NRT's Jake Frederick catches up with Disciple while on the 1-Night Music Circus Tour. We talk touring life, new music, and how the band has grown over the years.
Forming in 1992, Disciple is one of the longest tenured active bands in Christian music. The group has twelve GMA Dove nominations, with two wins in 2008 and 2011. I first became a fan in 2005 with the release of their self-titled, 5th studio album. They have released six albums since then, and their craftsmanship has only increased with each release.
I was able to chat with Kevin Young (Vocals) and Joey West (Drums) while they were on tour on the 1-Night Music Circus tour with Manic Drive and Kutless. Disciple completed a restructure in 2014, but during our conversation, you would think that the band had been together for longer than that. Kevin talked about the strength they had as a group, and it was on full display throughout the discussion. As I think back on this interview, I’m amazed at their love for Jesus and for each other.
What has been the highlight of the 1-Night Music Circus tour so far?
JW: I got to play drums for Kutless for the first 3 shows. Their drummer couldn’t make it out for those shows. I was a Kutless fan growing up, so it was kinda cool to be able to get up on stage and play those songs. It’s very similar to how I feel playing with Disciple every night. I was a Disciple fan since I was in middle school, and it’s an honor to get to play with them now. Oh, and the fact that our bus has run the entire time! We almost had an incident yesterday, but the Lord took care of it and crisis averted.
KY: Honestly, every night is a highlight. When you’ve been doing it this long and you still get to do this, every night is a highlight. I can’t believe we’re still a band and we’re still able to do this, and we’re doing it at a higher level than we ever have. It feels pretty good to be able to say that.
On the subject of the tour, do you have any good touring stories?
KY: How much time do we have? I wouldn’t even know where to begin with that. We were just talking about one. One day when Micah was in the band, it was cold outside and we were at a friend’s house. Josiah was like, “Ok Micah, we’re going to jump in the pool.” He counts down and acts like he’s going to jump in the pool, but Micah eventually does jump into the pool. It’s freezing, so Micah gets mad and tries to attack Josiah.
JW: Micah didn’t realize was that there was a table of glassware in the way.
KY: ...and in the process of attacking Josiah, falls and breaks everything.
JW: There’s so many pranks.
KY: There’s so many. Josiah came up behind me the other night while I was playing video games and put an acoustic guitar right by my ear without me noticing and just strummed it as loud as he could. I had a heart attack, saw the face of Jesus, and then I came right back. Then last night, as he was walking to the bus, and I ran up behind him ninja-like and shouted as loud as I could right there at his ear. He screamed, like {slightly feminine scream}. That was my vengeance. But that’s an everyday thing.
JW: We have a great time. The best part about touring with the group we have is that everybody’s best friends. It’s an unspoken goal of the day everyday to see who can make the others laugh the most. We sometimes keep a tally but I think we’ve stopped doing that because it’s gotten so high. There’s always someone cracking a joke or doing something to try and make somebody laugh. It makes touring so much lighter because touring can be hard. It’s rough being away from your family, you can get miserable. Being on the bus sometimes all you want to do is be off the bus. When there’s no tension and it’s just laughter and light fun, it makes it a lot more enjoyable.
What’s next for Disciple?
KY: What we have next is really what’s going on with us right now. We’re getting ready to record a new album starting in January. We’re closing in on an album title. We spent a lot of time this week trying to hone in which one it’s going to be, and I think we’ve got it down to two or three options. So, unfortunately, I can’t tell you what that is yet. We’re closing in on what songs are going to make the record and which ones aren’t. We’re working with producer Travis Wyrick again, which will be about the 9th album we’ve done with him. Travis does a great job with my vocals, and I’m excited to be working with him again. He’s been like the 5th member of Disciple for many years, he’s been around and done a lot of work with us. It’s exciting. Playing shows and getting to talk about Jesus, and recording are two of my favorite things. We haven’t recorded an album in a couple of years and I miss it. We’ve played enough shows, now it’s time to record.
When is the new album slated to come out?
KY: It’s not! We’re going to be working with Tooth and Nail records on this album. That may be the first time I’ve actually said that in an interview. We’re just saying when it’s done, then we’ll put out a release date. We don’t want to rush it. We just want to make a good album.
JW: It will be in 2019, though. We won’t make you wait longer than 2019 because we want it to come out in 2019. Sometime before Star Wars Episode 9.
Kevin, your bio lists 80’s hair bands and U2 as your early influences, when did you take the turn to the hard rock?
KY: Probably the late 90’s. Bands like Sevendust and Stuck Mojo were a big influence on us. We had this album called This Might Sting a Little where we transitioned and went harder. By God tapered back a bit, but in 2003 Back Again was one of the hardest and heaviest albums we’ve ever done. We reach back and capture that every now and again.
Everyone in the band has always contributed their style and what they listen to. Everybody past and present has brought something to the table. Something we’ve always done well is writing songs that we want to hear. At that time, the songs that we wanted to hear at the time were really heavy and metal type songs. The new album is not heavy as a whole, but it will probably have one of the heaviest songs we’ve ever written. These songs are songs that when we listen to them, it’s like, “This is what I want to hear right now.”
How has your song writing process evolved over the years?
KY: It’s all about whoever is in the band at the time, what their influences are, what they’re into at the moment, and how that all changes. It’s the same thing with you as a person. What you listened to when you were 15, 20, 25... it changes. I think that’s the same thing for the band members.
JW: It’s funny because walking into the venue just now, Kevin and I were doing some songwriting. We were literally walking in talking about an idea for this new song that we’re working on, the last one to come in before we start recording. It’s potentially the biggest one. Kevin was like, “Oh, I changed the second line, what do you think about this?” We’re constantly bouncing ideas off each other. We’re also really good about accepting constructive criticism. Some bands, if you tell the lead singer, “Hey, that line isn’t good enough,” they’ll say “Don’t tell me how to sing!” But with our team, we really respect everybody so much that if there’s a line that can be better, we all know we can be honest be like, “hey, there could be better out there.” We push each other to be great. Even when we go in the studio and I’m playing drum parts, if there’s something that’s lacking, I know these guys will be like, “that drum part isn’t fitting, try this.” I think we put out the music that we want to hear because we work as a team instead of against each other. It’s not a power trip.
KY: It’s not easy to do. I’ve worked for guys when you think somebody is being a jerk telling you to do something better. Your insecurity takes over and you get offended. We really believe in each other and are big fans of each other. I know he’s not telling me something meaning I stink as a human or at what I’m doing, he just has an idea to make something better. So, we always leave that door open and make sure to listen to each other.
In the same vein, how has your faith grown and and how has that manifested in the lyrics?
KY: There are moments where we have good ideas that could be a good song, but most of the time, it’s what we’re thinking about at the time and what we’re going through at the time. This new album deals with a lot of anxiety and a lot of dark emotional things. Those were conversations we were having and things that guys in the band were going through, so that’s what we write about. When Attack happened in 2014, we went through a spell where we felt like we were muffled a little bit as to how bold as Christians we could be. We wanted to break through that and say some things that we didn’t feel like we had the freedom to say before becoming an independent artist. In this new album, we’re talking about some things we want to talk about as well. Our mission is always the same, we’re basically evangelists. But not every song is evangelistic.
Jake is a longtime fan of Christian music, Jesus Freak Cruiser, a techie, and a softball player. He lives in Texas with his wife and daughter.
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