Brandon:  And the A&R process is the hardest part. You are trying to pare down. … Will it work commercially? And would it also [work with what] your message is about as a band? Introduce us to the band; there’s four of you guys.

Dave:  Classic four piece. I’m on vocals. We have Ty on guitar, Rich on bass, Mike on drums. All easy one-syllable names!

Brandon:  And you are Dave. …

Dave:  Yes, I’m Dave.

Brandon:  How long have you been playing together?

Dave:  Well, we started out—Ty and myself—just bashing around on acoustic guitars. … We weren’t very good. I don’t know how we got booked, but good friends of ours ran youth groups around the city and they’d book us to play for $50. We said, “We get paid for this? Sweet.” And we would play a few covers and a few of our songs, sometimes twice. I don’t know what it was like for you starting out, but we’re like, “30-minute set? We have to play every song four times!” And it’s so funny! We had a good time doing that, and surprisingly, we got booked more and more. We made a little record, like a 5-track EP. We sold them all. It was 500 or 1,000; I can’t remember. With that money, we wanted to make a full band record. Then when we got in the studio as a full band, we had so much fun, we were like, “We should do this full band thing.” So we found Rich at our church. He’s the kind of guy who was playing in 15 bands. He was playing in trios, rock bands, worship bands and wedding bands. He wanted to join and become a full member, instead of getting the $15 a night or whatever we were paying him … terrible! So we said, “If you want to play with us, it has to be exclusive; and you have to say good-bye to the other bands.” And then we found Mike on drums. He was young when he joined, maybe 18. He was playing in the worship band at church. We always knew he was a great drummer. So we have had the current line-up for five or six years.

Brandon:  Where did you come up with the name Revive?

Dave:  Well this is pretty embarrassing, but when it was just Tyler and myself, we were struggling for a name. We just called ourselves Me and Ty. Then we had Rich and Mike play, and then it was Me and Ty and Rich and Mike … and it was really terrible. So I remember e-mailing our fans, and we said we have to change our name, give us ideas. And we got some pretty hilarious ones. People would e-mail in and go, “How about Vertical Horizon?” And we were like, “That is a band.” How ‘bout U3? These terrible names. And it was between Fighting Goliath and Revive.

Brandon:  I’m glad you went with Revive.

Dave:  Yeah, it sounds like an ’80s hair band … Fighting Goliath. And it came from Psalm 85: “He will revive their hearts.” I believe that’s what good music should do—secular or otherwise. Particularly Christian music, the music should be outstanding; the lyrics should follow it. Music that touches the soul just feels good. It’s almost transcendent. Something about it that is hard to articulate; it just makes you feel good. It makes you feel close to the One who created that music, our Lord, the master of creativity, the author of all things creative. The same with Christian music; to match those beautiful melodies with great lyrics. That’s what we are all about as a band, matching encouraging lyrics with a melody and music that will really move you. “He will revive our hearts.” … That made sense to us.