{"id":394,"date":"2011-08-03T08:00:11","date_gmt":"2011-08-03T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/wholenotes\/?p=394"},"modified":"2011-08-03T13:23:50","modified_gmt":"2011-08-03T17:23:50","slug":"a-conversation-with-pop-band-anthem-lights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/2011\/08\/a-conversation-with-pop-band-anthem-lights.html","title":{"rendered":"A conversation with pop band Anthem Lights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click “Like” to share with your friends!<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the Christian music industry has become all about worship bands and singer-songwriters, the four-piece vocal band Anthem Lights is forging a very different path towards fulfilling its goals on both the ministry and musical fronts.<\/p>\n

In this Whole Notes interview, the band that formed out of Liberty University talks about their unique beginning, why they chose pop music over other current genres and how they hope to impact both the church and the general market with a message of hope and purpose:<\/p>\n

Chad Bonham: What is it about Liberty University and its knack for producing national recording artists (i.e. dcTalk, Meredith Andrews, Phil Stacey, etc.)?<\/p>\n

Alan Powell: If you\u2019re a sold out believer for Christ and you want to find a solid launching pad for going out into the world and making an impact for the Kingdom, when you go to Liberty with that in mind and you visit, I just don\u2019t know how you don\u2019t end up going there. I went to a public school all my life. I think all of us did. I loved that experience and it strengthened my faith, but for college I just wanted to surround myself with people who had a passion for Christ and I wanted to solidify my faith so I could go out into the world and make a difference. That\u2019s why Liberty was an easy choice. There\u2019s also an unbelievable amount of talent at that school. It\u2019s a really cool place where you can see God sending people out into the world.<\/p>\n

Bonham: You guys came together in a unique way having met at school and through mutual friends. From there, things seem to have moved very quickly. Is your story nothing more than a reflection of God\u2019s hand working in your lives?<\/p>\n

Chad Graham: I had countless doors opened and then shut on me. I felt like I was where God wanted me and that things were happening and then all of the sudden those doors would shut. I dealt with a lot of ups and downs, personally. I think everything that\u2019s happened with this band up to this point has been completely God\u2019s hand in the situation. Looking back on it, all the doors that opened and shut happened for a reason. We can see how God has led us all to this point.<\/p>\n

Bonham: Has it been a calculated risk for you guys to create a vocal band in a time when there aren\u2019t as many out there or is this just what you feel like God has called you to do regardless of the current musical landscape?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Anthem Lights (left to right: Kyle Kupecky, Caleb Grimm, Alan Powell and Chad Graham)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Powell: It\u2019s a little bit of both. It\u2019s definitely been organic how it came together but it wasn\u2019t like we were saying, \u201cHey, nobody\u2019s doing this. Let\u2019s do that.\u201d We just followed the inspiration for the project that led us to a band that looked like this. But it\u2019s definitely a calculated risk for everyone who partners with us, from the label to management to booking and all of that stuff. We all understand that Christian music has taken a turn towards worship music, which has turned into a lot of bands and those types of sounds. That\u2019s great. God is using that stuff and it\u2019s great. But we just followed our passion for pop music and it led us to this. We\u2019re excited to see what, if anything, God is going to do with it and use it to reach people.<\/p>\n

Bonham: When you sent out demos, did you have any preconceived ideas about how the labels were going to respond and then did it surprise you how quickly things ended up moving forward?<\/p>\n

Powell: We were so excited about the potential of it. We knew that this was different so we hoped that labels and management would see the potential that we saw. Obviously couple of years into it, that\u2019s been the case. We\u2019ve been blown away and blessed to have them on board and partner with us to reach new people. I wouldn\u2019t say that we were concerned but we were anxious to see what the response would be from business-minded people. We were pleasantly surprised at the positive reaction we got.<\/p>\n

Bonham: How important was it for you guys to employ a more aggressive pop\/rock sound instead of what might be normally expected from a pop vocal band?<\/p>\n

Graham: We definitely wanted to have the programmed beats and the synths but also pair that with the live instrumentation and the live feel so that when you see the concert you feel like hearing the album live.<\/p>\n

Bonham: How challenging was it to take a big-sounding record into the live performances?<\/p>\n

Powell: That\u2019s one of our biggest challenges is finding out how to do that. There are times when you have to scale back. You might be performing on a five-by-five stage in front of 12 people. That\u2019s an exaggeration but there are times when you have to turn the corner and do an acoustic set. We\u2019ve done that a number of times and we\u2019ve enjoyed that just as much. But we\u2019re always looking for creative ways to bring something new to the performance. One of the things we definitely don\u2019t want to do is show up and have the audience feel like they could have just stayed at home and listened to the CD at home and heard the same thing. We want to bring something to the live show that makes it unique. We really enjoy that creative portion of making the show entertaining.<\/p>\n

Bonham: What is the feedback you\u2019re getting from the audiences?<\/p>\n

Kyle Kupecky: It\u2019s amazing how passionate the fans have become. We\u2019re very interactive with the fans through things like Twitter after the shows and after we\u2019ve hung out with them. We like to keep those relationships going. Seeing how important God is in their lives and helping them keep that going has been amazing.<\/p>\n

Bonham: What is the purpose behind this band and who is the primary audience you feel called to reach?<\/p>\n

Powell: We\u2019ve kind of settled in to two missions, if you will. The whole thing in general started by us wanting to impact the Kingdom and bringing as much glory to God as possible. That\u2019s still our overall purpose, but God\u2019s given us to passions. That\u2019s to impact the non-believer and let them know through our actions and through our music and through our shows that there is hope, there is meaning, there is purpose in this life. We\u2019ve really been struck, as of late, how people can wake up in the morning and chase a career or money or a relationship or coolness or whatever\u2014fill in the blank. They can go to sleep at night and wake up the next morning and continue to do that day after day. Days turn into weeks, weeks to months, months to years. Before you know it, you\u2019ve literally wasted your life when there was so much waiting for you in Christ. We have a passion to share that with the non-believer.<\/p>\n

Secondly, we all grew up in the church. We were all saved at a young age. We all knew all the answers in Sunday School. But it wasn\u2019t until later on when I was 17 when it all clicked and I understood that Christ was supposed to be everything to me. So our passion for the believers is that they understand that this relationship with have in Christ is supposed to impact every aspect of our lives and it\u2019s supposed to affect every decision we make. Those are the kinds of passions that God has placed in our hearts right now. We love having the opportunity to spread that message through the songs and through the relationships and through meeting people.<\/p>\n

Bonham: It\u2019s interesting to see artists like yourself and Leeland and Royal Tailor using pop culture devices to preach a message that is very counter culture.<\/p>\n

Powell: Scripture is so counter culture. Christ was counter culture. It\u2019s not like we\u2019re supposed to be weird or anything, but as we grow closer to Christ, we won\u2019t care about the things of the world as much. As a believer, you\u2019re just going to be countercultural. That\u2019s the way its always been and it will always continue to be that way. That\u2019s why it\u2019s important for us as believers to encourage other believers that it\u2019s okay to be that way. That\u2019s the way it\u2019s supposed to be. Anybody who has a platform like Royal Tailor and Leeland and ourselves, it\u2019s awesome and necessary that we\u2019re spreading that message.<\/p>\n

To keep up with the latest from Anthem Lights, check out the band\u2019s official website by clicking HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click “Like” to share with your friends! While the Christian music industry has become all about worship bands and singer-songwriters, the four-piece vocal band Anthem Lights is forging a very different path towards fulfilling its goals on both the ministry and musical fronts. In this Whole Notes interview, the band that formed out of Liberty…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":418,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,70,72,120],"tags":[301,154,302,303,233,304,117,300,298,299,14],"class_list":["post-394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-music","category-music-feature","category-new-artist","category-qa","tag-alan-powell","tag-anthem-lights","tag-caleb-grimm","tag-chad-graham","tag-dctalk","tag-kyle-kupecky","tag-leeland","tag-liberty-university","tag-meredith-andrews","tag-phil-stacey","tag-royal-tailor"],"yoast_head":"\nA conversation with pop band Anthem Lights - Whole Notes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/2011\/08\/a-conversation-with-pop-band-anthem-lights.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A conversation with pop band Anthem Lights - Whole Notes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Click “Like” to share with your friends! 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Chad\u2019s professional journey began at the University of Tulsa where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (1993) while working extensively in athletic media relations and serving as a sports editor for The Collegian. Since then, he has written extensively for such publications as Relevant, CCM, Christian Retailing, New Man, Charisma, Today\u2019s Christian, Ministries Today, Breakaway, Brio, Sports Spectrum, Christian Single, Faith & Friends, Sharing the Victory and Gospel Today. He has authored, co-authored or ghost written and edited 13 books including Life in the Fairway (New Leaf Press), Glory of the Games (Cross Training), Wrestling with God (River Oak), Spiritual Journeys (Relevant) and the four-part Fellowship of Christian Athletes Core Value Series; Excellence, Teamwork, Serving and Integrity (Regal Books). 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\/394","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=394"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":400,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions\/400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/wholenotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}