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| Sidewalk Prophets : These Simple Truths |
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Get It |
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Just Might Change Your Life |
Sidewalk Prophets |
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Show Me How To Love |
Sidewalk Prophets |
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You Can Have Me |
Sidewalk Prophets |
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The Words I Would Say |
Sidewalk Prophets |
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Moving All The While |
Sidewalk Prophets |
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For What It's Worth |
Sidewalk Prophets |
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You Love Me Anyway |
Sidewalk Prophets |
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All Things New |
Sidewalk Prophets |
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You Will Never Leave Me |
Sidewalk Prophets |
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Give It All Away |
Sidewalk Prophets |
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Lay Down My Life |
Sidewalk Prophets |
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Change This Heart |
Sidewalk Prophets |
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“We love performing,” Dave Frey says simply and you get the impression that is the simple truth. “But we also love the people we perform for,” he adds, injecting a layer of complexity to the equation.
“One of the first things we ever did as a band was lead worship at chapel in college,” Dave’s music colleague, Ben McDonald interjects. “That was the connect point for us. Although we don’t consider ourselves to be a worship band, we probably do more worship music than our original music, and that’s fine with us.”
Integrating worship with real life – that is one of the simple truths Sidewalk Prophets has learned to live by.
Sidewalk Prophets? Okay, so what is that anyway? Is that those guys who wear white robes and sandals and carry signs up and down the street yelling “Repent! The End is Near!”
No, Sidewalk Prophets is a new Christian band. Really? Like we need another new band amidst the sea of wannabes and hopefuls that are clamoring for their fifteen minutes of fame while battling with every other newbie on every other record label for whatever scraps of attention are left over from the ever shrinking radio playlist. So what makes these guys unique enough for me to plop down my hard earned dough to hear ’em?
Glad you asked. Sidewalk Prophets was formed by Dave Frey and Ben McDonald when they met at Anderson College seven or eight years ago. Yeah, I know, as if college buddies forming a band and hitting the big time is something new. It worked for DC Talk, Jars of Clay, Audio Adrenaline, yada yada. Of course the reason it worked for the aforementioned super-groups was a serendipitous combination for undeniable talent, tenacious work ethic, and maybe, just maybe, a smidgen of luck.
So, am I saying Sidewalk Prophets has the chops to follow in those illustrious footsteps? That depends. One listen to their hugely anticipated major label debut, These Simple Truths, confirms the band’s undeniable talent. The fact that they have been on the road for 150+ dates per year for the past half-decade and show no signs of slowing down attests to their tenacious work ethic. I guess the only thing left is to ask the Sidewalk Prophets, ‘Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya?’
Maybe. It could have been luck that a demo Dave and Ben recorded found its way, unbeknown to them, into a local campus recording competition. That recording won and put them on the radar of radio program directors and record labels. A chance encounter with Audio Adrenaline’s Will McGinniss that evolved into an opportunity for Dave to sing on stage with AA in front of 20,000 screaming fans might be considered lucky.
Then again, leaving family and friends to live on the road for half of each year, sleeping in the janitor’s closet at some venues, and making due with beans and cornbread while constantly honing their triplet calling of songwriting, performing, and ministering to the kind of kids that never got picked first for kickball sounds a lot more like ‘tenacious work ethic’ than ‘a smidgen of luck.’ Perhaps there is some truth to that old saying, ‘if you work hard and never give up, good luck will find you.’
“It literally took stepping out on a ledge to get us where we are today,” Dave declares. “We moved to Nashville on a wing and a prayer with nothing but an EP and a determination to play anywhere and everywhere we could. It was not safety that we were looking for, but I’d be lying if I said there weren’t nights when I would lie awake and wonder what God was up to.”
“There was always a prevalent hope,” Ben adds as the two friends relate stories from the road. There was the show where they played to an audience of three. And then there was the opportunity to join with dozens of their musical heroes on the stage of the Ryman Auditorium. There were all those times leading worship at church camps, and that special time in Germany serving at a missionary retreat. And the kids who feel left out, who relate to Sidewalk Prophets because they don’t fit the ‘rock star’ mold. “That’s where our heart is, reaching out to those kids and letting them know they do matter,” Dave insists.
“God has continued to bless ever since we moved here. One of those blessings was our bass player and drummer, Cal Joslin and Justin Nace. They are exceptionally talented players who have a great heart for ministry, and didn’t mind struggling alongside us to make it. We actually connected on Craigslist. Go figure.”
A chance encounter (luck? I think not) with a label exec led to an impromptu showcase at a local Christian school, and the rest, as they say, is history. Well, maybe history in the making. Ben and Dave had been writing together since their college days, and they were pretty good at it. But they realized that sometimes three heads are better than two. When the opportunity came to prep for their new album by co-writing with some of the top names in the industry, ‘jump on it’ took on a whole new meaning.
“We are completely comfortable writing with each other,” Ben explains, “but there is a totally new dynamic that happens when you write with someone like Ed Cash, Jason Ingram, Ian Eskelin or Sam Mizell. A good songwriter doesn’t come in and try to change who you are. Instead they bring something fresh to the table that makes you a better ‘you’ than you were before.”
“The bottom line was, we wanted the best songs possible, and I think we got them,” Dave says.
To make those songs pop (no pun intended) the band called on the talents of Dove Award winning Producer of the Year, Ian Eskelan (Stellar Kart, Francesca Battistelli, Sarah Reeves) to helm the project.
“Ian was intense, full of energy and ideas,” Ben says. “We just clicked. He figured out who we were and then figured out how to elevate everything, vocally and musically, to the next level. He knew how to take our gifts and make them better. He is amazingly focused and yet totally outside the box.”
Sidewalk Prophets is a new Christian band. And we need them. Really.
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