On September 23, longtime Christian hard rock mainstay Disciple released their first independent album since the group's early days. Following hard on the heels of a massive line-up change, the circumstances surrounding Attack ensured it would be something special.

In its first week, Attack claimed the number one spot in the Christian and Gospel category on iTunes, holding out in the top five for several days. The response of the fans who funded the album has proved to be resoundingly supportive, proving the impact Disciple's ministry has had in their two decades of bringing blistering gospel-centric rock and roll to countless needy hearts.

In the first part of our exclusive interview with band frontman and sole remaining original member Kevin Young, we talked about the line-up changes and some of the personal battles that inspired the powerful new album. In the second segment, Kevin shares some of the benefits and challenges of independent status and delves deeper into how God has and is using Disciple's ministry.

You touched on this a little bit before, but does the fact that you're independent give you more freedom? I mean obviously, you had a phenomenal label before this.

Absolutely.

But do you feel that being independent has made it easier to stop caring about outside opinions in what you write about?

I have to be careful with what I say here, because if I say that it has given me the freedom to say things, that makes you assume that I didn't have that freedom on our former record label. Which is not true.

What is true is that our words were under a microscope, and they did have to get a greenlight. So I did write with a lot of timidity, because I was really writing to please two people in particular, lyrically and musically.

They were by far one of the best labels, if not the best label, that we've ever worked with. Maybe even that we have never worked with but could possibly have worked with. They're that good. But at the same time, when your songs have to pass the board of trustees, it really wears on me as an artist. It smothers the heck out of my creativity.

It stresses me out to the point where when we wrote this album, I wouldn't even let our manager listen to the songs. It was very protected and very insulated from the world. No one heard the songs except for the band. The band members were the only ones that were hearing the songs, working on the songs, talking about the songs. We didn't want any outside opinions.

Because a lot of times in the past, the band would be writing a song, and we would be excited about it, and then there would be an outside voice that would say "oh, that song's just kind of whatever." And then we would all get very defeated, and the wind would be taken out of our sails. I just didn't want that to happen on this process. If we were excited about a song, that was all that mattered. If the five guys in this band liked a song, then we were gonna go record it. We were going to be the ones that gave the final approval to what was going to go on the album this time.

So it gave a lot of freedom, but it also put some pressure on us in different ways, because now if people don't like it, it's our fault. If people didn't like some songs in the past, I could always point the finger and lay the blame and go back at a business meeting and say something like "see, I told you! We shouldn't have done that." But now if people don't like something, it falls squarely on our shoulders.

I'm not saying that we'll never work with a label again because we probably will, but it was so great to be free, so great to be independent, so great as an artist to create. I needed a record label for many years to tell me what was good and to tell me what was bad, to tell me what art I was creating that was subpar, what needed to be weeded out. And going through that process has been very good for me to grow as an artist.

But also there comes a point where you want to do what you want to do, and you don't want to write to please other people. And me as an artist, I want to write to please God, and wanted to write songs that I felt like He wanted me to write and leave it at that without really asking anyone else's opinion. So that's what happened, and we're very excited about it.

So what is the future of Disciple? Are you going to keep doing things independently? Have you thought that far ahead yet?

No, I haven't thought that far ahead yet. Right now that's not even in my mind. I'm very excited about this album and really just putting my focus there.

You know, as much stress as there is with writing an album on a record label, there's no stress with where the money's coming from. Being independent, there's no stress with writing, we get to write the songs we like, but there's all kinds of stress about where the money's coming from to do the album.

So whichever way you go, there's always going to be things that are going to be difficult, going to be hard. And we'll just see which way God leads us the next time around. I've enjoyed the relationship we've had with the record label we were on, and I'm definitely very open to the possibility of working with them again, or with someone else. You never know. So we'll see what happens.

You guys were able to shoot a music video for the first time in a really long time for this. How did that whole thing happen?

We thought that since this was a crowd funded album, it would be a very neat thing to do a music video where our fans were part of the video. The song is "Radical," which is really a very thematic song, an anthem for Christians. So we just thought it would be a really neat thing to just have everybody together and us all singing it together as one. And that's what we did, and I can't wait for you to see it. I think it looks really good, so hopefully everybody else will too.

[Watch the official music video for "Radical" here.]

You're going to be bringing these songs on the road soon. You've got a tour with Project 86 coming up, and then you're going to be doing the West Coast leg of WinterJam. As you're bringing these songs out there, and as people are getting the album, what kind of take-aways are you hoping they walk out with?

You never know why you're writing the songs when you're writing them. Like songs like "After the World," which was written way back in 2006. I just prayed a prayer: "God, what do You want to say to this generation?" And those lyrics started to happen. Little did I know that that song would open up the door for a fanbase that was dealing with cutting and suicidal thoughts, and really kind of springboarded us into writing songs like "Dear X" and "Invisible." That's not something I really chose, that's not something that I really was intentional about. I think that's something that God did.

I don't know where we're going to go with this one, with all these songs that are kind of attack-themed. Hopefully the same fight that I've been fighting the past year with taking my thoughts captive and really relying on the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to wash me mentally and spiritually, really relying on those things in a personal walk, maybe this album will be that for some people. Time will tell.

It's got some other really cool themes on it as well, like "Yesterday is Over," which is about letting go of your past and not letting the past control you today. Already we've had some pushback from people on the internet, making comments like "well what if this has happened in your past?" Then they just throw this bomb of something awful that's happened to them. They're like "how am I supposed to let go of that?"

I can already tell that those questions are going to be really tough questions that we're going to face, but I also believe that we serve a big God that said things like "if anyone is in Christ, all of the old has passed away and everything has become new." So I'm just going to take Him at His word, that He's God and He's bigger than every awful thing that's ever happened to us in our past. And if He says that He can replace it and all things can become new, then I'm going to believe it.
So that's where I'm starting right now, and we'll see. Ask me a year from now, and we'll see how God's used it!

As you release this new album and go out on the road, how can people be praying for you specifically and for the band Disciple?

For me, definitely for raising a family, my two little girls, balancing ministry in Disciple with being a good husband and being a good father. There are always needs that pop up that are normal, then needs that pop up that I'm like "where'd that come from?" You never know in praying for me, so just pray for whatever and I'm sure you'll get it.

As far as Disciple, we've really been talking about being more impactful in our conversations with people one on one. And we're not psychologists, we're not trained and educated in how to talk to kids, so we're really relying on the Holy Spirit to give us the right words that would minister to people. That's what we're longing for, and that's what we want.

We're relying on the Holy Spirit when we're writing lyrics for the songs, and now is the next step as those songs bring us into one on one conversations with people, relying on the Holy Spirit to guide us in those conversations as well. With whatever big problem that seems insurmountable that someone walks up with, that we don't give them necessarily the answer to the problem, but that we point them to the One that does have the answers.


You can find Attack on iTunes here.