2021

Almost a whole year has passed since for KING & COUNTRY last played an arena show. The Covid 19 pandemic has had a detrimental affect on the live music sector and on some of the artists careers, others however have risen magnificently from the ashes. Joel and Luke Smallbone have not dwelled on what they haven’t been able to do during this time but instead have focused on what they can do. The fruitful year of 2020 began for the boys last January when they took home two Grammy’s; one for ‘Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance’ for their duet with Dolly Parton on ‘God Only Knows’ and one for ‘Best Contemporary Christian Music Album’ for their record ‘Burn The Ships’. Not long after this victory, the pair, like many others would have their tour cut short and would return home indefinitely. The World as we knew it was changing drastically but as everyone was encouraged to keep apart, Joel and Luke – who make up the duo, looked at ways they could bring people together. Faith, Family And Music The brothers were in a fortunate position when the world shut down, both were returning home to a supportive family and Joel acknowledged that, “Family has been magnificent in this time, I almost have a little embarrassment in saying family has been so wonderful because for so many it’s been so difficult.” Joel married fellow Contemporary Christian artist Moriah Peters in 2013 but due to the nature of being touring musicians they have spent much of those seven years away from home. “My wife and I have travelled mutually for most of our marriage, so we’ve had more time now than we’ve ever had at home together.” Faith too, played an important role in getting Joel through the uncertainty of the situation – “Another synonym I would use for faith is hope, we all need a little bit of hope. So we’re looking into the future and we can either look into it with a bleak outlook or we can have this anticipation that even through the suffering there will be good on the other-side.” Despite enjoying a well earned break, with this positive attitude the pair were determined to pick up where they left off and continue to unite the World with their music. “In such a desperate time as this, to be able to offer music – to create it, to release it – it’s profound to have that opportunity.” A number of projects began to bubble just below the surface. First came a song that had been in the writing process long before ‘Burn The Ships’ was first released. ‘Together’ would see the Smallbone brothers team up with Tori Kelly and Kirk Franklin, for the first instalment. They debuted it on a live stream event dubbed ‘Together: A Night of Hope’ which attracted 90,000 live impressions across social media and sent the song racing up the Billboard Christian music charts. It seems Luke was right when he said “I think that song is for this moment – the pandemic”. The Writing Process Although from the outside looking in, songwriting looks like it comes easy to the pair who often team up with such hitmakers as Josh Kerr, Jason Ingram and Ben Glover, Joel has a love-hate relationship with the craft. As he drove in to a songwriting session he said “We have a very temperamental relationship, writing and I, it’s one of the most gratifying things you can do in your career. It can also be some of the most embarrassing, humbling and difficult moments because when you break it down you’re dealing with something invisible and something very spiritual – you’re pulling all these melodies and ideas out of nowhere. It’s actually a beautiful, sanctifying process because we do a lot of co-writes and in that you have to stay very humble with the whole room. Unless you have an idea of what you want to present, it’s hard to have an emotional connection to a song. So songwriting is a friend and a foe for me, a lover and an enemy.” He divulges the process behind one of their most popular hits, certainly amongst country music fans – the grammy award winning collaboration with Dolly Parton. “God Only Knows was a phrase I had written down that I always found very ironic. Americans throw it around very flippantly ‘God only knows why this crap happened’. So I started to peel back the layers of the phrase and this interesting idea that there is a lot of things that God only knows and yet he still loves us, accepts us, cheers us on and wants to be connected with us.” Little did he know as he sat in that writing room that day, just where that idea would take them. “Dolly was just marvellous, they say don’t meet your heroes but if this is anything to go by then definitely meet your heroes!” The collaboration that followed not only introduced them to the legendary singer and helped to bag them another Grammy, but it opened a whole World of possibilities within country music – a genre they had grown up surrounded by but never really explored. “It was a bit like living next to the beach, but never going and then all of a sudden you move away from it and you realise how wonderful it was. In this case, we grew up in the country music capital of the World with all of these wonderfully gifted people living down the street from us and it wasn’t until we collaborated with Dolly – I mean what a marvellous way to be introduced to the country music community – but it wasn’t until then that we found this beautiful affinity with members of the country music community and it opened pandora’s box for us.” Country Music and Christianity Country music and christianity have always had a strong relationship, so despite sonically being quite far removed from the