By Dave Urbanski
October 2000 CCM Magazine

To hear Newsboys' bassist Phil Joel describe the life-altering events he's experienced this year, he'd likely place making his first solo record-the distinctive, catchy, non-pigeonholeable Watching Over You (Sparrow)-near the bottom of the list.

Why? Because when you meet your biological mother after 27 years and soon after find out you're going to be a father for the first time, receiving a studio tan kinda pales in comparison.

"I'm just in awe about how life transpires," Joel observes with his affable, New Zealand accent. "I have a great sense of expectancy with God. He makes things work in such a wonderful order."

He knows of what he speaks. Joel-who was adopted by a Christian family in Auckland-finally met his birth mother last December. Then, if that wasn't enough, two months later-on Valentine's Day-his wife of four years, Heather, said she was "with child." After God closed a significant, identity-forming chapter of his life, Joel says God immediately opened another one with the impending birth of his first child.

"It's some crazy ride He's taking me on," Joel explains with a happy chuckle, "and I feel good."

Add to that the influence these revelations have had on the creation of Watching Over You, and voila-you have the kind of wild synergy only Hollywood could create. "The timing of this record is perfect, especially with having a baby," Joel says. "It's a freaky thing. I'm told your life takes a massive perspective and everything falls into place."

With so many things going Joel's way, will he leave Newsboys if his solo work blows up?

"Newsboys would have to stop cold, and I don't see that happening," he says. "Besides, my kid's going to have four uncles from Newsboys, and that gets me excited. I don't wanna risk that.

"This fall is going to be quiet for Newsboys, so I have a few shows booked. But with my baby arriving in October, I don't want to be too busy, either. The record has been receiving really good radio attention, so I don't feel the pressure to do Phil Joel shows. I don't wanna break my neck or lose my sanity over this-it's all in priority and in context."

Joel enlisted Newsboys frontman Peter Furler to produce Watching Over You-an interesting choice for an artist who didn't want to create a Newsboys-soundalike album.

"I didn't want people to say, 'OK, this is Newsboys with the blond guy singing,' but at the same time I didn't want to lose [the Newsboys' influence] altogether," Joel says of the precarious balance he and Furler struck in the studio. "We could go in any direction we wanted. We had a pool of Nashville musicians around, and they're the best in the world. It was a 'kid in a candy store' mentality."

That freedom is most apparent in Joel's vocals, which possess real character and personality that set him apart a bit from Newsboys. "I've been the lead singer before," Joel explains, "but this was a new step for me. And we only had four weeks to record, so I couldn't make mistakes! Time was not a luxury. And since I'm not the most attentive person in the world, I had to dig in and make it happen. Singing with passion, doing harmonies, different parts-I loved it!"

And without the pressure to reproduce his songs live, note-for-note-as is the case with Newsboys-Furler and Joel played around with multiple overdubs, adding incidental vocal and instrumental parts that paint Joel's pop canvas with colors reminiscent of U2 and Radiohead-although the songwriter isn't fond of wearing any musical influence on his sleeve. "I can't stand it when [groups] try to make their songs sound like particular bands," he notes firmly.

Besides, a much more significant creative influence has been Joel's arsenal of life experiences, not to mention the incredible familial changes he's currently processing.

"I have a wonderful respect for my adopted family, but I always knew I was quite different from them. They liked stuff I didn't," Joel explains. "One day, [as a teen] I sat down and played the guitar, and it freaked me out how much I loved it. That's when I decided to pursue [music] and whatever else I enjoy. I wrote a song called 'Hey Lady,' which thanks my birth mother for not aborting me. Then when I finally met her, it was a massive time of revelation because we had all these amazing similarities. I became a hairdresser when I left school, and it turns out my birth mother is a wig maker!"

Not surprisingly, Joel's birth father is a London-based musician, but Joel doesn't anticipate ever meeting him and has never had contact with him. "That chapter is closed now for me," he says. "I don't have as much stock in those answers anymore."

With many of his questions answered, Joel was able to add extra layers of meaning to many of the deeply personal songs on Watching Over You-several of which he had been unable to finish after beginning the songwriting process as far back as seven years ago.

"I can't write a trite song about something I haven't experienced, about something I haven't lived," Joel reveals. "There were certain songs that I began years ago, but because I didn't think I'd reached the conclusion of those experiences, I put those songs on the shelf. Otherwise they wouldn't be honest. That's my New Zealand influence! Because we're so far removed down there, we don't write songs to become pop hits because there's no chance. Instead they're written out of honesty and purity. So I really try to reflect that in my songwriting."

One of those tunes, "Strangely Normal," seems to hold the greatest significance for Joel as it relates directly to his identity formation and indirectly to learning more about his birth mother.

"She's very vocal, very touchy feely, wanting to make her emotions known," Joel notes, "and that's how I've always been. But as similar as we are, knowing more about her wasn't the answer to who I am. I discovered instead that the answer isn't in my birth parents or my parents who raised me-I've become who I am because of who I am in Christ."

"El Salvador" draws from his and Heather's recent experience visiting that country and "coming back changed." And, making the album truly autobiographical is the inclusion of "Be Number One," a tune Joel wrote when he was 17. "It may sound babyish and immature, but it does document what goes through a 17-year-old's head," Joel says.In the final analysis, Watching Over You marks an important time in Joel's life, a time where he stepped out on his own and was bolstered in his faith and personal identity."There is a sense of completion, of relaxation, of closure," Joel says. "There's a new excitement in life since I know the answers to certain things.

"And now that I'm having a kid, I ask myself, 'What is this child going to see? A Christian musician whose life parallels the world?' Fatherhood is challenging me to be Christ-like, to live a life that's about others and not centered around me. We can get so excited about family. And yes, family is very important, but I want my kids to see their father care for the needy, the poor-not just for his family. I want to be about more than giving them a college fund or sending them to the right school. I really want to be more than that."

This article can be found here, at CCMMagazine.com