Christian rockers Casting Crowns Christian Music

Christian rockers Casting Crowns

December 18, 2008 – 3:24 pm

What does a band do after becoming the top-selling Christian artist, winning a Grammy Award and four consecutive Dove Awards Group of the Year, and having two of its albums hit platinum and a third gold and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart?

Pretty much whatever it wants.

So when Christian rockers Casting Crowns found themselves in that position after last year’s ”The Altar and the Door” — the highest-charting album ever for an artist marketed through Christian channels — frontman/singer Mark Hall says they chose a long-desired project: a Christmas CD.

”I think almost maybe from the beginning, the band has been talking about, ‘I wonder if we get to do a Christmas record?”’ Hall says in a recent telephone interview.

”I’m a Christmas music guy. I think I might be the guy that is the cause of radio stations starting to play Christmas music Thursday morning of Thanksgiving all the way through to like Jan. 2. That’s me.”

And so in October, Casting Crowns released ”Peace on Earth,” a 10-song disc that, despite its holiday theme, cracked Billboard’s Top 25 and topped the Christian chart.

A Christmas album pretty much requires a Christmas tour, so the band had to shed its aversion to December shows for ”Casting Crowns Christmas Celebration,” a pageant/concert that features Natalie Grant, Denver & the Mile High Orchestra, Avalon, Michael English and from Radio Disney favorites PureNRG that tonight plays Reading’s Sovereign Center.

The show is the tour’s last date. But before the band returns to its base in McDonough, Ga., on Sunday, they’ll tape TNT television’s ”Christmas in Washington” annual holiday concert with Hootie and the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker, rising country star Julianne Hough and Straight No Chaser, the YouTube a cappella sensations that includes Lehigh Valley natives Jerome Collins and Walter Chase.

The show is scheduled to air at 8 p.m. Wednesday.

It all makes for a busy holiday season for Casting Crowns, whose members usually are preoccupied this time of year with ministry duties at Eagles Landing First Baptist Church in McDonough.

But Hall says the disc actually was recorded in June. ”That was a little unusual,” he says. ”Looking outside and seeing my kids playing in the sprinkler while we’re trying to record [Christmas] lyrics.”

And the tour was made palatable by a largely self-chosen lineup, Hall says.

”I just started throwing names out of some of my favorite artists — not just my favorite artists, but my favorite artists that sing Christmas music. Avalon, their Christmas record’s one of the best I’ve ever heard. Michael English has always been a hero of mine in Christian music — his song, ‘Mary, Did You Know?’ is one of the standards, just about, nowadays. Natalie Grant, probably the biggest voice in Christian music.”

Hall also says his band thought ”maybe people would come to a Christmas concert that might not come to a Crowns concert.”

Likewise, Hall says, ”Christmas in Washington” was something the band had hoped to do.

”I always wanted to meet President Bush,” Hall says. ”We sang at one of his campaign rallies several years back and had a great time. And just anytime we can do something for the president, we’re going to want to be there to serve.”

Hall says he feels that way despite the heavy criticism Bush has taken.

”I respect President Bush. It’s easy to sit back in my chair and listen to whatever slant my news channel’s feeding me and try and decide whether the president’s doing good or bad,” he says, laughing.

But ”I can’t imagine who else I would have wanted at the wheel when 9/11 happened.” And as for the troubled economy, he says, ”It’d be great to blame it on somebody, but the finger’s always going to come back to us sooner or later.”

Now that Casting Crowns has done Christmas, Hall says they’re scheduled to record a new disc in spring, despite a lack of written material. ”So God better get to work,” he says, laughing.

Whatever the band does, Hall says, the youth ministry he’s led for 17 years will stay the center of his life.

”I think it keeps us grounded is that we’re still doing that,” he says. ”I’m leading worship in my church Sunday morning and then I’m in the office all week, hanging out with teenagers and doing student ministry and going to the schools. So I guess you wouldn’t have the songs if we weren’t in the church like we are, still.

”Really, it’s just something that God’s been doing, and we’re happy to be a part of what He’s doing.”

Christian Music Online