for KING & COUNTRY Returns with Christ-Centered Christmas Tour after Year Hiatus
Grammy-winning Christian music duo will return to the stage this December following a year-long hiatus, creative rest, and renewal. For KING & COUNTRY, composed of brothers Joel and Luke Smallbone, will perform this December (Dec. 2 to Dec. 19) with A Drummer Boy Christmas: The Live Experience, concluding a five-night holiday residency at the iconic Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville. The Christmas concert will also take place in Dallas, Austin, Atlanta, Chicago, and several other U.S. cities.
"We're doing these concerts [in] theaters and amphitheaters," Joel Smallbone told The Christian Post in an interview. "Other than the Opry, we usually do these massive, kind of arena, big, bombastic shows. But what we discovered last year at the Beacon Theater in New York and the O2 Theater in London is there's something doubly impacting about being up-close and personal."
"We might be adding some brand-new original for KING & COUNTRY songs that we will have never played live before," the 41-year-old Australian singer added.
Smallbone also addressed how he and his brother decided to take a break from touring last year.
"We were in London promoting 'Unsung Hero' when we said, 'What if we take a year off touring?'" the singer said. "I said to [Luke] the other day, I think we're going to look back on this time away and recognize it was one of the most important things we ever did as a duo, just recalibrating."
Smallbone, whose wife, Moriah, is also a singer-songwriter, shared that taking a break has provided more time at home, creative space, and the freedom to write without the pressure of deadlines and touring.
"I'm literally in my living room, working on music," he said. "Usually when we've got music, we're touring, we're in the middle of everything. So it's like, 'Let's make it up as we go.' This time, it's been a full-time job just creating."
Without going into further details of their fifth studio album and several new film projects, Smallbone promised a "newness" in sound and vision at the right time.
"I've discovered things. We've discovered things. A newness to where Luke and I are at, even as a duo," he said.
He also contended that the heart of A Drummer Boy Christmas, which the band has performed annually, including a reimagining of songs like "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" and "Silent Night," will continue to provide a Gospel-centered message to audiences both excited and weary during the holiday season.
"It's like this grand reset every year," he said. "That there is forgiveness, redemption, love, hope, and joy, and that there is this baby that literally flips the world on its head … it's pivotal to our humanity."
Tickets for A Drummer Boy Christmas will go on sale July 25.
Photo Credit: ©For King and Country
Originally published July 18, 2025.
