When David Crowder disbanded his Dove Award-winning modern worship band in 2012, fans feared the bearded singer/songwriter was leaving music behind for good. With the May 2014 release of his first solo album, Neon Steeple, via sixstepsrecords/Sparrow Records, Crowder proved that definitely wasn’t the case.
“People think that I died. It was like, ‘Oh, I thought you were done making music,'” he says. “I get the confusion ’cause David Crowder*Band is done but fortunately I’m still David Crowder and David Crowder found out he has to make music to stay alive.”
David Crowder Band Dominate Christian Charts
Since the dissolution of the David Crowder*Band, he has embarked on a solo career using just his surname and is carving a successful new path. Neon Steeple hit No. 1 on the Top Christian Albums chart and the lead single, “I Am,” peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Christian Songs chart. And Crowder is currently up for his first Grammy as a solo artist for best contemporary Christian music performance/song for “Come As You Are.”
After 12 years fronting the David Crowder*Band, the musician admits he didn’t know what his life was going to look like as a solo artist at first and then he was somewhat surprised at the turn his creativity took. “I had no idea what was next and then immediately when I got to Georgia, it was a bizarre thing. I started writing country music,” the Texas transplant says. “I don’t know if I was missing the great state of Texas. I don’t know, but the songs kept coming.”
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Crowder’s musical evolution is examined in a new mini documentary filmed in West Texas at Rock The Desert festival by SerialBox Presents, a company that has also worked with The Lone Bellow, Noah Gundersen, Fiction Family, Ben Rector, Milo Greene and Johnnyswim. The documentary finds Crowder discussing in detail his creative process and sharing his thoughts about the communal nature of music.
“I think I had the event mentality given my church background growing up in a church setting where this moment was viewed as more spiritual maybe than the moment preceding and the moment following. It took a while to break out of that mindset,” he says. “Every moment is sacred and every moment is spiritual, and the stage is just one sliver of life and for me it took a good bit of time for that shift to become real and once I spotted it, I was like, ‘Oh man, we should do what we can to tear down that mindset.'”
Crowder is hoping longtime fans of the band will follow him into his new chapter and appreciate what he has to say as a solo act. “I am still David Crowder. I was that guy then. I am this guy now. That was a band. It’s all my fault this time.”
Watch the documentary below.