Q: What
does being in the group "Plus One" mean to you?
A: For each of us, it's
taken on a different meaning. It's a constant reminder to us that
no matter what we're doing, no matter what we're going through,
good or bad, we know that we have God to turn to.
Q: Who are some of your
biggest influences and inspirations?
Jason: Musically, a lot
of R&B and gospel, Boyz II Men, Brian McKnight, Joe.
Mentorship-wise, I always looked to my father for guidance and a
role model, but I'm not really living underneath his roof
anymore. Our managers played a big role in my life, as well as
some of the people from our record label and some of the people
we've gotten to work with. Seeing their experiences and learning
from them was a great opportunity.
Q: Would the other guys
mostly tend to agree?
Jeremy: Musically, I've
been influenced by the same R&B and gospel, but also, I like
Harry Connick Jr., James Taylor, stuff like that.
Nathan:
I was heavily influenced by Michael W. Smith growing up, also DC
Talk, Michael Jackson, and any Top 40. I was always listening to
the radio trying to get ideas, as far as production and
songwriting.
Q: You guys obviously
have strong religious convictions. Were you brought up this way,
or is it something you discovered later on in life?
Nathan: We were
definitely brought up in Christian homes, but we all came to this
point where we had to think, "What are we really believing
in? Do we really think this, or is it just because our parents
said it?" For me, it was during my high school years. I
could do anything I want, and I was like, "Okay, God, what
do I really believe? Are you really here? Can you really hear
me?" And I remember, I was having this whole conversation,
just between myself and God. I was driving my car for five hours
in Florida on a long distance trip, and the whole time I was just
talking, asking him questions, like, "If you're real, you
need to speak to me." Sometimes I think that's good, you
know? You think, "God, you know, sometimes it doesn't feel
like you're there. Prove yourself to me, please, I want to hear
from you."
Jeremy:
We were all, for the most part, raised in churches, but I think
you have to come to a point where you ask yourself, "Okay,
is this what I believe in my heart because I believe it? Or is
just something that I've been told?" There was a time for me
during high school and the first part of college where I was
like, "Man, I don't even believe this. I'm not even going to
try to be good on Sunday and then do what I want during the
week." I was completely convinced that it was my way, my
will, that I knew what was best for me and that's it. I really
honestly think that you can only run on your own guidance for so
long, you can only go by what you think for so long until you
just run empty. I think that's where I got myself, and I realized
that I needed to try to turn myself around.
Q: How did Plus One
first form?
Jason: We came together
through and audition/word-of-mouth process. Our manager and Barry
Landis from Atlantic records had the vision for a Christian guy
group to be put together, so they held the auditions in San
Francisco. Three of the guys were there, and the other two of us
found out about the group through word of mouth. One of the guys
who was already in the group's second cousin is an evangelist who
travels around and preaches. My dad's a pastor, so he came to my
church and spoke that morning. He heard me sing that same morning
and told me about the group. That's how I got in. It's pretty
interesting how it all came together, and the fact that we all
get along so well.
Q: What were you doing
before you joined the group?
Nathan: I moved to
Nashville, TN, and tried to get into the music business as a
songwriter. I got a phone call one day from my manager, who asked
me to fly out to California. He said he'd pay my way and fly me
out there for a day and audition. I told him no. A week later, I
was praying, and I was like, "God? Why did I say no, Lord?
(laughs) If this is you, let him call me back." He called me
back a week later, and that's how I got in the group. But yeah, I
went to college for two years, and left to go up to Nashville. I
gave myself a time limit of six months, and if anything wasn't
working out, I was going to go back to college, and this worked
out.
Jeremy: I was in school, and I was just really trying to figure out what I was going to do. A lot of people are at that age. For the most part, I had no clue that it was going to be this route. If somebody had told me a year and a half ago that this would be the road the I would walk down, I would've been like, "Whatever." It's been a gradual realization of God's hand in my life, and even during all these times when I totally wasn't paying attention to it or recognizing it, He really was always there keeping me safe. There's so many decisions that I made that were so unwise and just stupid, and I could've ended up dead, but through his grace I've been able to get to this point. Not that I've arrived by any means, it's just been a great experience.
Jason: I
was in my senior year of high school, halfway through football
season, when I found out about the group. Two weeks later I
moved, finished up through correspondence and joined the group.
Q: What would you be
doing if you weren't in Plus One?
Nathan: I'd probably
still be in Nashville, trying to make it and write. I probably
would've been a writer. That's really where my heart and passion
is. I really love performing, but I think that once this group
comes to an end, if it does come to an end, I still want to
produce and write. That's where my heart's at.
Jeremy: I'd probably still be in school. Man, if this group hadn't come along, I might not even be in school (laughs).
Nathan: This group changed our lives.
Jeremy: I'd have probably dropped out by now. I was on a one way trip to not doing anything. I wasn't doing very good, and I had no idea what I wanted to do. I kind of had an idea of wanting to get into broadcast journalism or journalism because I like to write, but that was just a thought.
Jason: I
was thinking about going to bible college, and persuing music
from there.
Q: How do you feel that
you differ from some of the other pop-oriented groups?
All: You mean like
Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC? (laughter)
Nathan: When we first got together, we lived in San Francisco for three months, and we would just walk down the street and people would say, "Hey! It's the Backstreet Boys," and they thought they were all funny. We hear that every day, and when we do we cringe, like, "No, we're not a boy band!" Obviously, now we accept that, you know, we are a boy band, and we can't deny that. We're different though. We definitely have the pop music vibe going through our album, but nine different producers worked on this album, and I think each song has an identity. Even more than that is our faith. We're singing positive music. Not that the other boys aren't, it's just a different thing. It's about our spirituality and our faith, you know? Plus, we all play instruments, and sometimes on stage we'll all break out into an acoustic set.
Jeremy:
We feel like we've come into our own identity, where we feel like
we don't even have to sweat. People make comparisons because
they're obviously there, and it's not like they're making some
earth-shattering discovery. It's just like, "Dude, it took
you that long to figure that out? (laughs)" We feel like we
have our own identity as a band, and like Nathan said, our
message is definitely something that's going to separate us. We
have nine different producers on the album, so there's a lot of
different textures. I think we have a lot more gospel influence
in our album.
Q: You seem to have more
substance than some of the other stuff out there. Do you feel
that your faith produces something a little "meatier,"
so to speak, than what the competition is doing?
Jason: The bible talks
about the annointing of God, and we all feel that we're called of
God to minister and to touch people's hearts with the gift that
he's given us, the gift of voice and music and ministry. There's
just something about singing for God and his glory, and lifting
up his name. He moves in creative ways, and really can get down
deep and touch people's hearts and really move places that other
kinds of music [can't go]. I think that Christian music and
gospel music can really sink in and touch the heart. Jeremy:
God's hand in this group is apparent to me because of everything
that's happenned. If man was just trying to do this [without
God], and they were like, "Okay, we're going to prefabricate
this group, put them together, and throw them out there,"
that would fail because that's something that's empty, and like
you said, you see the substance there, and I think that that's
God, and that's His hand in our lives. Like Jason says, we feel
that he's called us to do this, and that's why we're more
passionate about it, you know? Everything that we do in our lives
we want to commit to lifting his name up, and to doing good for
his kingdom.
Q: How did you go about
recording the new album and choosing songs?
Nathan: This album was
put together so fast. We're on Atlantic Records and 143 Records,
and both were like, "This is the fastest put-together album
we've ever seen." We recorded in a little over a month and a
half, and we didn't think that we'd have as much say as we did in
the process of picking songs, but we definitely had a lot of say.
We turned down songs that we didn't feel like singing, and we
totally accepted the ones that we wanted to. The process was
pretty much this: everybody sent it a bunch of songs. There was a
big buzz before we even started recording our album, people
saying, "Hey, they're putting together a Christian boy
band." We sang our first song, "The Promise," at a
showcase full of a hundred writers. Before we went in there,
David Foster, who set up the showcase, said, "I just want to
let you guys know, don't get scared, but there's about a hundred
number one hits between all these writers in here. People in the
mainstream and Christian music wanted to jump on this bandwagon,
so to speak, so we had tons of songs coming in every day. We had
people weed through certain songs that they thought were good,
and then they'd bring them to us and we'd listen to them and make
decisions there, so that's how that happenned.
Q: Was there anything
specific that you wanted to do with this record?
Jeremy: It's funny.
Because it happenned so fast, I don't think we went out there and
said, "Okay, this is what we want to say, and this is the
message that Plus One wants to deliver," you know? That was
the most amazing thing, though. When we got done with it, we
looked back and each song had this constant flow. The world deals
with so many issues like loneliness, and people don't know who
they can turn to. Kids don't even know if they can turn to their
parents and friends, and husbands don't know if they can count on
their wives,
and it's hard to have trust. I think that's the constant theme
and idea that's in our album: you can trust God. You can put your
trust in Him, and He wants to be someone that you can trust in,
and He wants to love on you. The lines are always open. He wants
to be able to talk to you, and we do that through prayer and
reading the bible. It's neat to get done with the album, and to
have it happen fast, and to have all these songs that we knew we
would sing and that it would come from our hearts. [It's great]
to look back and see the continuity and to see everything come
together. It even goes along with our name: the reminder that
God's always there with you. Every song is saying, "You can
turn to Him, and He's here for you."
Q: You wrote a couple
songs for this album. Is that something you'd like to do more of
in the future?
Nathan: On our next
album, we'll probably write all of them.
Jeremy: There are some guys in the group who are working on tracks now and are just writing. That's what's going to be cool about our next album. We've got this whole year to just sit and think and write what's on your heart, what's on your mind.
Nathan:
There's a lot of good songs on this first album, but I think the
next album will be full of more emotion, even production-wise.
It's going to be exciting because I think we'll have more time to
put more of our hearts into it. When we were first formed
together, things happenned so fast, and now we're kind of finding
out where we are musically, and how we write together, and who we
are as a band because we're growing together. It's going to be
cool, but this first album we just put out, so we've got to work
with that first(laughs).
Q: Have you had a chance
to tour in support of the album yet?
Jason: Yeah, as soon as
the album released, we went on a month long promotional tour, and
we were just all over the country, almost in a different state
every day. We had a blast. It was so fun, travelling everywhere.
We sang at a couple malls, we did a lot of promotion at radio
stations and T.V. stations, and all kinds of stuff. It was really
cool. This summer we're just doing festivals, a lot of big
Christian festivals, and in the fall we're going to be touring
with a female Christian artist by the name of Jackie Valasquez.
It's going to be a sixty city tour from September through
December, so we're really looking forward to that.
Q: Is there anyone who
you would really want to collaborate with?
Jason: There are some
artists that we'd definitely love to work with again, and some
new producers and people that we want to work with. There's some
gospel artists like Fred Hammond who I would love to sing with
someday. Whenever the opportunity comes to sing with another
artists, it's always fun to collaborate.
Nathan: In terms of writing, there's a bunch of new writers that I've met who I'd love to collaborate with. As far as production, I'd like to have Rodney Jerkins do some more stuff on our next album.
Jeremy:
I'm hoping that us and *NSYNC and Backstreet and 98 Degrees can
all get together and we'll have a big boy choir (laughs).
Seriously though, I really don't know.
Q: Have you guys
produced or written for any other bands?
Nathan: Yeah, I've got a
song that's being looked at by a band right now which I can't say
(laughs). That's it as far as writing, no production really.
Q: Is that something
you'd like to do though?
Nathan: Yeah, totally.
Jeremy: Ten
years from now I hope to be into writing and production and
stuff.
Q: Do you have any other
plans for the future, or are you just living
in the present right now?
Nathan: We're definitely
planning ahead, because this group·though we're doing a lot of
good things, history shows that you can't put all your eggs in
one basket. We definitely should look at what we're going to do
in the future. Some of us may do a solo thing down the road. We
don't know how long this group is going to be together. We
definitely want it to be together for as long as God is providing
us with open doors to go through, but for myself I'd like to be
producing and writing heavily in the future, that's what I want
to do.
Jason: Even as a group, we're looking in the future a lot. It'd be cool if Christian music for once could be on top of things and not be behind the mainstream. Ideal-wise and style-wise, it'd be cool to just come into our own and just make good music.