By Christa Farris
On the Beat Archives 2002

There's a well-known adage in the music industry that artists are never awake before noon. After late night performances and the occasional "all-nighter" in the studio if the artist is recording, it's probably understandable why musicians aren't often known as "morning people."

But on this particular Thursday morning at the Sound Kitchen (a recording studio, not a restaurant, in case the name confused you) just outside of Nashville, it's 9 a.m., and the Newsboys have already been awake for several hours. In fact, guitarist and sometime lead singer Phil Joel is ambitiously walking around reading a dictionary (no, we're not kidding). So why the drastic change in routine? Well, there are several reasons.

With a new album hitting the streets today (March 26), the 'boys had radio interviews to conduct and media to meet with-pretty standard fare before the release of a new project. So after a hearty southern breakfast which included quiche, bacon, sausage, hash browns, croissants and fruit-(something that still continues to baffle me after three years of living in Nashville-how can people eat all of that for breakfast?), CCMmagazine.com caught up with the Newsboys and checked out their live radio taping for the Fish station in Los Angeles. Taking requests from fans, the band played its recent No. 1 hit from Thrive, "It is You" and also performed some oldies-but-goodies including "Shine," "Breakfast," "Entertaining Angels," and "Woo Hoo."

While performing such familiar material might seem a little mundane to most given the band's long history, the group really seemed to really be enjoying themselves-laughing and cracking jokes left and right.

After they concluded their radio interview, frontman Peter Furler explained how the band still manages to have fun-among other things-in a quick interview. So sit back, relax and find out what he had to say:

CCMmagazine.com: When you were chatting about the album earlier, you said you had so many more songs ready to record than with previous outings. How did that come about? Did you just have this sudden burst of inspiration?

Furler: "I really did. I just believe the floodgates were just opened this time. I was really fortunate. I don't think I took it for granted. I really felt blessed to use that word. I think I just got to a place where I really didn't care about things as much as I used to. I just went home and sat there and just had a little concert every night, and I turned up the amp and drove the neighbors nuts. That's really what I did. I am usually inspired by sounds, and I just seemed to have the right sounds around at the time-everything seemed to sound nice to me. It birthed songs."

CCMmagazine.com: When I first listened to the new record, my first reaction was "Wow, they really stepped the music up a notch." Instead of the standard pop throughout, some songs have more of a rock 'n' roll flair. How do you feel about the sound of the new CD and what inspired the changes?

Furler: With this record, I felt like it was definitely more of a rock record. I still again would like to go a little heavier or just a bit more tongue-in-cheek rock as opposed to pop. Even these songs were a bit heavier as demos, yet they sort of somehow while going through the process, we get our fingerprints on them, and they get a little watered down. I don't know why. It bothers me a lot. ..But at the same time, we don't want to depart too heavily though, because we've sort of made this mold, we're trying to change them [the songs] a little rather than pumping out cookies from the same mold."

CCMmagazine.com: For the Christian market, you guys are sort of venturing into that legend status for being a band for so many years. How do you prevent it from becoming "old hat" when you play a song like "Shine" night after night?

Furler: "It's like when something happens that changes the perspective of a nation. It's like what just recently happened. When something like that happens, songs sound different. A tree looks different than it did before. A building looks a lot different than it used to-to me. When I go to Chicago and see huge buildings, it looked different to me than it did before September 11. Music sounds different, songs have a different effect on me. I look at other people differently. All these things count. And I think this is the same thing with music. Music is such a spiritual thing. It's not me playing "Shine" that I get a kick out of. I don't get a kick out of it at all. Really it's the faces I see that are getting a kick out of it. When Duncan clicks his sticks together and Jeff starts that sound, I look for the faces. I get a little antsy because I know it's about to happen, and they don't know yet, so I get a kick out of that too. But the experience of their experience is what I enjoyI love it when people come up to me and say 'hey, this was my very first concert' or 'I love that song 'Shine' and I've only heard it for the first time.' That makes it for me."

Look for the Newsboys to hit plenty of summer festivals in the coming months. Check out their itinerary in our On Tour database.

This article can be found here, at CCMMagazine.com