Every coin has two sides: heads and tails. Both are necessary to the value of the coin. Neither is more important than the other. So it is with Tooth & Nail band Hawk Nelson. Flip heads, you get the band’s signature punk rock fun. Flip tails and find an introspection that fuels it all.

The band’s fifth studio album, Crazy Love, reveals the right combination of heads and tails: a return to the early days of Hawk Nelson rock with an ever-maturing look at life and the need for truth.

Bill Lurwick, the voice of NRT, spoke with frontman Jason Dunn on the heels of the release of Crazy Love.

I remember when my radio group did a tour with you guys, our secretary, Sharon, was telling people that Hawk Nelson was a wrestler. She though some guy named Hawk Nelson was coming to speak on the tour, and she was telling callers he was a wrestler.

Pro wrestler. I love it.

Yeah, a former pro wrestler named Hawk Nelson. When we finally got the concert posters and it had the picture of you guys, she didn’t think it was so funny, but we thought it was rather funny.

That’s awesome. People still think Hawk is a guy. I’m going to live that for the rest of my life. “Hawk, come get a picture with my daughter! Thanks, Hawk!”

The band used to be called “Swish” back in the day, right?

That was the first band that I played in. I can’t believe people know about that, but the other guys played in some weird names.

Daniel’s group had a really weird name. I can’t remember it, though.

Cheese Monkeys from Planet Nine. Swish isn't all that bad actually now that I think back to it. 

So where did “Crazy Love” come from?

Before we'd record, Dan and I would do a devotional every morning and we'd say, “We should write a song called 'Crazy Love.'” It covers the theme that we were reading about and studying on. It really put things into perspective . We wrote the song “Crazy Love” together in a studio and it was one of those songs that took about 10 minutes to write. You know when that happens that’s usually – well, sometimes it can be a horrible thing, but it was a good thing. It came together really quickly and I was really proud of that experience.

You've said of this album, “There are songs on this record for all the punk rockers, and songs that my mom will like too.” Is it an even distribution?

I’m going to say there’s at least five that our moms will like and the rest are ones that I’d like.

You've got like 13 cuts on here, man. That’s a lot.

If you think about it, there are actually 25 because it’s a double disc. We were asked to do like a “best of” CD, which we thought was a little ironic because we don’t think half our songs are that good, to be honest with you. So, we call it our favorites. These are all the favorite songs that we’ve written over the last eight years or nine years. We recorded them and we call it the light side, but they’re all done like acoustically. So, technically there’s a lot more songs that our parents will enjoy.

Talk about the song “One Shot” for a few minutes, can you? I really enjoy that cut.

I like that one a lot. It’s my wife’s favorite song, so I have to like it, but basically it’s we’ve got one life to live, so live it to the fullest. That’s basically the story behind that. It’s a good encourager, I think.


Let’s talk about one of the slow songs on the project, “My Next Breath.”

I think that’s probably one of the most honest songs I’ve ever written. I don’t try and write from a personal experience, obviously. I want something people can maybe relate to. For the song, I just think there was a certain day in my life when I was really thankful for the faith that I have and the life that God has given me. I don’t take any day for granted, for sure. I think it was just a day of appreciation. I was so thankful for the breath that God has given me and how important He is. He’s more important than my next breath and I those words just kind of came true to me that day.