I spent a very pleasant hour talking with Newsboys drummer Duncan Phillips on July 31. Duncan is a gem, serious, but with a dry sense of humor. Here's what he had to say ...
Kim: I have been watching Adoration take off. I understand that the first week it sold over 31,000 copies.
Duncan: Did it? Oh wow!
Kim:I know that He Reigns was in the top 10 even before the CD even hit the stores.
Duncan: The thing is, what's crazy about it, we started playing a couple of songs off the Adoration record actually before the record was out and the response was instantaneous and we've never really had that before. So I guess that's a good sign for the future of the record, at least I hope so.
Kim: I know the first time I heard He Reigns all I could think at first was "wow".
Duncan: (laughs) I think that's what must have happened at the live shows. Even with songs like Shine, which was probably one of our biggest songs, it took probably 4 to 5 months after it was out for people to really get it and for people to really respond to it. With some of the songs like He Reigns that we've been playing out live, the response has been instantaneous, even before the record was out. That's pretty exciting for us.
Kim: Has it hurt you to hear some critics taking pot-shots at the band for releasing a worship album?
Duncan: It does a little bit, because I feel that no matter who you are, my Bible says to encourage and uplift my brother, not to do the other. I'm sorry that they feel that way. But what it was w/ Adoration, they basically had half the record written before we decided to do it. Over the years you write songs and some make the records and some don't. The songs that we kind of put to the side were songs we thought "that's not a Newsboys song". It got to the point where we had 5 praise and worship songs already written. We decided and felt it was the right time for us. We thought, "gosh, we just have to write a few more songs and we'll put out a praise and worship record". It was close to our heart and it felt right for us to do. It wasn't like we sat down and said "oh man, praise and worship's hot right now so we've got to write a record". It wasn't that at all. These were songs that we'd written over the years and had cataloged. We got to the point where we thought we feel right about this... let's release this project. That's what it came out of. The response has been fantastic.
Kim: For me, it's been a real nice change of pace and I love it.
Duncan: It is. For the band ... we'd never done anything or released anything like that before. Spiritually within the band, it just felt right for us at the time. It was a place that we were all at. We just felt really good about it. We felt that it was the right thing for us to do at the time. I still feel great about the record and I'm very excited about it. I hope other people are too - I hope the fans are.
Kim: What's your favorite song off of the Adoration CD?
Duncan: Oh man, that's a tough one. The thing is that they all kind of mean something a little bit different to me. Obviously He Reigns. When I first started hearing the roughs of He Reigns it was like "Oh my gosh". This song is bigger than the Newsboys. It's got kind of this global reach about it. I was just so excited. I guess that would be one of my favorites.
Next page
Skillet > Page 1, 2, 3, 4,
5
| 