Michael:  See all the pressure they put on me now? [Laughs]

CCM:  Let’s talk a little bit about your new record. Tell me a little bit about In The Hands of God.

Duncan:  Did you like the Go record?

CCM:  Uh-huh.

Duncan:  You’re going to love this one! As I was saying before, it’s a record that’s come together through blood, sweat and tears. We’ve been working on it for a long time. All we ever try to do is better ourselves. You kind of have to reapply for your job every record, and that’s what we’ve done here. I truly believe that it has some of the best songs newsboys has ever recorded. It’s a great record. I’m really, really proud of it. I’m excited to go out here real soon and start touring. So I just can’t say enough about it. It’s probably one of my favorite records so far.

CCM:  In recent years, you’ve developed a techno/dance sound … Does this record have more of those elements integrated into it?

Duncan:  Would you call “Breakfast” a techno song?

CCM:  Yeah. And that was a long time ago …

Jeff:  I think what you’re alluding to is that our songs have a bit more of a European, dance/pop flair to them. I think this record has a lot of that, and production-wise it’s probably pushed past Go … bigger, more orchestrated strings, pretty fully blown out—over the top style. It’s definitely more of a rock record than we’ve done in a long time. From a songwriting perspective, it’s probably one of the strongest records I would think we’ve ever done.

Michael:  It’s really cool hearing Jeff and Duncan say that. It makes me laugh and smile inside and feel good because people were asking me, “If you’re part of the next project, what would you do differently?” One thing that I would not do differently, even though I could, with these guys guarding their beautiful history is … I love the element that the  newsboys have in Christian music, my marketplace … When the newsboys are on stage, number one, in the past with Pete in leadership, it was always a solid show … There was ministry. The concert was an experience. Then you go home and put the record in, and you feel the same excitement [from] all the records. And that’s hard to do, speaking from the recording and producing side of things.  But all that to say … When people come to a newsboys concert, they’re going to get rocked by the gospel and by the music!

CCM:  What do you hope fans take away from this record?