BREATHEcast.com - Congratulations on your #1 radio hit [Way To Begin].

Krystal- Thank you!

So, how have you been spending your time?

Basically doing shows and stuff. I've been touring off and on with Day of Fire.

How do you balance school with what you do?

I'm homeschooled. The cool thing is, I'm a senior this year, and I'm going to start my senior year this month- and I'm going to cram a years worth into six months and graduate by December!

Cool. How do you keep up with your faith during all the touring? I know some people have road pastors traveling along with them during tours... do you do anything like scripture reading?

Yea, definitely. We do devotionals and stuff. When Day of Fire and I take the same bus, we'll get out devotionals. They'll go through The Purpose Driven Life, so me and my guys will listen in with them, and talk about it. Me myself, I just make sure I get my personal devotional time in meeting God. I do that daily.

How is touring with Day of Fire?

It's awesome! They're all really cool. Josh is really intense. He's really strong in his faith and it really inspires me. He really just gets into it with the crowd, and connects. I watch him and I want to apply what he does.

How do you feel about being compared to Avril Lavigne?

(Laughs) Yea, it's one of those kind of things... 'everybody's gotta sound like somebody.' It's just the fact that there aren't too many girl rockers out there- it's just easy to say "it sounds like Avril Lavigne" that kind of thing...
I think what sets us apart is our morals. It's cool because we both had the same producers ["The Wizardz of Oz" production team] ... they knew I didn't want to become "an Avril." They knew what they did for her... I wasn't with a producer that said, "Oh, I know she sounds like Avril, so let's do that kind of thing..."

My producers worked with her, and they said "Oh, you guys are two different people, your personalities are so, completely different."


One of the biggest issues that you deal with in your music is peer pressure. What really helps you hold your ground in the midst of peer pressure? What ultimately holds you back?

When my parents were my age, they weren't Christians, so they would bend under the peer pressure. They're both really solid in their faith now. I would come home and describe what my friends are doing, and they would really help me and tell me to just keep my eyes focused on God. If whatever they do is compromising to what He says, to my faith, then I shouldn't be a part of it. Yea... a lot of it was my parents. I'm very strong-willed. I'm a very hard-headed person. My friends who were doing all those stuff- drugs, and having sex and going to parties all the time, they'll ask me to come a long, and I'm just like "Hey, I don't do that kind of stuff," and they respected me for that and still wanted to hang out with me. I was able to be a light, I guess, for them. Once I realized that they still accepted me, I really just wanted to go out and be an influence for them.

How do you discern what is Godly rebellion from what is not? Can you give examples?

Yes, definitely. If there's anything that is compromising to your faith, I mean- if the Holy Spirit is in you, when something temptatious comes your way, you give a second thought to it, and you're like 'I'm not even sure I should be doing this,' it's just that kind of discernment that is in you when you're a Christian, you know when the Holy Spirit is in you.

Tell me more about Anticonformity.net.

It's a place for everybody to get together and discuss the issues that we are going through regarding Anticomformity...it's a place of encouragement.

For your second album, are you going to continue to build on the themes that you've started on your first album?

I think so- I'm not even sure that's definitely what I want to stand for, but whatever direction God wants me to take, I'll go.

How long do you plan on doing music?

I want to do it as long as I can. I'm hoping it's a while down the road.

You've been mumbling songs since you were a baby, right?

Yes... I was never interested in anything else- I mean, I tried gymnastics when I was in the sixth grade, I was just like "forget this, I can't do this!"

*Laughter*

What are some of your favorite experiences from you music career so far?

It's cool when we see the ministry side of things, like when kids want to come up and pray. Like this past weekend, we played at Missouri, and I had a girl who came up to me, and her husband was like "Your music really touched my wife, can you come pray with her?" She's 21, she's going through a hard time and I ended up talking and praying with them for half an hour.

Wow.

Yea... God has just really taught me, regardless to what the crowd thinks and the reaction you get out of them, or how many people there are, you've got a message that I am giving you to portray.

It is so vital for me to have to pray before every show. There's been times when me and my guys have gotten so caught up, and busy, and not set aside time to take a breath and ask God to intervene through the concert- and the show would be terrible. And I was like, "What went wrong?" And I realized, "Oh my gosh- we didn't pray." So the next night we would pray, and the show was amazing.

That's really good to hear.

Yea, I just gathered everybody up. My guys could be on stage just ready to play a show... they're out there. And I'm like, "Guys, get off the stage right now, we've got to pray." Because we've just gotta surrender this time to God... or else it might be baaad.

Plans after your album release?

Definitely touring, and beginning to write for the next album.
It's so crazy how fast these things are moving!


Interviewed by Reporter Cindy