If you were in a genre-leading rock band that had sold nearly one million albums, tallied 10 No. 1 radio singles, 13 additional top five hits, a GRAMMY nomination, four Dove Awards and headlined nine national tours on your way to performing for three million people, what would you change about your band's approach?

That's easy: Absolutely nothing.

Yeah? But you're not Rob Beckley, founding front man and leader of Christian music's premier alt-metal-come-hard-alternative band. He knows change has played a recurring and pivotal role in Pillar's success since its formation. For starters, consider the five former members who have come and gone during this impressive run, Pillar's continually evolving post-grunge sound, or even the ease with which the band continues to move between the Christian and general markets.

And now comes Confessions, the Essential Records act's sixth studio album. Change may have been a key ingredient before, but this time around, it was a bonafide litmus test.

NewReleaseTuesday.com's Bill Lurwick recently spoke with lead singer, and founding member, Rob Beckley about those changes surrounding his professional, and personal life, and the band's latest hard-hitting release, Confessions.

Hi, Rob. Thanks for joining us again here at NewReleaseTuesday.com. First of all, congrats on becoming a new daddy again in January.

Thank you. Yeah, Emily Evelyn, born January 21st.

Is she your second?

Yes. We have a little boy named Hudson Cash. He’s two and a half. Now we have little Emily. Becoming a dad can changed everything for me. My spiritual walk has become more relevant because when I realized that I can love a kid despite how many times they disobey me, I grabbed a hold of God’s grace, patience and love. No matter how defiant your child is you still love them and would do anything to protect and care for them.

Right. Now there’s more responsibility for what you’re doing—more accountability. So how many years, now, have you been in Pillar?

We’re in our twelfth year.

This is a new era of Pillar because most of the original guys left. Do you have two or three original members now?

Technically speaking, I’m the only original member. We’ve had quite a few members over the years. Noah came in on our Fireproof, record, so he’s been with us since the rise of Pillar. We’ve written all the songs on all those records. As far as the new guys go, the base player’s name is Rich Gilliland. He’s awesome and rocks the Mohawk. We’ve gone to church together for five or six years, and his wife sings on the worship team. Rich actually played with KJ-52 for a little while, and he’s an incredible bass player. We have a phenomenal drummer, Taylor Carroll, who has been in the music industry his whole life. While Taylor was growing up, his dad was a singer and songwriter.

Bruce Carroll’s boy?

Yes, that’s him.

I’m old because I can remember Bruce Carroll on the radio.

Taylor is so much fun to watch.

How has it been for you guys live? When Kalel (Michael Wittig) and Lester (Estelle II) left, was the transition a smooth one? I’m sure it added some energy to what you guys were doing—not that your shows were ever unenergetic, but now there’s a new flavor in there. I sense a little bit of transformation going on.


A little bit. There aren’t many bass players that are at Rich’s level. He kind of took us to another level because he’s got a groove that we never had before on the low end. It really adds some cool vibe to the Pillar sound. Taylor is an animal, and I guess he’s a testimony to what’s going on. I met a guy, down in Florida, who’s seen us with every line up we’ve ever had. He came and saw us in Jacksonville for the fourteenth time. He said, “Man, I’ve never seen you guys have this much fun on stage. This is the funniest Pillar show I’ve ever been to!” So, the next day, he drove six hours to come see us, for the fifteenth time, in Fort Lauderdale. He said, “Dude, this is so fun! I had to bring my brother because I couldn’t describe how awesome this is.” The next day he followed us over to Orlando. He’s now seen us sixteen times and he said, “I couldn’t get enough of you guys this weekend.”

That’s got to be a validation for you guys because when you do go through some lineup changes, you’re thinking, Ok God, is this it? Is this where You want us to go?

Well my brother in-law, Brad, was our original drummer. Then we had another guy come in for a while. Then Lester came in. I remember we were in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and this kid came up to Lester and said, “Dude, where’s Brad?” He said, “Awe, he’s gone, man.” The kid was upset and just walked off. Lester felt bad because the kid’s feelings were hurt. There are some people out there who think that a band is made up of certain people, but we’ve had so many different people over the years. It’s really just a breath of fresh air.

It’s not necessarily a band. It’s more of a mission.

Pillar is something that God orchestrated. He put us together, and He’s always put the right pieces together to do what He needs to accomplish.

Let’s talk about this new record.

The title is Confessions, and it deals with the junk that people carry around. What’s funny is that we’ve already done a Confessions tour.

With Fireflight.

Yeah. We literally had a confession booth set up. It was really cool because we had candles, incense, and a box with a big lock on it. We had people write out their confessions on a card and put them into the box, and we prayed over the box every night. We prayed that this wouldn’t be the last step for these people because it’s only the first step in the healing process. There were some crazy things written on those cards—everything from girls that were raped, carrying the guilt, and feeling like it was their fault, to girls that were cutting, guys that were into pornography and people that were cheating on their spouse. I would read those cards and think, This was just in the crowd tonight. Every night, there was a lot of hurt in each crowd.

It made me realize that we spend so much time trying to cover up all the pain, the hurt, and the sorrow that there’s no time to deal with real issues—things like, I’m addicted to pornography, I’m not getting enough sleep because I’m up all night looking at it. I’m tired and groggy, and my parents think I’m depressed, so they give me depression medication instead of me making a confession and telling them what the real problem is.

It’s a spiritual band-aid, but what we’re hoping for is the vision from the tour. Pillar has always been about music. We get the songs ready to go on the record and then we say, “Ok, here are the songs. This is where we are going to go with the ministry.”

When we recorded the album, For the Love of the Game, we came up with songs that all fit well with I Corinthians 9:24-27, which states, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”

This new record, Confessions, has been the vision of the ministry, so we wanted to see where it took us musically. It’s the reciprocated version of what we’ve always done. It’s like a vibe rock song--like a power rock ballad that’s upbeat. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s been really cool. We have a song on the new record called “Better Off Now." It says, “I’m better off now since you came around.” It talks about letting God back into the picture instead of covering up all the junk. It’s definitely been cool to see the things that have surfaced out of this ministry.


Do you ever feel like you guys have to reinvent yourself musically? Your style is branded. When people hear a Pillar song, they know it’s Pillar. Has it been hard to maintain that sound? Have you wanted to branch out at all in different ways?

We’ve been blessed. We’ve never been pressured and have always done what we wanted, and our label has always been receptive.

Nobody has ever said, “We want you to do a worship record”?

No. We have always written what’s on our hearts and, thankfully, it has always been accepted. Travis Swaggert had produced our first five records. We did things the same way five times through our whole career so, on this record, we figured we’d start things over in a whole new era. We went with a new producer, Rob Graves.
We had this meeting the other day about our roles and goals as a band. What do we want to do in the future? We always want people to leave with a good feeling—leave different than when they came in. Another goal we have, all of us as a band, is participating in World Vision and really helping to branch out and reach out through that ministry. The last one is to continue this ministry for the right reason. We’ve always had a mission statement of decree and environment for God to move. If we are out there on the road doing what we’re supposed to be doing, and as long as we’re faithful during that time away from family (sacrificing that time away), God will bless that time because He is interested in that. We’ll just play as many shows as we can.

Rob’s done some great stuff too.

He’s a great songwriter and great producer. I feel like God’s put enough of the old pawns together. There may be a whole new side of Pillar on Confessions.

Well, whatever direction you go, we are praying for God’s continued favor on you guys and expect huge things from the new record.

Thanks Bill!