and his sister went to a YoungLife camp, and at camp, Pfeiffer encountered the gospel and became a Christian.
During his sophomore year, while attending a college ministry, he overheard that the student who led worship would be out one week, and offered to pitch in. It was a good fit, and Pfeiffer continued to lead worship for the rest of his college career. Pfeiffer didn’t grow up playing music, though he always loved performing in front of others. He came to singing and the guitar organically–singing in the dorm while his roommate played guitar, and later picking up that guitar to learn to play. In the classroom, he studied creative writing with a focus on poetry.
After graduation, he worked in coffee shops and bars, living in Southern California and eventually Boston. He continued to perform music and write. At his church in Boston, he began to consider seminary, and encouraged by a former professor and his pastor, he and his wife moved to North Carolina where he enrolled at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Charlotte campus. After finishing his master’s degree, he earned his Th.M. degree from Duke Divinity School.
During graduate school, Pfeiffer played in an indie-rock band, but he realized the genre would not be one that he could age into. He had become a father, and he started to look for a genre of music he could play for the rest of his life. He also began to ask questions about how he could grow as a songwriter, challenging himself to write lyrics that could both stand on their own two feet and move beyond the self-referential nature of the music his previous bands had been influenced by.
This quest drew him to folk music. Pfeiffer comments that you cannot have “opaque lyrics with really clear melody and musicianship.” Lyrics are front and center in folk music, so they must be intelligible to the audience without any filler words. It was the challenge Pfeiffer wanted. When he was asked to lead music at the General Assembly, he and Jared Meyer played together, and The Pharaoh Sisters began.
As a discerning reader might have guessed, there are no biological sisters in the band. The name is a nod to a neighborly culture within folk music, one in which musicians from one group pitch in to help their friends on other musical projects.
“There is a rich tradition of family and friendships bleeding across different bands,” Pfeiffer said. “Calling ourselves ‘sisters’ is a tongue-in-cheek way of acknowledging that we aren’t related and we aren’t even from the southeast like so many of these folks.”
The lyrical world of The Pharaoh Sisters is chock-full of biblical imagery and allusions. Some of the metaphors and scenes in their music will be readily apparent to those who know the Scriptures, yet careful listeners will catch more subtle references on a second or third listen. But these songs, full of the stories of Scripture, are not intended to be played only in church or Christian venues. Pfeiffer endeavors to write music that “works around town, in a brewery, in a club” as well as writing pieces intended primarily for congregational singing.
The Pharaoh Sisters, with some tongue in cheek, call their music “Classic Saloon Christian.” Pfeiffer calls it an “aspirational joke of a genre,” equal parts self-deprecating and earnest. It’s Christian music that can be played in a bar, partially because it is honest about what it is. It isn’t trying to sneak anything over on anyone. It invites questions that lead people, Christian and nonChristian, back to the world of Scripture.
Pfeiffer hopes the music of The Pharaoh Sisters gives Christians, especially Reformed and Presbyterian Christians, an approach to making a joyful noise. Though Presbyterians are right to avoid the “ecstatic, temporary joy that can be found in the emotionalism of contemporary music,” Pfeiffer observes that this may lead us to accepting a false dichotomy where we either only have upbeat music that is shallow or only have somber music focused on “sorrow, lament, and grief.”
Pfeiffer wants his music to model joyful Christian songs that are “relieving to the soul.” There is a time to mourn and a time to dance. Drawing on Psalm 81, he notes that “singing with joy is an imperative that is native to the language of Scripture.” His hope is that his music can model that.
“By Babylon’s River,” the latest album, will be out on vinyl in February, and you can also follow The Pharaoh Sisters on Spotify for all your “Classic Saloon Christian” listening.