David Crowder Band (purposefully omitting the pronoun “the” in front of its name) is essentially an honest-to-goodness extension of University Baptist Church. Through an organic process and friendship, with a couple of lineup changes due to the transient nature of a college-based congregation, these six musicians—B-Wack, Hogan, Jack Parker, Mike D, Mark Waldrop and Crowder—ended up onstage together. This organic process helps make for the type of creativity and what Crowder calls “conversations” to develop in a free atmosphere that captures the “realness” of what probably turns people on to their worship songs. It is possibly the antithesis of a contrived hit-making formula.

Strong Medicine

Ironically, the new album, Remedy, is perhaps DCB’s finest recorded moment to date. Like its predecessor, A Collision (and B Collision, if you count them as a whole), almost every detail is incredibly well thought out, each part and nuance serving a purpose. This even includes the pervasive green color in the packaging, reinforcing the holistic redemptive approach of believers taking an active—if not leading—role in being responsible with and the care of creation.

This attention to detail is more than likely a byproduct of very creative individuals getting together and needing as many outlets as possible to channel it. Crowder’s already got the next album planned, by the way. That should come as no surprise here, as Remedy was setup with the end of A Collision. “Our intent this time was to put together a record of really simple songs.” It serves almost as a relief from the weightier subject of mortality explored on that one, coincidentally, before they had to deal with it in the tragic death of the church’s pastor, Kyle Lake.

As a result of coming through to the other side with hope, the next logical step was some sort of action. “If this is real,” Crowder says, “then whatever we believe as a community is going to result in actions.”

The band started thinking about music and its role in social change. The recent Red Campaign got their attention; several large corporations channeled their focus together to raise awareness on poverty (third world debt) and suffering (AIDS), and in so doing were actually aligning themselves with the very mission of the church.

This discussion was going on as the members of DCB began writing the album. They gave themselves the challenge of, How can we then make music that fits? How can we use music in a way that both facilitates enunciation of where we are now and, at the same time, point in a direction that will make a difference?

“It was a much harder task than initially thought,” Crowder says. “It’s really a hard thing to make a song that has really grand ideas of justice and not sound trite. That was our intent, but to pack these big ideas into four minutes is hard.”

One listen to Remedy’s closing number with these goals in mind might lead one to believe with hope that the whole world is indeed “about to change.”

Doug Van Pelt is publisher/editor of HM Magazine (hmmag.com) and author of Rock Stars On God (Relevant). A hard music expert, he eats, sleeps and plays rock, metal, punk, alternative and sometimes even emo music. myCCM.org/hmmag-doug

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