Audrey Assad was born in Secaucus, New Jersey to a Virginian mother and a Syrian father on July 1, 1983, and was raised in a religious Protestant household. She started to play the piano at 2 and spent her youth moving around New Jersey before settling in Scotch Plains from ages 7 to 18. She attended public school until middle school, where her experience there caused her to ask her mother to homeschool her, which she did. Assad spent her adolescence being homeschooled, working at her father's businesses, and attending church events.

When Assad was 18 her family moved to Florida and she spent the next six years there. At 19 she briefly attended college and supported herself with odd jobs while beginning her musical career, writing and composing songs for the first time. Assad spent the next five years playing at various venues performing original songs and covers. Venues ranged from restaurants, weddings and coffee shops to leading and organizing worship concerts at church. Around 2003 Assad recorded a 4-song demo with Drew Middleton, a member of the CCM band Tenth Avenue North at the time, whom Assad toured with occasionally..........

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Long before Nine Lashes was signed to Tooth & Nail Records, the Alabama-reared band was cranking out raucous modern rock riffs and explosive power chords on the road throughout the region. In fact, the group scored a coveted slot at the area’s tens-of-thousands-drawing Magnolia Festival based on the strength of a demo alone, and since the promoter was immensely impressed by the guys’ incendiary set, he sent a demo to a very famous friend (unbeknownst to them).

“The funny part about that whole show was we saw the promoter leave while we were still on stage, so we literally thought he hated our set, but it turns out he left early because he had another commitment,” recalls front man Jeremy Dunn with a laugh. “He actually loved it so much that he sent some songs to Trevor McNevan [Thousand Foot Krutch, FM Static], who he’d known for awhile after they played the festival. Trevor probably wouldn’t have had time to listen to it if his appendix hadn’t ruptured and he was taking time off to recover, so we definitely feel like God had a place in orchestrating the timing of it all.”

After all the connections were firmly established, Nine Lashes found themselves in the studio alongside producer extraordinaire Aaron Sprinkle (Anberlin, The Almost, Jeremy Camp, Hawk Nelson) crafting the national debut long player World We View. Together, the team turned in a sophisticated blend of modern, alternative and indie rock, undercut by a slew of rhythmic influences, cutting edge beats and even an appearance from screamo legend Ryan Clark (of Demon Hunter fame) on “Our Darkest Day.”

“Rock has always been our musical centering, but we definitely wanted to showcase diversity on this record since we’ve matured as musicians since our demo days,” explains Dunn. “A song like ‘Our Darkest Day’ is really aggressive and features a dream collaboration with Ryan, while ‘Memo’ has a Red Hot Chili Peppers kind of vibe. We write what comes out naturally and never want to force anything. Aaron was awesome, giving us such a laid back and relaxed work environment. He created all the loops and electronic sounds on the album and we’re very happen with it!”

Indeed World We View offers a spread of sonic opulence akin to Thrice, Three Days Grace and Red that finds Nine Lashes mounds above most typical freshman acts. And it turns out the band’s lyrical revelations are equally as strong with Dunn honing in on a series of life experiences, alongside uplifting battle cries for fans to rally together towards proactivity.

“I kind of attacked each song one at a time, but they have a shared theme by default since I wrote them all close together,” he assures. “Basically no matter what your circumstances, your dream can be accomplished and your goal can be reached. Things don’t have to stay the way they are, so if you have a vision, don’t change it just because of your current circumstances.”

A perfect point of connection comes in the lead single “Anthem of the Lonely,” which already went to number one long before the album released, residing in the top spot for two weeks and the top ten for over six months! “That song is all about change, and for me, it recalls when I gave my life over to Christ,” reveals Dunn. “But it’s an anthem for anyone to know they’re not alone in whatever they’re going through and that change is always right around the corner.”

Even more engaging is the stirring “Afterglow,” which was written about the sudden passing of Adam “Tank” Jefferson and his brother Jonathan’s dad from a heart attack. Adding complication to the delicate subject was the fact that all the guys were present when the incident actually occurred. “We saw everything and it was a strange event that’s really hard to process,” adds Dunn. “It’s both an expression of that event and a tribute to their dad.”

Despite that tragedy, hope exudes the album at every turn, thanks in part to members’ unwavering commitment to Christ. In fact, the group’s very moniker references the whip used to beat Jesus (cat of nine tails), while using Isaiah 53:5 to remember the wounds He suffered for humanity’s restoration. That grounding even inspired the album title World We View, which as Dunn so eloquently describes, furthers the group’s vision for impacting its listeners with positivity and truth.

“The more we travel and meet people, the more we find a lot of people with an incorrect view of God,” he shares. “So many people think He’s an angry and vindictive God who wants to punish them for everything, but the World We View is one where we draw close to God and strive to make His point of view our point of view. When we start to see the world the way God sees it, our vision won’t be blurred anymore.”

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Some bands are artistically innovative boundary breakers with an unwavering ability to cast their nets wide and attract an audience that literally spans all walks of life. Others put their focus exclusively on unabashed praise and are so anointed they can literally usher listeners into the presence of God with a single strum of a chord. And while Worth Dying For certainly fits both impressive character profiles, the California-based troupe of praise purveyors is actually something much grander in the form of an all encompassing movement spanning worship, the arts and the church as a whole.

On the musical side of the coin, Worth Dying For is currently readying the release of Live Riot, its third national long player and fitting follow-up to 2011’s Love Riot. The collection of 10 brand new songs and a few live versions of already familiar material was culled from a praise service at the Ammunition Conference, which the group hosts annually to unite worship leaders and speakers from all the world over. However, the members of this ministry team don’t just serve on stage but literally roll up their sleeves in the trenches, as evidenced in their forthcoming FEARLESS church planting efforts in Los Angeles.

“Worth Dying For is a faceless army of worshippers that’s not about certain people in a band or ministry,” explains co-founder Christy Johnson. “We really believe in investing in people and raising them up. We don’t use people to make ministry happen. We use ministry to make people happen and we love seeing when someone starts out as an intern and is later able to get up in front of people and usher thousands into the presence of God.”

Indeed, the journey of all Worth Dying For’s facets is an unconventional one, dating back to 2007’s self-released debut Ammunition and winding through 2008’s self-titled label debut on Integrity Records (which found the troupe leading worship on Creation Festival: The Tour). Come 2011, the group returned to the self-releasing route on Ammunition Records, the home of both Love Riot and Live Riot, the latter of which features original members Christy Johnson, Josh O’haire and Sean Loche, as well as new worship leaders Dalisha Turner, Deanna Joven, Nick Morris, Rochelle Leguern and Sarah Agbayani.

“What we want people to experience whenever we play or when they listen to Live Riot is not a band that wants to get up there and perform for people, but one that’s all about making His presence known,” continues Nick. “Our hunger personally is for God to resonate and I think people catch onto that. You can’t take people anywhere you haven’t been.”

Adds Sean: “Our goal is to always disappear and remove ourselves from the equation. We hear testimony after testimony about someone who wanted to end their life and get connected to God, someone who had a broken leg and was healed, or someone who had their purity restored. The last thing we want with this album is to feel like it was a concert and just a lot of fun. We want people to encounter the power of God, fall more in love with Him and change their life for the better.”

In order to help facilitate those goals, it doesn’t hurt that Worth Dying For just so happens to be a razor-sharp musical collective with some of the most intriguing sounds of any musical scene. Perhaps Christianity Today.com described it best: “Taking the adrenaline up a notch while bursting through all the worship clichés—all while remaining reverent—makes for an assertive and musically alluring album. Even with the vertical lyrics, the band would easily fit modern rock radio, switching between synth-spiked pop, power ballads and screamo.”

Although the moments of worship are deep, high-energy praise songs like “Freedom Is Rising” and “One Love” keep listeners on the edge of their seats, while modern worshippers will also be drawn in by ballads like “Risen from the Grave” and the prophetic style of “Spirit of God.” The album also includes explosive new live versions of already established fan favorites, including “Savior,” “Higher” and “Love Riot.”

"We'll go from a song that has driving guitars, loud drums, and screaming in one song to a soft, melodic, ballad in the next. You can hear our musical influences which range from As I Lay Dying, to Coldplay, to LeCrae,” continues Sean, before Christy interjects. “And sometimes there are very spontaneous moments of worship led by the Holy Spirit where a song can stretch out like nine, ten or even fifteen minutes. We’ve never captured that on a CD before until now and it’s a very powerful account of the raw passion we’re all experiencing.”

Worth Dying For also draws comparisons to other seminal modern worship collectives including Planetshakers, Jesus Culture and Hillsong United. Indeed, much of those similarities stem from their shared format of being a worship team, church community and forum planners, which is where the Ammunition Conference comes into play.

“Long story short, my husband and I started a camp to coincide with Spirit West Coast Festival six or seven years ago under a tent with music and speakers,” recalls Christy of the venture she spearheaded with her husband/pastor Jeremy Johnson. “It grew to the point where we were attracting speakers from all over the nation so we thought ‘why not have a conference in our home church in February in addition to the camp in the summer?’ Ammunition Conference started two years ago and last year it doubled in size to about 3,000 people. We wound up stopping the camp aspect to put all our efforts into Ammunition and we’re currently in the process of branching out to various locations across the nation.”

Opportunities for Worth Dying For’s unique ministry umbrella are sure to grow all the more as 2012 finds the church plant FEARLESS getting off the ground with a mission that’s just as bold as the group’s soul stirring musical expressions. "We were traveling to an event with our team to lead worship and Jeremy heard God speak to Him,” unveils Christy. “For him, although the team was loud and having fun, the sound drowned out to dead silence in his mind. At that moment, he heard God speak, 'In 5 years, you will plant a church with this worship team.' It happened that my dad is the pastor at Calvary Temple where we were serving and 5 years later, he released us and the team to go into L.A."

For the first year, the group will build a ministry team throughout L.A., then love on the city in general with the goal of salvation, in turn, creating the need for a physical church and subsequent service. From there, FEARLESS will be officially up and running with Worth Dying For leading worship alongside a full-fledged multi-media team for maximum ministry impact.......

Website | Lyrics


Audio ::
[FILE FACTORY]

Video ::
[part1] [part2]

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Wilson was raised in the Chicago, Illinois area. Since his childhood, Wilson began singing with the adult male chorus at the Rock of Ages Baptist Church.

After growing up, Wilson enrolled at the University of Illinois, where he also sang in the black chorus. He eventually graduated with a degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences, with an emphasis on economics. Wilson took a job as a pharmaceutical salesman, while he continued to sing on his free time.

After seven years, Wilson moved to Houston, Texas, to work for Johnson & Johnson. He started visiting Windsor Village United Methodist Church with a friend and became a born-again Christian. After some time, Wilson was invited to write music for their services, with some of his songs receiving airplay in local radio stations.

At some point, Wilson met Pastor Rudy Rasmus, who was looking for songs to pitch to friend and music entrepreneur Mathew Knowles. After listening to Wilson's song "Already Here", Knowles signed Wilson to his record label Spirit Rising/Music World.

In 2009, Wilson released his debut album titled Just Love. The album was produced by Stan Jones and features contributions by Tommy Simms. In 2010, the title song was nominated for a Dove Award for Urban Recorded Song of the Year, while Wilson himself was nominated for New Artist of the Year at the 41st GMA Dove Awards. Wilson re-released a deluxe edition of his album on October 5, accompanied by a nationwide tour through 25 cities in the United States.

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Owl City is an American electronic/synthpop musical project by singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Adam Young, formed in 2007 in Owatonna, Minnesota. Young created the project while experimenting with music in his parents' basement. Like many musicians that achieved success in the era between 2005 and 2009, Owl City developed a following on the music and social networking site Myspace in the late 2000s before signing with Universal Republic in 2008.

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Velasquez has sold almost five million albums around the world, recorded three Platinum and three Gold albums, and recorded 16 singles that hit No. 1 plus six more that hit the top-10. She has received seven Dove Awards including Best New Artist and Female Vocalist of the Year. Velasquez has co-hosted a morning radio show since late 2010.

Velasquez released her national debut album Heavenly Place in 1996 and five of the songs on that CD became No. 1 hits (she had two previous independent records). The album was later certified Platinum. Velasquez has been distinguished as the fastest selling solo debut recording artist in her genre and the first solo artist in Christian music history to reach gold status with a debut album, prior to release of sophomore project. She has since released six English-language albums, two of which were certified Gold. She has produced sixteen No. 1 Christian radio hits and six other top-10 singles, and has won seven Dove awards, including New Artist of the Year and two Female Vocalist of the Year wins. Jaci has covered over 50 magazines as well as been a spokes-model for Pepsi, Target, Doritos, John Freida's Frizz-Ease hair products and Helzberg Diamonds.

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Scars & Stories was recorded beginning in March 2011, and concluded in July 2011. Unlike their debut album How to Save a Life and their self-titled second album, which were both produced by Aaron Johnson and Mike Flynn, their third album was produced by Brendan O'Brien. During a performance at the Hard Rock cafe in Boston, Massachusetts, Isaac Slade stated that the album Scars & Stories was named after a B-side that did not make it onto the third record. He went on to explain that each of the band members have been through a lot of hardships, but collectively they were able to pull through.

"We've been through a lot of stuff personally, and as band we're still together, and I think we like the idea of scars you know, because they're healed you know. They are not like wounds necessarily, but they're still kind of a road map of where you been, and sometimes kinda point to where you want to go."

The album artwork was revealed on November 16, 2011; following the video premiere of the first single, Heartbeat.

The album was made available to pre-order on October 18, 2011 on the band's website. On December 20, 2011 the deluxe edition of the album became available for pre-order on iTunes, featuring 5 bonus tracks; all covers. In addition, the band made the single "The Fighter" available for download.

Writing and Recording ::
During an interview with Vevo the band revealed that they used part of the album's budget to travel and see the world before writing and recording songs for Scars and Stories. The band wrote over 70 songs, and narrowed it down to what they hoped were the [best 12 songs], most of which were heavily influenced by their travels abroad. For instance, the first single "Heartbeat" was inspired by a trip to Rwanda. Slade talked about his encounter with an expatriate women who was talking about the genocides in Rwanda. In the midst of their conversation she held his hand, and he could feel a pulse, but was unable to tell if it was his pulse or her's.

Also the song the sixth track titled "1961", personifies the Berlin Wall, as two brothers that are at odds with each other:

"We wrote that song about The Berlin Wall and the division it represented in regards to one unified city becoming two cities still under the covering of a country. They're both German, but in a sense, they were as far from each other as they could possibly be. I think that's how our relationships can be sometimes. Not to sound cliché, but we all as people build these walls that don't really come down until someone comes into our lives, tears them down, and says, "Enough!""

In addition the eight track on the album titled "Munich" follows the same mode of inspiration, as it is inspired by a particle collider in Switzerland. During an interview Slade mentions that "...they're looking for the God Particle, basically, the particle that holds it all together. That song is really just about the mystery of why we're all here and what's holding it all together, you know?"

Joe King explained "You pull from different locations and places. There’s the cultures and the different people you meet living life...You have to live life, you have to have experiences in order to be able to write stories.” Such stories served as the inspiration for the tenth track titled "48 To Go". During an interview with Jim Shearer on VH1's Big Morning Buzz Live Slade revealed that inspiration for this song came from a road trip he and his wife, Anna took (while they were just dating) from Denver, Colorado to Los Angeles. During the road trip they stopped multiple times to "make-out"; as a result they became lost and ended up 600 miles off course; as Isaac Slade put it "...[we were] two states in and forty-eight states to go".

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Parachute Band is a worship band from Auckland, New Zealand, formed out of the New Zealand-based Christian organisation Parachute Music The band makes pop/rock music and is currently in its second generation, with the current line-up regularly topping the mainstream MySpace NZ Music Charts for acts on a Major Label, and it also won the coveted People's Choice Award at the 2008 New Zealand Music Awards.

The first Parachute Band line-up was formed in 1995 to lead worship at Parachute Festival, and has since grown into a full-time endeavour. Parachute Band records New Zealand-written contemporary worship music, and performs it both in New Zealand and worldwide.

The original line-up, led by Wayne Huirua, Libby Huirua and Chris de Jong, released seven studio albums, toured extensively in the U.S., won numerous New Zealand Music Awards for Best Gospel/Christian Album, won the Gospel Music Association's International Achievement award (in the U.S.) and paved the way for what the band is today.

In 2006 the original members retired from the band and a complete generational changeover took place. This was marked by a moving ceremony at Parachute Festival 07.

The second generation Parachute Band (formerly known as Victor Rose) has released three studio albums; Roadmaps and Revelations (September 2007), Technicolor (September 2008) and Love Without Measure (February 2011). The band has toured extensively in USA, Canada, Asia, South Africa, UK, Europe, New Zealand and Australia. Highlight performances have been: Mainstage slots at Creation Festival east to 65,000 people, Mainstage at Kingdom Bound Festival in NY to 50,000 people and also being the house band for the annual Parachute Festival to 25,000 people.

This new face of Parachute Band carries a passion to influence their generation through worship music that is relevant. Five young musicians in their 20s have been passed the mantle and an exciting synergy has quickly formed to create a new guitar-driven sound.

Winners of the 2008 VNZMA Peoples Choice Awards, the band's sophomore release Technicolor was a finalist for 2009's Best Gospel/Christian Album.

Parachute Bands latest album Love Without Measure has already been in the Top Ten of many charts since its release at the Parachute Festival in February 2011. Love Without Measure shot to No. 3 in the New Zealand iTunes on its first week of release, debuted a No. 2 on the official RIANZ chart and No. 1 on the IMNZ charts.

Love Without Measure was also the first recording that the band has self-produced, and drummer/producer Sam de Jong says, “The process for this album has been one non-stop learning curve. I feel like we’ve pulled together something that reflects where we’re at.

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Christian hip hop is making a difference for African students in the Congo this winter. Premier music web site Rapzilla.com in conjunction with Syntax Distribution releases the compilation album King Kulture on January 31st. Proceeds from the album benefit Ecole de la Borne, a school in the Congo started by Christian missionaries.

The idea came about when Rapzilla founder Philip Rood and his team were looking for ways to expand the web site’s charitable reach. “We wanted to give proceeds from a project to some kind of charity in Africa,” Rood says. “It hit me that my grandparents are missionaries in the Congo. We can do something with them.”

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Andrew Greer is an accomplished singer/songwriter and respected music journalist. While his critically-acclaimed 2009 debut, Open Book, chronicled a soul-searching season that ultimately led to the rekindling of his faith, Andrew’s musical journey now makes an important stop—a step back to his roots. Angel Band is a collection of treasured hymns, the beloved songs that first arti...culated, and still remain, his story.

“I can’t recall many of the sermons my pastor preached, or the lessons my Sunday School teachers taught, but I do remember hymns,” Greer says of his inspiration for the project. “In fact, if it hadn’t been for the impact of those indelible tunes, I may have never fallen in love with music, or been introduced to God.”

Bringing together some of the top names in bluegrass, Gospel and Christian music, highlights include the title track and “Softly and Tenderly,” featuring renowned bluegrass singer/songwriter Sonya Isaacs; “Jesus Paid It All” and Greer’s original “I’ve Been Searching,” with Gospel music icons The McCrary Sisters; “The Lord’s Prayer” with Ron Block (Alison Krauss & Union Station); “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” a duet with Dove Award-winning singer/songwriter Cindy Morgan; and “I Am Thine O Lord/Near The Cross,” with Dove Award-winning singer/songwriter Ginny Owens, among other selections. Other guest artists include Julie Lee, Sandra McCracken, Marc Scibilia and Andrew's mother, Jane Greer.

[COMING SOON]

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