{"id":1310,"date":"2013-06-03T08:00:26","date_gmt":"2013-06-03T12:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/wholenotes\/?p=1310"},"modified":"2013-05-27T17:22:46","modified_gmt":"2013-05-27T21:22:46","slug":"a-conversation-with-hawk-nelson-lead-singer-jonathan-steingard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/2013\/06\/a-conversation-with-hawk-nelson-lead-singer-jonathan-steingard.html","title":{"rendered":"A conversation with Hawk Nelson lead singer Jonathan Steingard"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hawk<\/a><\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t seem like nearly a decade ago when pop punk band Hawk Nelson exploded onto the scene with the instant classic Letters To The President <\/i>back in 2004. But it\u2019s true. Hawk Nelson is officially one of Christian rock\u2019s elder statesmen.<\/p>\n

The band has undergone some changes during that time, yet its penchant for driving rhythms and catchy hooks has remained the same. And now that longtime front man Jason Dunn has left to pursue a solo career, Hawk Nelson is charging forward with its latest release Made<\/i>.<\/p>\n

In this Whole Notes interview, lead singer Jonathan Steingard talks about the band\u2019s longevity, his transition into a new role, and the art of reinvention:<\/p>\n

Chad Bonham: Is it hard to believe that you guys have been at it for almost 10 years now?<\/p>\n

Jonathan Steingard: It catches up with you kind of fast.<\/p>\n

Bonham: So it\u2019s a weird concept to be considered music veterans?<\/p>\n

Steingard: It is a bit of a weird concept. In some ways we feel like veterans in the sense that we know who we are now and where we fit in and what our calling is more than we did before. But in some ways, we still feel a little new, especially now with the changes in the band. This is the first record with me as the singer. There\u2019s this weird dichotomy. We feel like we\u2019ve been around for a while and we\u2019ve been lucky enough to have people follow us for a while. At the same time, we\u2019re experiencing a lot of firsts again with this record. It\u2019s our first record on Fair Trade. It\u2019s our first record as me as the singer.<\/p>\n

Bonham: Take me through the process the band has gone through this past couple of years as you\u2019ve tried to figure out your place in the music industry.<\/p>\n

\"hawknelson-0304\"<\/a>Steingard: That is really the source of a lot of the changes that happened in the last year. Internally, there was a lack of consensus of what we wanted to be as a band and who we wanted to reach and what our goals were. We\u2019re all good friends and we still are. But we were all in this place where we were increasingly finding ourselves on different pages. That\u2019s really what led to Jason (Dunn) moving on. He was the one that had a substantially different idea of what he wanted than the rest of us. He wanted the freedom to do what he wanted to do. So we released him to do those things. We wanted him to be fulfilled, and we wanted to be fulfilled. So instead of getting in each others’ way, we decided to support each other in those different goals. He went on to do his own thing and he released a solo record. The rest of us have focused on making music for believers and being encouragers. We wanted to make music that lifts up Jesus and that\u2019s something we felt really strongly about and wanted to be unequivocal about. On our new record, that shows pretty clearly.<\/p>\n

Bonham: What\u2019s the biggest thing you\u2019ve learned from your experiences over the past 10 years?<\/p>\n

Steingard: As a believer, if you\u2019re doing anything where you\u2019re in front of people, it\u2019s incumbent upon you to serve the people you\u2019re in front of well. That might mean something different for different people. If you\u2019re a businessman, serving your customers well is being Jesus in those situations. That\u2019s where it starts. For us in a band, I\u2019ve realized that if we\u2019re in front of people on a regular basis, I want to be effective at serving them and meeting whatever needs we might be uniquely tooled to meet, whether that\u2019s encouragement or providing them a night where they can connect with other believers and have a great time. We just want to be effective using the time we have and the stage we have to really be an encouragement and to serve people well. On a personal level, as a Christian musician and as the front man of a Christian band, if we\u2019re going to be effective, there\u2019s a pastoral element to what we do. It might different for different artists, but if you can play that role, I think that\u2019s where you\u2019re going to be the most effective.<\/p>\n

Bonham: Has it been a natural progression going from backup vocals to lead vocals?<\/p>\n

\"hawknelson-0367\"<\/a>Steingard: From a singing point of view, it\u2019s been natural. I\u2019ve been singing alongside Jay for about 10 years. Live, we have so many harmonies and vocal arrangements going on and I was at the mic almost the entire time. But the front man aspect is definitely new to me. That was one of the things I was apprehensive about at first. I was worried that I would get compared to Jay. I was dreading the moment when someone would say, \u201cHey, you remember when Jay used to do this? Can you do that more?\u201d But I\u2019m not Jay. I approach it differently than Jay does. I have different strengths and different weaknesses. Justin and Dan released me to be myself and we gave ourselves permission to be a bit of a different band as a result. The DNA of the band is the same. It\u2019s just being interpreted in a new way. That\u2019s exactly what the record feels like. It\u2019s an up-tempo record with lots of really fun songs, but we go deeper in to some topics that we haven\u2019t really touched on before.<\/p>\n

Bonham: How much did you guys enjoy the unique collaborations (Bart Millard, Blanca Callahan, etc.) you put together for the new album?<\/p>\n

Steingard: We got a chance to redefine ourselves a little bit. Once we got the scary part of that, it got real exciting. How many bands get a chance to reinterpret itself in this kind of a way? It was really fun to get together with some people that have been key in our lives. We got to tap into a lot of our friendships. It\u2019s three dimensional because of that. You have these people adding a little speck of their flair to the project.<\/p>\n

Bart (Millard) was the actually the one that suggested I be the lead singer. We were going through the process of trying to figure out what we were going to do and while we were out on tour with Mercy Me, he pulled me into his dressing room one day and said \u201cI think you need to be the guy.\u201d We were in the middle of doing our last tour with Jason and Bart took some to encourage me and this ended up being the result of his intervention. We were considering bringing someone into <\/i>the band from the outside. We ended going this route and I\u2019m glad we did because it feels like it was the right decision. That was really the reason we asked Bart to sing on \u201cWords.\u201d He was the one who really embodied that whole idea for us\u2014being intentional about speaking into the lives of those around us.<\/p>\n

Bonham: As you were reinventing the band musically, how did that translate into the song writing?<\/p>\n

\"HawkNelson_Made\"<\/a>Steingard: There are a few songs on the record like \u201cEvery Beat of My Broken Heart,\u201d and \u201cFaithful\u201d and \u201cOutside the Lines\u201d and \u201cThrough the Fire,\u201d that in various ways kind of deal with what happens when you don\u2019t feel like God is close. You know in your head that God is real and that He loves us and cares about us and wants to be involved in our lives, but you don\u2019t see that in your circumstances right in that moment. What do you do with that and those feelings? My family was going through a bit of that last year when my sister was going through chemo. She was 24 at the time and she was pregnant with her first child at the time. It was like, \u201cGod, where are you in this situation? I don\u2019t see the purpose here.\u201d In retrospect, I know that we\u2019ll understand someday, whether that\u2019s here on earth or in Heaven. I know that we\u2019ll see that God was working the whole time in the background. When you don\u2019t see Him directly in your circumstances, He\u2019s behind the scenes already preparing a future for you.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen that in the life of this band. God knew this was going to happen. He was preparing the way for this to happen even when we were praying that Jason wouldn\u2019t leave or that we would be able to work things out in that previous version of the band. God just had a different plan. That\u2019s helped us trust Him even more for our future.<\/p>\n

Stay up on the latest news from Hawk Nelson by visiting the band\u2019s official website HERE<\/a>:<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Chad is currently working on five new books including Sooner Legacy, Husker Legacy and Lessons From Sooner Football (Cross Training) as well as The Faith of Stock Car Racing (Judson Press). When he's not writing, Chad lends his efforts to various independent television and film projects. He was the coordinating producer for Choosing Life (2010) and Life Happens (2011). Chad is currently serving as producer on a forthcoming documentary about Super Bowl champion Brian Kinchen. Chad and his wife Amy live in Broken Arrow, Okla., with sons Lance (September 2003), Cole (February 2008) and Quinn (February 2011).","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/author\/cbonham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1310"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1318,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310\/revisions\/1318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}