The Newsboys Have Been Together How Long? What Fuels the Band’s Success
By Movieguide® Contributor
The Newsboys released their first albums in 1987, and nearly 37 years later, they’re still as strong and successful as ever.
“I think our longevity is a testament to our hearts and where we are as people, because it’s very uncommon in any genre that a band would stay together for over 30 years,” pianist Jeff Frankenstein told The Christian Post this month.
“I think that one of the cool things about Christian music, as opposed to pop music, is that we all know deep down that music affects people and has a purpose and God gave us that gift,” he said. “In a pop music situation where everything’s about you and your career, you can see why those things flame out so quickly, because they’re just based around either people’s egos or just selfishness. In this situation, we all have a common purpose where we know that music can really change people, because we’ve seen it happen.”
Frankenstein and two of the other members have been there from the start, while lead singer Michael Tait joined about halfway through their journey. Recently Adam Agee also joined the group.
“We’re one of those bands that is in a rare situation where we have a black lead singer and then we’re white guys, and we have people from Australia and people that work in our office from other countries. We’re a very kind of multicultural band,” Frankenstein said.
For the last two years, the band has worked on their new album, Worldwide Revival Part 1. It releases next month.
Movieguide® reported on the album in early August:
The Newsboys’ Michael Tait wants the group’s latest album to bring revival into “the hearts of believers.”
“[The album is] chock-full of everything that God’s poured into my heart over the years,” Tait told The Christian Beat. “We just pray that God uses our earnest efforts and due diligence when it comes to writing songs to touch people’s hearts.”
“We really wanted to take our time with this one,” Frankenstein said. “There have been so many times throughout our careers where we felt the pressure of deadlines — always trying to get to the next thing. But this time, we wanted every single song to really speak out and have a poignant message.”
“When you travel as much as we do, you get a different view of culture and people,” he added. “We stare into the faces of thousands of people almost every night, and you get the sense that people don’t always feel like the world is headed in a great direction…everything is grabbing for our attention, but is it really a great thing for us as a whole, as people, as Christians? That’s the question we kept coming back to.”
That “question” was the reason for the whole album.
“The album is a prayer,” Frankenstein said. “It’s a prayer to God to start something in this world. People are hungry. They’re desperate for truth. They’re crying out for something — they don’t know what it is, but they feel it. And I think trying to put that feeling into music is kind of what this album is about.”
The newest GOD’S NOT DEAD movie, which comes out Sept. 12, will feature a single from the album, called “In God We Trust.” The music video for the song just came out last Friday, Aug. 23.
“Our music is a reflection of our own spiritual journeys,” explained Frankenstein. “Songs like ‘In God We Trust’ talk about how, as Christians, we see the world differently. We believe in the forces of good and evil, and that God is our only hope.”
Frankenstein also opened up about negative experiences in church bodies and people leaving Christianity.
“My heart personally breaks because I know how deep and meaningful my faith is to me,” he said. “I can’t imagine a world in which I would want to turn away from that. I’m not speaking directly about friends like John [Steingard] and Kevin [Max], but about anyone who decides to leave the faith.”
“I think a lot of it has to do with really bad experiences,” he said. “I’ve been in the Christian music industry for 30 years, and to just say that everything’s just squeaky clean and beautiful and wonderful — we live in a pretty broken world. Humans are going to be humans, and sometimes that’s an ugly thing to see. People get hurt, bad things happen, and we’ve seen it in church leadership.”
The pianist knows that there can be turmoil in all industries of Christianity, not just Christian music. But he tries to approach it with compassion instead of scrutiny.
“For me, there’s no judgment. I like to hear what they have to say and see how I can improve as a Christian,” he said. “It’s a gut check for myself, not a judgment against people who’ve made decisions for themselves.”
“I was fortunate to not see hypocrisy in the people I looked up to,” he noted. “When Christians do see hypocrisy, they react differently. For me, it’s a challenge to assess my own walk with God and to ensure I’m living out what I believe.”
For him, it’s not at all about appearances. And the band doesn’t care too much about what others think.
“We’ve always just been ourselves. We don’t worry about being too Christian or not Christian enough,” he said. “We just do what comes from the heart.”
“Once you record the songs, they’re not really ours anymore — they’re our fans’,” he said. “It’s incredible how many stories we hear from people who say our music has been a soundtrack to their lives. That’s what makes it all worth it.”
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