Before there was Summer Hymns, there was Joe Christmas. Zachary Gresham fronted this band from the early days of Kindercore records (they contributed to a few of the early Kindercore compilations) and the years when Elephant 6 was rising to prominence. Though Gresham and his band (including Russell Holbrook, Ryan Weaver, Jason Dempsey, and Philip Brown) weren't directly involved in the E6 scene, and labored over the decision to move to Athens, inevitably they formed certain connections: Gresham lived with Will Hart (Olivia Tremor Control) for a time, and Neutral Milk Hotel played their first Athens show opening for Joe Christmas. The band released two albums, Upstairs, Overlooking and North to the Future, both, inexplicably, on the Christian music label Tooth & Nail. (Google the band and you'll find a Christian music lyrics website.) They weren't a Christian band, and certainly sounded a hell of a lot more interesting than 99.9% of Christian music; their lyrics dwelt on messy relationships and adolescent lust and longing. They also had a tendency to rock--and certainly their sound is a bit louder, a bit more rocking, than the whispery, sophisticated psychedelia of Summer Hymns, the band which Gresham and Brown went on to form--to greater, and deserved, acclaim--when Joe Christmas' steam ran out, sometime in 1997. There's an excellent retrospective of the band in Flagpole, which you can read here. Here's a sample track from each of their two releases.

Joe Christmas - Coupleskate
Joe Christmas - A Pretty Girl Never Lights Her Own Cigarette