After more than 15 years of playing together, Disciple doesn’t just rock harder than most bands—they work harder than most of them, too. Southern Hospitality, the band’s third album with INO Records, finds the Knoxville, Tenn. band using change as a catalyst to re-think the entire way that they make music.
A few months before Disciple began working on Southern Hospitality, the original guitarist Brad Noah stepped down from full-time touring with Disciple as the result of long-term health issues. He decided, however, to continue writing and recording with the band. While this sort of change may have caused lesser bands to implode, Disciple used it as a chance to explode in sound and scope.
“It really gave Brad a chance to focus on the record,” says lead singer Kevin Young.
While previous Disciple albums had been written quickly on the road and in rehearsals, Southern Hospitality was written and crafted with more attention paid to the craft and less to the clock. Noah helped the band record demos of each song and allowed them to marinate over the course of several weeks.
“We were able to listen to songs for weeks and weeks before we went into the studio,” Young says. “It helped us figure out what we wanted to change and how we wanted the songs to develop. By the time we got into the studio, it was just a matter of tweaking to make the music better—not just figuring out what we wanted to do. It was a lot of fun, and subsequently it’s the best album we’ve done.”
With the album written and recorded ad hoc, Southern Hospitality is the most raucous and powerful album in the band’s already potent catalog. “Each album is different, but we really think Disciple fans are going to love Southern Hospitality,” says Young. “We’re crazy about it.”
The bar for Southern Hospitality is set pretty high. The band’s last record, 2006’s Scars Remain, took the band to heights that few Christian hard rock bands have reached. The single “After The World” topped the CHR charts for two weeks, and the album won the GMA Dove Award for “Rock Album of the Year.” The band also saw their music break into a whole new audience with exposure on shows like NFL’s “Total Axxess,” WWE’s “Cyber Sunday” and “Best Damn Sports Show.”
While the band enjoys getting their music to the masses, they’ve never lost their focus on the Christian community. “Christian music changed my life,” Young says. “It’s important to me now because it was important to me as a teenager. A youth pastor introduced me to Christian rock music, and it really became something that I fell in love with. I fell in love with the music, but the message led me to Jesus. I was a Christian before, but I wasn’t really following Jesus. Christian music had a huge impact on leading me to follow Him.”
It is for that reason that Young and the rest of Disciple have pushed themselves with Southern Hospitality. “Once you’ve written so many songs, it’s easy to run out of ideas,” says Young, the band’s solo lyricist. “In order to remain real, you have to stretch out a bit. I think we’ve written more relevant songs than ever before.”
Although Young still isn’t sure why, many songs on Southern Hospitality center on a prodigal son theme. “It seemed that every time I sat down to write—“Whatever Reason” for example—I kept writing about that,” he says. “There are a lot of people around me that have walked away from God and come back.”
One of the more unique and provocative songs on Southern Hospitality is “Romance Me,” which Young says is the most poetic song he’s ever written. "I tried to write a creative song about sin and the cross without saying those words, but instead using a lot of poetic imagery that would still paint a clear picture of the topic," he says.
In addition, Disciple explores new musical ground on Southern Hospitality. The most notable progression is that Noah—having spent the last decade in an era in which guitar solos were deemed passé—was finally able to embrace his inner guitar hero. “He’s always been scared to play big guitar solos, because if you play too many solos people think you’re an ’80s band,” says Young. “Things now are coming back around. Games like Guitar Hero have made it cool to play guitar again. Brad is playing solos in nearly every song. I don’t mean mamby-pamby little things. I mean he’s wearin’ it out. If you’re a guitar player, this will definitely be your favorite Disciple record.”
Based on the album’s title, it should be no surprise that the band has also embraced their southern rock roots. On songs like “Lay My Burdens,” the band sends some southern thunder through their staple hard rock sound.
Young says that he isn’t concerned with living up to Disciple’s prior success. “We’re just so excited about the new songs that we aren’t really worried about competing with Scars Remain,” he says.
Adding to Southern Hospitality are three new members, guitarist Andrew Welch (formerly of Capital Lights), guitarist Micah Sannan (formerly of Falling Up) and Israel Beachy (formerly of Staple). While Young still says that Brad Noah is the best guitar player he knows, he can’t help but heap compliments on his new band mates.
“I’ve been in Disciple since day one, and we’re in the best place we’ve ever been,” he says. “We’re writing the best songs we’ve ever written, and we’re putting on the best shows we’ve ever put on. God is just really blessing us right now. I just can’t wait to share this with people. I can’t wait to see how these songs affect people’s lives. It’s fully God. We can’t take any credit for that.”
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