It was a classic scene of unscripted mushiness, the kind that still make you twitch with embarrassment months later. A room full of journalists and music critics had assembled at Sparrow Records for a preview of Newsboys' Love Liberty Disco. Then bassist Phil Joel, addressing a question about the release's title track, went off on an impassioned rabbit trail about friendship and love, finally pleading to those assembled that "we need to sow into each other's lives! And love like we've never loved before!" Good grief, where did all that come from?

One year later, with his first solo release under his belt and a baby on the way, we have our answer. The earnest Joel has been on an emotional 27-year journey of self-discovery and creative catharsis, which has culminated in the autobiographical solo release Watching Over You. It's a rite of passage of sorts, the kind of declarative act that must be made before one can move on to the next phase of life.

In short, Phil Joel has been growing up. "The time just seems right to do this, to put this chapter of my life onto a record," Joel observes, noting that many of the songs on Watching Over You were begun seven or eight years ago. "I started writing some of these songs a long time ago and wrestling with issues, certain things that God was taking me through and He didn't allow me to see the light at the end of the tunnel at that stage.

"Only now in my 20s have I been able to finish those songs from a place of honesty. In some ways this record is one of those things where I've had to go back before I can go forward."

Going back for Joel has meant processing some very personal struggles: his adoption, meeting his birth mother, understanding who he is and how he got that way-these are the kind of issues only a fellow adoptee can really appreciate.

Born in New Zealand and adopted by a Christian family, Joel grew up in a loving home, but always knew he didn't fit in. "I was just very, very different from them," he says. "When I took [my wife] Heather back for the first time, she thought I had gone to the wrong house! You just would not put these people in the same room [with me]."

Like many adoptees, Joel hoped to one day meet his biological family and answer some basic questions those of us raised with our birth families never even think of asking. "All through my teenage years I always had this hope-I probably placed too much hope-in one day meeting my birth parents and having a lot of these questions answered, why I was this way and not that way," he notes.

At 13, Joel picked up his first guitar and, as he puts it, "fell in love." Suddenly, he knew where he belonged. "This was good and this fit. I realized there were some things in this world that I love to do and that are made for me," he recalls.

Joel did track down his birth mother, who had moved to Australia. With Joel still in New Zealand, the two began a telephone relationship. Joel's first question was answered when he learned she had been a wig-maker-Joel had originally left high school to be a hairdresser. Answer number two fell into place when he learned his father was a musician from London (Joel has not met his birth father).

Learning how he came by two of his life's passions didn't answer all the questions, but it would have to be enough. A week before Joel was to meet his birth mother face to face, fame called. Joel's band Drinkwater had opened for Newsboys when they played New Zealand; the band needed a bassist and offered the gig to Joel. He left the next day.

"I'd never been on a big airplane before," he recalls, laughing. "They flew me into L.A. Four days later I'm playing for 15,000 people at a True Love Waits campaign. Then two days after that I get on a plane and fly to Amsterdam, then I come back through New York again, get to Nashville ... my head's spinning!

"Somehow, this whole Newsboys thing and just-whoosh!-being whisked out of New Zealand and over here, it all just fits. It was all just very natural, very nice."

The rest of the Newsboys story, of course, is well-known. But through all the hit albums, the arena-rock tours, the awards, Joel still had basic questions about who he was. Two years ago he finally got answers when he met his birth mother, maternal grandfather, uncle and little sister in person.

"It was kind of affirming, but on the other hand it was really unusual because they weren't really anything like me-still! We're still very, very different," he marvels. "I realized six months after these people visited that the reason why I've become the person that I've become is not necessarily nature or nurture, but because of the commitment that I made when I was 8 years old to follow Jesus. It was kind of a revelation to me."

It was a major turning point in Joel's life, and it's also changed his perspective on adoptees finding their birth parents. "Sure, if you're an adopted kid, go and try to find your birth parents if you need to. But otherwise, just keep your eyes on Jesus," he says. "You become the person you're meant to be if you follow Christ. It's how we're designed, that's how we're made! So in some ways I encourage kids to meet their birth parents if they need to but otherwise, I probably wouldn't now."

Like so many of his life experiences, Joel has put this one in song. "Strangely Normal" at one point was under consideration to be his solo debut's title track. That honor eventually went to "Watching Over You," the album's spiritual center, but "Strangely Normal" is certainly its human counterpoint. "Strangely Normal" is also one of those tunes Joel started to write years ago and only recently was able to finish because, frankly, only now does he know the end of the story. Fellow Newsboy Peter Furler produced Watching Over You, and is also co-founder of InPop records, which released the project in June. "Phil is a very sensitive human being," observes Furler. "He's very expressive and very thoughtful. He's someone that definitely likes to let everyone know he's there! Sometimes he gets beaten up on the tour bus as a result!" Furler admits to some "unrighteous envy" at Joel's solo project, which enabled him to move beyond the band context and explore more personal territory. "It was something I've never had an opportunity to do," he says. "I've written 100-odd songs now, but always thinking of the band, the live show, different things like that. I think what I learned making this record is that I was living his dream, too. I was thinking, this guy has to be so excited!"

Furler alludes to some intense hours in the studio as he helped Joel wrestle with putting such personal issues into song. "Usually with me and Phil there's emotional moments all the time. We're in a fairly new relationship-five to six years-and we're growing closer all the time. There were definitely times of him feeling really strong about a certain point of a song and I'd say, Well, I don't get that, and I don't think anyone else will get that if we don't do it this way."

It's a producer's job to be tough, though, and Joel is appreciative. "He did a great job," Joel says of Furler. "He took my tender, obscure little songs and helped me craft them into pop songs."

Watching Over You is nothing if not a candid collection; Joel also tackles such subjects as homesickness for New Zealand, questioning God about a friend's terminal illness, and childhood friends who have turned from their faith. Such vulnerability isn't exactly a Newsboys hallmark-if the affable rockers have received any criticism, it's that their lyrics could use such frankness -and Joel is certainly putting his heart on his sleeve with many of these songs.

Heather, Joel's wife of five years, is proud of his honesty. "I know when you're young a lot of things are about you and about getting on your feet. It's taken him a while because he was ripped out of his country and came over here to be in this band. I think now he's at the point where he can look around and go, Okay, I'm ready to really serve and really encourage and really reach out."

Says Joel, "It's really important, I think, for us as a church to say, Yes, we do have the answer, the answer is Christ but no, we as humans don't have all the answers. We wrestle and we struggle and it's good for us to share the vulnerability with each other and with the world. If our faith is leading us to compassion, then cool. But if it's leading us to division and prejudice, then something's wrong."

This fits in perfectly with Newsboys, Joel adds, because it allows fans to look inside the life of one band member. Joel continues to remind fans that this solo excursion has been a mere detour; he remains a full-fledged member of the band and, in fact, has begun writing songs for a new Newsboys record that could be out next spring. He feels his solo effort, as well as that of guitarist Jody Davis, serves only to strengthen the band.

"It's perfect timing to give people a little window into the life of one of us," Joel believes, "because Newsboys is so big and grandiose right now. With domes and huge amounts of production and all this sort of thing-it's nice to be able to be given a chance to put a little more humanity back into what we do."

Now that he's concluded his personal retrospective, Joel is ready to move forward. Right now, that means preparing for fatherhood-Joel and Heather expect their first child in October. Is he ready?

He laughs, "Is anybody?"

The two met when Newsboys toured with Steven Curtis Chapman. Heather was working at a Christian radio station in Kansas at the time. "We went in to do an interview and there she was," he recalls. "So I busted my moves."

Love at first sight? Maybe not: Heather spurned Joel's invitation to dinner backstage before the show. "He wanted me to come and be all meet-and-greety and I was like, Nah, that's okay.

"I tried to set him up with a friend," Heather laughs. "They had the same hair! I thought he'd be perfect for my friend Lori, we were roommates in college. I tried to set them up, but I ended up with him."

It's a good thing-Heather's friend Lori ended up marrying Don Chaffer; the two now front alt-rock band Waterdeep.

"Heather laughed at herself, that's what I thought was good," says Joel, gazing at his wife with fondness. "She cracked bad jokes and laughed. She still does!"

The two are obviously madly in love, even after five years. In fact, Joel tapped Heather to sing harmony on the song "Together," which is a bittersweet look at their relationship. "She's the woman of my dreams," Joel says, "but it still kinda hurts me at times to be 10,000 miles away from home. I have to turn that hurt into knowing that no place on Earth is really our home; it's Heaven."

So what's the preference for a baby-boy or girl? Joel answers "boy" almost before the question is out, but Heather admonishes, "Oh, you don't care!"

"Actually, no, I don't," he admits. "But recently I saw a movie where there was a woman who was like 40 and she had hair like mine. I thought, I want that lady to look after me when I'm retired! She looked like she could be our child, grown up. And I thought, cool, a girl could be good. When we're old, a girl could bring around the grandkids."

If there's one thing having a first child does, it's make one reassess their life. Joel is no different; with this child on the way, he finds himself really appreciating what it means to have a music ministry, and understanding the importance of Christian music to young people.

"I'm standing on stage lately just looking at little kids on their father's shoulders, or teenagers, and I'm thinking, Man, I hope there's something around like this for my kids, I really do! I hope one day I'm that father out there with the kid on his shoulders, taking in all this good stuff. Because it's so important.

"I remember when I was a kid and I met Stryper. They left an impression on me-it was cool. Just looking in the eyes of one of these guys and him smiling back at me -it just affirmed all the things that I thought he was and I thought I should be. I may have been wrong on all accounts, he may have been completely different, but it didn't matter, it affirmed to me that the Gospel was good."

That said, Joel is perfectly happy with his role in Christian music. Admitting there was some initial pressure to make his solo debut a mainstream effort-go to New York and "do a full-blown secular deal"-he quickly came to the conclusion that that's not where his heart lay.

"I don't know that I need that. Christian musicians, we all wrestle with the idea that we are just in the middle of this Christian subculture and are we really just living in a bubble? Are we making the subculture even more of its own closed-off thing? "I don't know, maybe. But I do know that there's a lot of good that can be done in this subculture. And it's something we, in some respects, need to protect. The fact of the matter is, the grass is always greener. But I'm realizing that it's not-the grass is pretty green where I am!"

From Release Magazine