Between the liner notes
David Crowder Has the Remedy
By Jennifer E. Jones
CBNmusic Producer
CBN.com
– His mission is clear: save the world. However, David Crowder can't do it alone. His band's album, Remedy, pushes listeners to the realization that the only prescription for a culture in pain is Jesus.
Jennifer E. Jones: The fans got quite an eye-full of the David Crowder Band making Remedy this summer with your Web cam.
David Crowder: Yeah, we had maybe a little too much access.
Jones: Who’s idea was that?
Crowder: It’s a group dynamic. You’re in a group of people, all of a sudden these ideas start coming, and you just run with it. Then later you regret it when you get phone calls like, “Ah, those doughnuts look good.” It’s like, “This is probably not the best use of people’s time -- watching me eat doughnuts...” No, [seriously] we had a good time, and everybody’s response was good. We got a lot of feedback from the blogs. It was just a fun way to get people up close so they can feel like part of the process.
Jones: What else did you do in preparation for Remedy?
Crowder: We did it a little differently than we’d done in the past just ‘cause we had time to all be in one space. Usually, we’re passing files around while we’re on the road – little computer files that we’ve composed. This time around we were able to be in the same room together while writing a bunch of this.
Jones: Because of the success of A Collision, there’s bound to be comparison between this album and that one. Was there anything you wanted to do differently with Remedy?
Crowder: It’s a totally different record than anything we’ve made thus far. For one, it’s just 10 songs and under 45 minutes. That’s never happened for us before. We were trying to put something together with very simple songs that people could get in their mouth and sing very easily and readily. Partially due to the subject matter of the last couple records being so heavy, this felt like a nice breath for us. This record is like a deep inhalation... These songs feel lighter. There’s a lot of experienced hope, rather than just talking about stuff we went through. These songs are the other side of where we were.
Jones: That’s the message that was communicated to me -- hope. Yet, it’s difficult to get that across in these times of natural disasters, such as the Peru earthquakes and Midwest floods. What is the Christian response to “acts of God”?
Crowder: That’s part of what we’ve been trying to unpack the whole time we’ve been doing this. I’ve been very blessed, but I have a large preoccupation with pain and why we must suffer. It’s one thing when humans do atrocious things to each other. That makes some sense. When destruction comes from underneath our feet, it’s a different thing. You see the depth of our fall in a way that goes beyond our choices. The ground under our feet isn’t right. The air is not right. At the same time, it makes the story more imperative to tell. We’re in a place that’s broken, but there is a Savior. There is healing, and it’s coming our way. We get to experience brief glimpses of it now, but there will be a moment when there’s a new Heaven and a new earth.
Jones: You've always been good at telling the human story, but what I've also appreciated is that you tell that story so well. We know that when we get a David Crowder Band CD, it's going to be innovative. It's going to push the boundaries. What do you do to keep your music so fresh?
Crowder: First, that's all very kind to say. I appreciate that. I think most of it comes from an attempt to do what you're describing. We've always had this attitude that if we're going to tell the story of God -- and it's the grandest story to be told -- we tell it in the grandest way possible and use as many colors as possible. We'll use texture and sound in ways that make the story feel big. That's meant being tireless about growing our abilities. The music should be as telling as the lyric, and to marry those too is our attempt. You can't help but engage. That's part of what's so beautiful about what God created in music: it has this way of reaching in and pulling things out of us.
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