It's been nearly 10 years since Rapture Ruckus's dance beats, heavy synths, and bold declaration of faith, hope and love shocked New Zealand's Parachute Music Festival as the highest selling debut act in festival history, and yet in many respects, the Kiwis are still just getting started.

 

Earlier this year, the group relocated from their home of Wellington, New Zealand, over several ponds to Christian music nexus Nashville, Tenn. Today they're signed with Tooth & Nail/BEC Recordings, and yet still maintain their very independent, do-it-all ethic that has seen them through their first three studio albums.

 

In that spirit, Rapture Ruckus turned to their fans, via crowd funding site Indiegogo, to raise the money necessary to film their first real music video for "In Crowd," a song that has struck a chord with many of the band's fans.

 

The song, which proudly proclaims, "We're never gonna be in the in crowd," celebrates God-given individuality and being accepted for who people are on the inside.  The upbeat, dance-friendly song inspired many fans to share with the band their own reasons why they'll never be in the in crowd via photos on social media.

The groundswell of support is what led the band to ask fans to fund the music video, and fund they did, raising 116 percent of the original $15,000 goal.

 

We recently sat down with frontman Brad Dring about the single, the music video and additional new music coming from Rapture Ruckus.

 

 

We've never done anything like that before. We've seen some of our friends' bands have done Kickstarters and things like that. We started playing "In Crowd" a few times at our shows and we put a free download up on our site, and one day I posted a photo on my Facebook page of me writing on my hands. I wrote "dyslexic" on one hand and I wrote "never going to be in the in crowd" on the other, and I posted it on Facebook. I didn't even know what it meant other than I struggled with this thing and it kind of kept me out of what I thought was the cool crowd—and yet I'm still the way God made me and God loves me and I'm perfect in His eyes.

 

And man, it just snowballed. Hundreds of kids started writing these things on their hands and on pictures, on posters, on whatever and posted them on our Facebook. We were like, "Man, this is crazy." We decided we were going to do this video, but we said if we were going to do it we've got to do it properly. We're going to do it awesome. 

 

So for the Indiegogo thing, we set a bit of a target. I think with maybe about half a dozen Facebook posts and a couple of emails we managed to reach our target. We were pretty stoked. We didn't know how it was going to go.
 

 

 

We've done one music video back in the day, back in New Zealand—sort of a low-budget one. This is our first real kind of music video. We've pretty much been an independent band for a long time. We have Tooth & Nail help us with getting our records to iTunes and into stores and all that stuff, but generally we fund our records and everything ourselves. 

 

I guess with how expensive videos are to make we've never really been able before to do one. The cool thing about this is our fans funded it.

 

I've been working in and out of high schools for a long time. Back in New Zealand we used to do a lot of concerts and work through high schools. The number one thing that kids talked to us about is not feeling like they fit in with the crowd. And especially teenagers, there's such a desire and through the media and advertising that people are bombarding you with all these images and things you must have to be cool—what you need to look like or what you need to drive.

 

We just think that that's kind of rubbish. The message that we wanted to put out there is that you are perfect the way God made you and God's made us all individuals. The things that separate us are the things that make us unique and different. The things that make us special. I guess that's the message that we wanted to tell our fans or anyone who listens to us is that be unique and special the way God made you.

 

I suppose the older I get—we meet different people that aren't like us, necessarily, and I'm more attracted to them. I go, "Man, this dude is cool. He's got his own buzz going on and he's unique." That's what the song is all about: celebrating our diversity.

 

 

Yeah, the video is being edited, and we've been working on some new tunes.

 

 

We filmed the video about two weeks ago down in Atlanta when the Family Force 5 guys were down there. It was cool. It's all finished and being edited. I haven't seen the final cut yet.

 

 

Isaac Dietz directed the film, and he's done a bunch of Family Force 5's videos and Lecrae's. He's awesome. We were stoked to have him do it and he did an amazing job as far as I can tell. I haven't seen the video. We had an amazing time shooting the video.

 

We're looking to release a new record sometime in the fall. We're hitting on a fall tour with Newsboys and for KING & COUNTRY, so we're hoping to have a new project ready by then. We're probably thinking more like an EP, a six-track thing, so we've got a lot of songs to finish. We're just in the process between touring to get finished and mixed and stuff.

 

We traditionally do all our albums ourselves, record them ourselves on the road and at our studios in our houses and stuff. That's how we've always done it. It's cool, but the pressure is on to get it done.
 

 

A lot of this project that we've been working on is definitely one – I'm not one for making a big general theme or campaign around a whole bunch of songs, but it's definitely been steering that way. I don't know if the In Crowd song kind of kicked it off, but it's definitely been this whole thing about this big kind of family vibe of being part of this thing whether it's the body of Christ and not being – being completely individual and being yourself, but being part of this bigger body of people that love you and support you.

 

It's been quite cool writing to a bit of a theme and having all our songs embodying it. We always hope with our music that it'll lift people up and encourage them, even if it's just hearing a three minute song that comes on the radio or on the iPod from us. We hope that at the end of it it makes them smile, makes them feel a little bit closer to God.

 

 

The idea of one day getting to go surfing again! (laughs) I've just been pumping up. My wife and I've got a five-month-old baby. It's our first kid, so I've been just learning how to be a dad pretty much. We're still having fun doing Rapture Ruckus and still doing our full touring and recording, but I guess my main focus is definitely on being a daddy and being a good one, and learning how to do that good. It's been real fun.