More of this Feature • Exclusive Interview Part 1 • Exclusive Interview Part 2 • Exclusive Interview Part 3 • Exclusive Interview Part 4 • Exclusive Interview Part 5

Elsewhere on the Web • Jonah33

Kim: How did you end up in four countries in a week?

Josh: Let me give you the short version ... a plane! (laughs) They were going to have Switchfoot play, but Switchfoot backed out, so we ended up playing.

Vince: They booked a festival every year for five years now and last year they booked Switchfoot for the first night. Since then everybody has seen what happened to Switchfoot in the past year. So Switchfoot called and they had to back out, obviously, because they're huge now, so they found us. Actually, the promoter for that festival interviewed us at GMA and apparently liked us, so she brought us out. It was cool. They paid our way out there and took care of us over there. We got to hang out in Stockholm for a little bit. The actual festival was about two hours from Stockholm. It was cool. We had a really good time. It was our first overseas adventure. My wife is going to be a teacher and I wanted to give her a chance to see Europe a little bit before school so she went with us.

Kim: I imagine that it will be difficult to be separated for so long when you're on tour and she's teaching. To have God give you a partner, and then give you the ministry and the calling... but if it is of God, then He will give you a way to balance it.

Vince: Oh, definitely. It's tough though. But God has blessed each of us that are married with wives that are more than supportive. They know that their calling isn't necessarily to go with us, but to support us. But my wife really doesn't want to go out with us.

Pete: Neither does mine. Jon?

Jon: Well, actually, if it was available she would.

Kim: Where do you hope to be five years from now?

Josh: Worldwide. Easily worldwide. When we all got into this, we all discussed that we really wanted God to take us places fast. Vince is 28, is married and has a child. It's not like we have time to be one of these bands that works for 15 years and then finally gets a record deal or something like that. So the past year God has put us in warp speed. Things have really taken off. You know, like the promoter was telling us about you and how you'd heard about us, and we're just, again, morons from the south. So anytime anybody's heard of us we're like "what? No way". So we just think that we're just going to have fun and take it as absolutely as far as we can.

Vince: We played a show in Sac-town last year on spring tour, for seven people. We were with GRITS, KJ52, East West and another band called Big Fat Jam out of Minnesota. Pretty big draw names, you know, and we were in Sacramento for seven people. There were as many bands as there were people. That night we left, stayed in a hotel and the next morning somebody had picked the lock on our trailer and stole all of our gear. The lead singer of East West said "you guys have been through more in six months than some bands have been through in three or four years". I'm not gonna lie to you dude, I mean, I want the success fast for hopefully obvious reasons. I don't want to be famous just to be famous. I hope it doesn't come across like that. We want the success fast, but the trials that come with it ... it's like a price. You know, the Bible says before you build a house you've got to count the cost. I don't know necessarily, when we decided that we wanted to be on the fast track to success, if we counted the cost. We've kind of grown numb to it though. We've had a lot of bad luck and gone through a lot of trials on the road, with the families. But we've been given a lot of mercy and a lot of grace. So five years from now, if we can get all of this stuff out of the way now, we'd like to be to rock music what Delirious is to praise and worship. Those guys are just incredible. What they've offered Christian music as a whole is incredible. You may not even like them, but you've got to like what they offer Christian music. Everybody is just benefited from them. We want to be the same. We want to be as ministry focused. One of my heart issues is to be, maybe not even five years from now, maybe next year, when people call up Jeff Roberts to bring us in, I want them to bring us in because of our ministry, not because of our style or our band or our sound. You know what I mean? I want that to be a draw and obviously I want to be as good at that as possible, but I want people to bring us in because of how we minister.

Josh: There are a lot of really, really amazing bands. There are bands that might have a better production than us, or a better worship set than us, or whatever, but we want to be a band that moves with God, that is anointed. There are tons of bands and that's cool. You know, in this day and age, and I don't want to sound like a doomsday preacher here, but people are really starting to seek God. There are people who want that. That want more.