eMagJUNE 2012

ISSUE 04Behind the new albumKUTLESS

YOURSTORY!CREATION

A TRIBUTE TO OUR CREATOR

Details InsideA SIGNED GUITAR!WINTalks with Creation!MANAFEST

Speaks about sanctificationDr. Duffy Robbins

AND SO MUCH MORE!

THEEXPERIENCE

A Creation eMag Exclusive with

REDBack from Europe,ready for Creation!

Voted Top 10 Family

Summer Destination!

CREATIONFEST.COM

ON THE COVER4 RED

Creation gets an exclusive interview with the band behind one of the hottest tours (literally) of 2012!

8 MANAFEST We catch up with this artist/skate-boarder and world traveler to talk about Creation, new music, and possibly writing a book?

12 WOLVES AT THE GATE Lead singer Steve Cobucci talks about their music, history and graduating high school.

14 KUTLESS Members of Kutless Jeff Gilbert (drums) and James mead (guitar) sat down to chat with each other. HM Magazine gives us the details of that conversation!

16 DR DUFFY ROBBINS Sanctification and Needles

18 LIVE LOVE SHARE THE EXPERIENCE

24 FOR KING & COUNTRY An HM Magazine interview

26 EXTREME SPORTS! At Creation, YOU do all the cool stunts!

27 CREATION SERVES Partner with us to impact the areas around Creation!

28 YOUR CREATION STORY Your stories of Spiri-tual Growth and Transformation, from Creation to the world!

30 CARPOOL TO CREATION! Zimride and Rock & Bus give you two great reasons not to miss Creation this year!

36 NAME THE ARTIST Think you know who’s in this photo?

Text “GUITAR” to 96599 to WIN a GUITAR SIGNED BY CREATION ARTISTS!Standard text messaging and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to stop receiving messages. Reply FESTIVALHELP

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A year since releasing their third studio project, Until We Have Faces, RED continues to make their pres-ence known, hitting the road on back-to-back headlining tours.  Also, for the first time RED toured across Europe making stops in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Russia and Ukraine.

With career record sales nearing one million, two GRAMMY nomina-tions, five GMA Dove Awards, two Top 10 Active Rock singles, three Top 10 Mainstream Rock singles and 10 consecutive No. 1 hits at Chris-tian radio, RED has solidified their place in music history.

RED is comprised of Michael Barnes (vocals), Anthony Armstrong (gui-tar) Randy Armstrong (bass) and Joe Rickard (drums).  I spoke with An-thony about their European travels, their music and baseball. You guys are currently co-headlin-ing with P.O.D.  Were you a fan of them when you were younger?

Oh yeah!  We all loved that Satellite record when it came out.  It’s great to hang out with them on tour.  Brian Welch’s band Love & Death is with us as well, so it’s kind of surreal to be hanging out with these guys on our tour.  P.O.D. approached us about

the tour and they wanted to co-headline with us.  They felt they had been out of the spotlight for a while and we were the up-and-comers, so it made sense to share the stage like that.  This is the third tour we have done with Brian. You just wrapped an extensive tour of Europe!  Did you get to have any fun and see some sights?

We played 10 countries in 14 days!  There were a few days we got to town early enough we could get out and see some things. What would you say was your favorite

A Creation Exclusive Interview by Kent Matthews

place to visit on this trip?

I’d say Russia actually.  We played all over Europe and flew from Switzer-land to Moscow.  Moscow and St. Petersburg were my favorite.  No-body speaks English, but everyone knew every word to every song we played!  We had never been there before, so we even played a lot of our old stuff so they would get a good mix of our songs.  They knew them all!  We had a barricade collapse in Moscow because the crowd got too crazy and we had to stop the show for a bit.  It was wild. A lot of our bands have been playing in

Europe lately.  Are they becoming more accepting of our music in Europe or does it just seem that way? I think that it has been that way for a while.  When American bands hit their scene they seem more widely accepted.  European fans just aren’t as jaded as American fans.  We have so much at our disposal here with music choices.  They really appreci-ate it over there in a different way. I saw you took a tour of the PRS Guitar factory.  Do you feel like you were in 5th grade again on a field trip?

Yeah man!  I started with PRS five years ago and went to the factory

back then to pick out my first gui-tar.  I wanted to bring the other guys in the band to check it out.  The company has really grown.  During the recession they laid off a lot of people, but now they have expanded their facility and hired everyone back.  They have a lot of new stuff coming out and I actually got to see my next guitar in the process of being made, so that was really cool.  We got to meet Paul Reed Smith for the first time as well so that was pretty exciting.  There is a picture on our twitter! Tell me about your song, Not Alone.

Continued Next Page >>>

It’s such a simple concept, and you know, after it’s written you realize how many people have songs with the same title and same message.  It’s about our belief that regard-less of how bad things are there is someone that has been through the same things.  We put our own spin on it to make it stand out from the others like it.  When we were doing the video for this song we asked our fans to write a letter about how the song has helped them with things they are struggling with.  We asked them to hold the letter up over their face where it could be read, but the person could not be recognized.  It

kind of went with the theme of the album titled, Until We Have Faces.  You can relate to the story regardless of who it was.  We had stories about people dealing with suicide, and a lot of people serving in the military had powerful stories as well.  It was a special project to be a part of. What’s the secret to differentiate you and your twin brother Randy?

It’s really no secret, Randy has ear-rings and I don’t.  That is the easiest way to tell us apart.

You recently made a visit to Camden Yards in Baltimore to catch and Ori-oles game as a guest of first baseman, Chris Davis.  How did you guys get hooked up with him?

Chris Davis is a fan of the band and invited us to come to a game.  They played some of our music in the stadium that night, it was pretty crazy.  Most of the guys in the band played baseball as kids.  I played for 15 years!  I still follow the Pitts-burgh Pirates a bit because we are from Pennsylvania and watched Andy Van Slyke, Bobby Bonilla and

Red will be playing Main Stage at Creation Northeast, Thursday, June 28th Creation Northwest, Wednesday, July 18th

all those guys when we were kids.  Three of the four of us in the band are jocks.  Michael never really got into sports.  He played little league with us, but that was it. You guys have been friends a long time then?

Since third grade. If you weren’t in a band what would you be doing? Well, my bother Randy and I thought we would take basketball as far as we could.  He walked on to

the Penn State team his first year.  I got jaded with basketball pretty fast.  After Michael Jordan left the league I didn’t care anymore!  I played vol-leyball all four years at Penn State.  Music is such a part of what we know and what we do, I’m not sure what I would be doing.  Maybe I would be a scout for sports. Did you guys go to Christian music festivals when you were a kid? We went to Creation Festival every year!  Since seventh grade we went for 12 years straight!  I loved the music.  We were brat kids going to

youth group at church because it was the thing to do.  We came to the festival and had an experience like none other.  Our parents made us go to church, but we had a short atten-tion span and didn’t really get it.  We came to the festival and the musical experience was just overwhelming and cool.  That’s really where it all started for us writing music and be-ing a band. Learn more about RED at:

www.redmusiconline.com

Over the past 11 years, Chris Greenwood has been better known as

Manafest to his scores of fans around the world. In 2006, Manafest released Glory from which the rock anthem “Impos-sible,” featuring Thousand Foot Krutch’s Trevor McNevan, be-came a global hit. Most recently Manafest released his fifth stu-dio album, Fighter. I spoke with Manafest about his international success, skating and a new book he has been working on.

I know you are from Canada, how long have you lived in the United States?

I grew up in Toronto and didn’t move to America until a year ago. I’ve traveled here exten-sively, but always went home to Canada. I have a lot of friends in California, and the weather is nice obviously. California really made sense.

You just came home from a trip through China and Japan. How did that go?

It was great! Every time we won-der if it will be our last opportu-nity to go, but this was our fourth trip to Japan. We shot a music video there for Fighter and I got to skate a lot. China was totally

new to us. We stopped in Beijing and Shanghai. It’s funny, we are playing in clubs and bars over there. It’s a great opportunity to play our music in these ven-ues and connect with the people there. We have built some great relationships in our time there. It’s really exciting.

How did you get so popular over there? You are almost as big as David Hasselhoff!

Ha! I don’t know about that! There is an A&R guy at EMI that really grabbed onto my mu-sic and thought it would work. What Japan typically does with

A Creation Exclusive Interview by Kent Matthews

international music is import a little bit and see how it does, and if it sells they import a little more and if it builds momentum they will put marketing behind it and have a domestic release of the al-bum. That is what happened to me. It’s an honor to keep going back.

What’s the craziest thing you have eaten in all your interna-tional travels?

I stay away from the crazy stuff, but some of the guys in the band get a little daring. My buddy ate what we thought was a hash brown type of thing, but it was

raw, cold fish! It’s one thing to know you are trying something new, because you are prepared mentally, but when it’s a surprise it’s totally different! He basically spit it out on me. It was hilari-ous! I’m really picky, so I’m not going to try any kind of tongue or whatever, I let the other guys try that stuff.

I see you have a couple of new music videos out already for this new album.

Yeah, we tend to shoot quite a few. The one out now is, Never Let You Go. We shot it in France and I got to drive this awesome

1950s Porsche! We shot, Pusho-ver, in Hollywood and Venice Beach with a bunch of skaters. We had a scene in the L.A. river and I’m splashing around in this nasty water. We just shot, Fight-er, in Japan and we will shoot for a song called, Throw It Away, in Toronto. I’ve got a great team around me, I try to keep busy.

Tell me about your new song Pushover, I know a lot of people are jumping on the anti-bully-ing bandwagon, but this is a lot more than that to you, right?

Continued Next Page >>>

The idea of, Pushover, is having confidence in yourself and I be-lieve confidence doesn’t come from money or physical strength, but it really comes from your re-lationship with God and know-ing who you are in Him. That was a key factor to me when I was growing up. I got picked on and bullied a lot and knowing who you are in God and know that he has a plan and future for you that gives you a real boost of confidence to step out in faith and do awesome things.

I see you skating a lot in your music videos. You wanted to go pro right?

That was the dream! I started when I was 14, and skated non-stop. When I got injured eve-rything changes. About that same time I got dumped by a girlfriend, too. She wasn’t a be-liever in Christ, so I shouldn’t have been dating her anyway. But I was just in a real dark place and got into music and writing songs. I still skate, but God put a new dream in my heart to pur-sue music. I’m very thankful for where I am now.

With the recent celebrity suicides, this has been pretty prominent in the news lately, especially in sports.

What would you say to some-one who is having those kind of thoughts?

I’ve been there and had those thoughts before. Sometimes we are in a dark or depressed state, but it could be stress, lack of sleep or just one really bad thing in your life that is consuming your attention and it feels like everything is lost. My message to you is not to give up. Life is worth living. Problems don’t last forever. We need you here and God loves you and has good plans for you. I almost quit my-self when I felt that way, but I’m

glad I didn’t, and you will be too. Just keep going!

You said something on Twitter that made me thing you might be writ-ing a book. Are you? I’m keeping pretty quiet, but yes I am writing a book. Part of it will be biographical and I will share some of the things I went through growing up, like my dad’s suicide. The other part will talk about the music industry, the business side and the artist side. I want to help aspiring art-ists with tips on how to navigate their way through it. People need to be warned of some of the pit-

falls and know the pros and cons of certain things. I’ve toured in 10 countries and things can get pretty crazy. I have a lot of artists ask me how to get into the busi-ness and I want to help them do it right. I hope to have it out by the end of the year.

Coming up real soon you are mak-ing the rounds for a few summer festivals, including both Creation festivals!

I’m looking forward to it! This will be probably the 2nd or 3rd Creation.

Since you are an avid skater will you be hitting the skate parks at the festivals?

I do mostly street skating, I’m not much of a ramp guy, but in the past I’ve had a chance to skate with some of the teams that were doing demos and it was a lot of fun.

I would do it again!

For more info on Manafest visit:

www.manafest.net

MANAFEST will be playing Fringe Stage

Creation Northeast Friday, June 29th and Creation Northwest

FRINGE STAGE Friday, July 21st

With their EP We Are The Ones build-ing momentum for the debut of their full length album in July, 2012 will be a banner year for Wolves At The Gate. I talked to lead singer, Steve Cobucci, about their music, history and graduat-ing high school.

Tell us how you chose your name.

It comes from Acts chapter 20. We wanted our band name to have mean-ing. I went to church one Sunday and they used that scripture. It talks about the story of Jesus and how there will be those that want to distort that story and uses the metaphor of wolves and sheep. Plus, it sounds cool too!

Are you guys still in Ohio?

Everyone in the band in native to Ohio, except me. I just moved back to New Jersey where I’m from. I moved while we were in the studio, which was nuts. I’ve been wanting to get back home for a while, since I moved to Ohio for college. All my family is still in New Jersey.

What led you to Ohio from New Jersey?

After high school I went to Cedarville University, which is where I found the other guys in the band. I had been writ-ing songs since I was 17, but I couldn’t find anyone that wanted to be in a band with me! Everyone I talked to had been playing in bands since they were 13, and my first band was when I was 22! The school is only about 3,500 students, so there aren’t a lot of bands forming on campus, especially not heavy bands like us. People supported us and we kind of started the scene at the school.

What was that transition from high school to college look like for you?

It was weird. I knew college was com-ing next, but I wasn’t completely sure what I was going to do. Everybody was so pumped to be graduating, but I wasn’t. I was cool with the way life was, and I guess I just didn’t want to grow up. Everyone moved away to college, but I went to a community college my first year and worked with my dad to save money, so it didn’t feel like I graduated from anything that first year.

You actually went back to high school, but

this time was to teach! You really did miss it, didn’t you?

I really did! I taught history for one year. I had the best and worst teachers when I was a student, so I tried to take the positive things from each and mod-el my teaching style. Some people hate history, but I think there is an aspect of the past that everyone could enjoy, you just have to find the right angle to apply it. I enjoyed teaching, but the band was getting more active so I had to quit.

Is there a certain historical figure you would like to sit down and have dinner with?

There are a few in the Biblical era, but other than that I think General MacAr-thur would have been a really interest-ing guy. He’s a really highly decorated general, but he really didn’t serve hard-core like some of the other guys did, he just really had a military mind. Also, I’ve always wanted to hang out in the Samurai era in Japan and learn to be a Samurai!

You guys are set to play the hard music

WOLVES AT THE GATEWOLVES AT THE GATE will be playing Creation Northeast HM STAGE Wednesday, June 27th and Creation Northwest FRINGE STAGE Friday, July 20th

stage at Creation Festival. Have you guys played Creation before?

We have played a few festival in the Ohio area, but this is the first year we are re-ally hitting the summer festivals really hard. I’ve never been to Creation Festi-val at all so I’m really excited! There are a ton of bands there we want to watch and hang out with. It’s like a reunion to hang out with old friends and hopefully make some new ones too.

Music video out for your song Heralds. Where did you shoot this?

All the part with the band were shot in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. All of the narrative was shot at Virginia Beach. The concept of the video is really just what the song is about. The line in the song is “I’m leaving behind the things of this world”. For us to follow this de-sire in our hearts to share the Gospel we have to turn away from things like our college degrees we worked to hard for, having real jobs and career and things like that.

Were you raised in a Christian family?

Yes, my family are all believers. It was probably about 17 or 18 that I really took ownership in my relationship with the Lord. Like I said I didn’t want to grow up and take responsibility. I was like that in my faith as well. I had heard all these things about God while I was growing up, but I think a lot of things in life became real to me when I came to college. I had a chance to talk to people with beliefs that were very different than mine. It made me dig deeper to know more about scripture. I wanted to have it memorized so I could know more than the Bible says something some-where, I wanted to know exactly where. Why call myself someone who follows Christ if I don’t know more about him? It would be like me saying I’m from New Jersey, but I don’t know where anything is. I really started taking it seriously af-ter that.

You have two guys both named Ben, how do you keep them straight?

One has a beard and the other has long hair, so it’s easy to look at them and tell them apart. But when you call out our drummer is Ben Milhouse, so we call

him “Milhouse” like the kid on The Simpsons. The other Ben and I spend more time together than anyone else because when we are off the road we work together installing flooring. His last name is Summers and I call him “Some Hairs” because he has a ton of hair. That’s how I do it anyway.

I saw you got your fans in on the recording process on your song, Oh The Depths. Was this your idea?

When I wrote the song I knew I wanted to hang gang vocals on it. When we re-corded this at school and wanted gang vocals it was easy to get a group of 30 students together. Since we graduated we weren’t sure how to get that group together. We told the fans on Twitter that whoever could come to the studio could be on the record. We had 45 kids there in an hour! It was great!

When do we get to hear some new music?

We just left the studio, so it’s all recorded and being mixed now. I would probably say it will be out in July. I wanted it out on July 4th, but the label said it wasn’t on Tuesday so we have to pick a differ-ent day.

To learn more about Wolves At The Gate visit

www.wolvesatthegate.com

WOLVES AT THE GATEA Creation Exclusive Interview by Kent Matthews

Go to: http://tinyurl.com/CreationSpecial for a special 50% off discount

on a year’s subscription to HM Magazine.

Enter code: “CreationRocks”

Kutless will be playing Main Stage

at Creation Northeast, Wednesday, June 27th

Creation Northwest, Wednesday, July 18th

I remember last year at the Creation Festival I was doing a seminar for youth workers when I found myself distracted by a woman in the very front row knitting what appeared to be a sweater. It wasn’t that she was being inattentive to the workshop. In fact, she was very interested, listening intently, and never losing eye contact.

In fact, that was just the point: the more I watched those needles bounce through the fabric, the more I was convinced we were only seconds away from severe puncture wounds....

But it never happened.

During the entire seminar her hands followed a well-learned pattern of movement and efficiency that had become to her almost second nature. Her fingers, arms and hands all worked together in a symphony of movement

that had been learned through long hours of practice.

In short, what I witnessed that day was what Abraham Maslow describes as Unconscious Competence. That’s what happens when we become so accomplished at a task that it no longer requires our conscious effort. Phil Mickelson doesn’t have to make sure he’s gripping the club properly when he slams his drive down the fairway. Third Day guitarist, Mark Lee, doesn’t have to stop and rethink the scales before he strums the chord. Bob Lenz doesn’t have to thumb through his Bible’s table of contents before he can open to the Gospels (don’t ask him about the Minor Prophets!). For all of these folks, a practice that started with effort has grown into a habit. Probably, at one time, even for these folks, these behaviors required some careful work  and concentration -

but now, these habits have become sec-ond nature

SEE JANE GROW

I visited recently with one of the students from my earliest years in youth ministry. Jane is now married, and she and her husband are overseeing a youth ministry of their own. She shared with me how God had shaped her life over the last twenty-five years. It hadn’t always been smooth. There had been some rough spots along the way. But what she said spoke volumes about how God does a wonderful unfolding work in the spiritual life of a teenager.

“Sometimes I think back about some of the stuff you used to have to talk to me about, and I can hardly believe I ever did those things! The ME back then was so different from the ME I am now. Some parts of the Christian life used to seem

Dr. Duffy RobbinsProfessor of Youth Ministry

Creation Festival Speaker Spotlight

so awkward to me. Now, some of those things have almost become a reflex.”

Like the “Needle Queen” who doesn’t even have to watch her hands, Jane is at a point in her Christian faith where she is unconsciously incompetent. She doesn’t have to consciously test and re-test her motives, surrender and re-surrender every decision, Christ is alive and living through her.

SANCTIFICATION AND NEEDLES: WHAT’S THE POINT?

 One of the principles I like to talk about in the Youthworker training at Creation each year is that those of us working with teenagers have to recognize that our students are growing through a pro-cess - the process of, little by little, sur-rendering themselves to God. It begins with what Maslow might have described as:

- Unconscious Incompetence (“I don’t CARE TO LEARN what God says to do..”); and then sparks to life with,

- Conscious Incompetence (“I don’t UNDERSTAND how to do what God says...”); and then matures to,

- Conscious Competence (“I CARE and I UNDERSTAND... but it’s still a struggle TO DO what God says”).

 - Unconscious Competence, this fourth stage in the process, brings us to that milestone in the journey where students think (“I CARE and I UNDERSTAND, and I would feel weird for me NOT TO DO what God says!”).

 �nd yet, it’s one of those youth minis-�nd yet, it’s one of those youth minis-try intersections where both frustration and excitement meet - often head-on!

 FRUSTRATION:

The FRUSTR�TION is that behaviors and life patterns don›t usually change overnight. It’s disheartening to work

with kids over several months and see very little evidence of growth. We got into this because we want to see life-change! We want to see kids becoming like Jesus! We want to see signs of in-telligent life! We want to see last week›s seventh grade Sunday School terror-ist become this week’s Bible-quoting, hymn-loving, gentleman carrying around his Bible and humming Chris Tomlin tunes.

But, in the real world, that doesn’t happen very much (Read: never). Especially if you teach seventh grade Sunday School.

�nd, it’s frustrating for the kids too. �s they begin to struggle with new areas of obedience and faith, it’s discouraging to see how slowly the changes come. �fter all, the hardest part about learning to walk all by yourself is the pain of falling. �nd it seems as if the only way to learn is one step at a time.

EXCITEMENT:

The EXCITEMENT in all of this is watching God help kids to strip away the old life and put on the new. Like so many other wonders of God, it can only be fully appreciated by «time lapse  photography». Seldom does the blos-som unfold fast enough to be witnessed with the «naked eye». But, if we watch through the eyes of faith, if we watch with - not just sight - but vision, we will begin to see God do His work of sancti-fication.

It’s probably one of the greatest privileges of being a veteran youthworker: I have now been working in the vineyard long enough to see seeds planted ten, fifteen, twenty years ago now bearing fruit!

 

I know it’s not over for Jane. To be sure, there will be new areas of struggle, and new commitments to make. Just when

we get to Unconscious Competence in one area of the Christian life, the Lord seems to have a way of exposing us to a new area of Unconscious Incompetence!

But God is patient - and the Christian life is not about speed; it’s about distance.

When I talked with Jane that day, I was flooded with memories of her youth group days: a lot of great times - but also some tough conversations, some times of encouragement - but also some times of correction. Maybe you’ve had some of those conversations…and some of those same memories? But, I also thought of the words of the �postle Paul as he ironed his own faith into the fabric of his daily life:

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ took hold of me.” (Philippians 3: 12)

If you’re in youth ministry, thanks for doing what you do, and for your faithfulness to this process!  �nd don’t let the frustration with the process rob you of the joy of the journey!

For More on Duffy Robbins: www.eastern.edu

Duffy Robbins will be speaking

at Creation Northeast, June 28th-30th

Creation Northwest, July 19th-21st

Text “GUITAR” to 96599 to WIN a GUITAR SIGNED BY CREATION ARTISTS! Standard text messaging and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to stop receiving messages. Reply FESTIVALHELP for more information.

LOOK!made you

THE EXPERIENCE

THE EXPERIENCE

Text “GUITAR” to 96599 to WIN a GUITAR SIGNED BY CREATION ARTISTS! Standard text messaging and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to stop receiving messages. Reply FESTIVALHELP for more information.

LOOK!made you

THE EXPERIENCE

The OverseerThe dudes in The Overseer know how to have a good time. I’m sitting in a green room in Germany as Brad, the bass player, prepares to chunk a rock-hard loaf of bread out of a 4th story window. Those Germans seem to prefer their bread the same way Americans like their Chevys, so we’re about to test just how much “like a rock” this bread is. Brad is filling in on bass with my band Becoming The Archetype along with his Overseer drummer Abishai. I’m thinking of how much fun these guys are and how much it sucks that this is the last tour they’ll be able to do with us, because Solid State Records has finally listened up and realized how cool The Overseer is: they’re signing to become our labelmates as soon as the tour is over.

It was a long road for these four guys to get signed. Formed in 2007 and touring nearly nonstop since then, they had to perfect their sound and their energetic live show before they could live their dream of being a Solid State band. The band started with the same four dudes they have now and they’re as close as brothers. Hailing from the only part of Arkansas that isn’t the armpit of the country (the Northwestern part), Brad, Abishai, Darren (guitars) and Tony (vocals) are the most hilarious four guys this side (that side?) of the Mississippi.

Going to high school together and watching Razorback football together bonded them like brothers and it seems like the bond goes deeper than blood. This was obvious to Adam Skatula as he watched them

perform at LifeLight Fest in South Dakota last September. What Adam (Solid State A&R) saw blew him away, because the band had cemented into a cohesive, uber-tight metal band that was fun to watch, fun to listen to, fun to talk to. Says Adam, “They were just insane live. The amount of sound they put out and energy they created as a four piece was unreal.”

So finally they’re on their dream label and their gritty debut album comes out on June 19. It’s called We Search, We Dig and is appropriately titled, because these guys are gritty and real. You can tell they’ve dug into themselves to work as hard as they have for as long as they have. You can tell they’ve dug into each other to create the four-headed monster that they are. You just don’t get this legit without getting scrappy and real with one another.

We Search, We Dig was produced by Matt “The Sheriff of Tickle Town” McClellan at Glow in the Dark Studios in Atlanta. McClellan works at the studio beside renowned producer Matt Goldman and the two have churned out several great Christian metal albums in the last few years. The album’s production matches the gritty nature of the band, with organic distortion and drum sounds. The production is professional, though, so the band comes off as sounding like veterans who know how to make analog tones sound like

expensive, top-of-the-line production.

You’ll hear hints of the new Underoath sound here and there as well as some of the artistic side of Thrice and the Deftones. The band isn’t into copying current trends, but their influences do show through on the songs and since I happen to like their influences, the outcome is rather enjoyable. Darren happens to play organ and sing very well, so the band isn’t balls-to-the-wall heavy all the time and I appreciate that.

Keeping with their past habits, The Overseer will be touring nearly nonstop this year and next in support of the record, so if you want to see them live, it shouldn’t be difficult. If you are going to see them, do yourself a favor and pick up the album before you go so you know the words and can headbang in time. And if you don’t mind spending some time after the show, the guys are very approachable and would love hanging out to talk about spirituality (Abishai has “Religion is dead” written on his snare head) or college football (Brad has the Arkansas Razorbacks mascot tattooed on his thighs) or music gear (Darren plays through some sick pedals and an all-Orange full-stack) or having Jedi hair (Tony used to rock the padawan braid). These dudes will be sure to provide a great show every time and great albums for years to come, so pay attention now and be the first to see where Christian metal is going.

Album: We Search, We DigLabel: Solid StateRelease Date: June 19, 2012Members: Bradley Riggs, bass; Anthony Rivera, vocals;Darren King, guitar/vocals; Abishai Collingsworth, drumsRIYL: Underoath, Norma Jean, Thrice

facebook.com/theoverseerband

By Seth hecox

FOr King & COunTryWhat would this article have read like had the band answered the interview questions I emailed them? Perhaps we’ll never know, but maybe their press bio will offer a decent substitute. What do you think?

Carrying a name that evokes substance and a sense of purpose, for KING & COUNTRY make their debut with music that more than lives up to their clever moniker. Enveloping their insightful lyrics in a sea of ear-grabbing melodies, brothers Joel and Luke have forged a distinctive sound that has earned them an enthusiastic fan base as well as the respect of industry professionals who keep tapping their music for use in high profile TV shows. Together, Joel and Luke ignite each other’s individual passions to form a unique, distinctive voice that blends into simmering sibling harmony, unrivaled by any other collaborative group to date.

Born in Sydney, Australia and relocating with their family to Nashville, TN, Joel and Luke remember music being a constant presence in their life. Growing up in a large family of seven kids, the siblings began their creative experimentation early on, soaking up life experiences that would influence their musical future.

“Our father was a promoter in Australia and so we grew up as a musically-centered family. I remember going to these rock shows, sitting on his shoulders, plugging my ears. It was very influential at an early age and I saw the power of music and how a melody fused with a lyric can impact someone’s life,” recalls Joel. “Honestly, in a lot of ways I feel like music chose me and as I grew older, I made a clear decision to fully lean into it.”

The group’s strengths are showcased not only through their voices, but their name as well. The name, ‘for KING & COUNTRY,’ was decided on after several attempts to find a name that appropriately

encompasses who they are as musicians as well as their passionate personalities.

“While working on our debut record, I came up with the idea of calling us ‘All the Kings Men,’ but it just didn’t fit exactly with what we were looking for,” said Luke. “We were in the studio with our producer and he said, ‘what about for king and country?’ The history of that phrase is that back in the olden days, the British would go into battle shouting, chanting, ‘For King and Country,’ sort of as an anthem of fighting for something that they believed wholeheartedly in. We all looked at each other in the studio and we just knew that was it.”

With tracks produced by Shaun Shankel, Aqualung and Ben Glover, for KING & COUNTRY’s debut album, Crave, is a vibrant collection of songs, marked by emotional honesty and a riveting transparency. The first single, “Busted Heart (Hold On to Me)” is among the duo’s newer compositions and was inspired from a conversation on the brokenness that every person feels at some point in their life.

“There comes those defining moments in each of our lives where we so severely need someone to hold on to us,” explains Joel. “It seems we are all, in different ways, shapes and forms, busted to some degree. This song is an honest confessional of: ‘I can’t do this thing called life on my own. I need something, or more specifically, someone greater than myself to hold on to me.”

KING & COUNTRY’s music continues to gain momentum with fans and peers alike as several album tracks have already been featured in primetime television spots. “Love’s to Blame” and “People Change” have been featured on the popular The CW series, “The Vampire Diaries” and “Light It Up” and “Sane” have been heard on the Lifetime network’s “Drop Dead Diva.”

The song “Light It Up,” a tangible anthem for the group, was inspired by a friend of theirs who has had a long standing struggle with depression.

“For a time, our friend lived in a house where he would stuff blankets in the windows, switch off the lights and live for days at a time alone and in literal darkness,” says Luke. “We wrote this song for him, but for the longest time couldn’t work up the courage to tell him. Partly because it was his favorite tune and also because we were afraid of how he would handle it.”

When Joel and Luke finally worked up the courage to tell him, their friend stood up, walked out of the room, got in his car and drove off. Roughly 20 minutes passed until he called them up and with tears in his voice saying, “Thank you for writing that song for me. It moves me, encourages me, it gives me hope.”

Poignant stories and experiences like these are merely one of the many that spark for KING & COUNTRY’s underlying message and what ultimately drives both Joel and Luke in the authenticity behind their music and lyrics.

“We want to deliver a message that is about believing in something much bigger than oneself,” explains Luke. “The title track of the album has a line in the chorus that very plainly says, ‘hope is what we crave.’ You can confidently go through the ups and downs in your life because you know that life isn’t all about you and what you do but rather the hope and salvation of Christ.”

“We want to be known for writing music that is authentic, real and from the heart,” adds Joel. “Music has been a very therapeutic thing for us. There’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears that went into this record and what spurred us on is this whole idea that we can make a difference. That music, our music, can have the power to impact someone’s life for the better.”.

Album: CraveLabel: Fervent/CurbRelease Date: February 28, 2012Members: Joel Smallbone; Luke SmallboneRIYL: Coldplay, Newsboys

forkingandcountry.com

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