Understandably so. You did have a sophomore project put together back in 2000 or 2001 that was shelved. Mmhmm.
How closely does this new project resemble that? Is it entirely different? Did you use some of the same concepts or ideas? We scrapped that one. Legally, we weren't allowed to use any of that, for this record. So that was really tough for us because it was a record that meant a lot to us and we had spent a lot of time on it. It was close to our hearts, but honestly it's a lot different than this one, in my opinion. It's still very, like. . . I mean we started writing for that record about a year after The Fault Is History came out, so it still was young for us. It still was written almost four years ago.
Yeah. So production-wise, music-wise, even the lyrical content it was different. It was a really cool record and we had a lot of really cool songs, a lot of cool topics. We hope that people will be able to hear it someday, but this one is still. . . The growth on this one doesn't compare with that one. So, it's interesting.
Clearly the last few years have been a pretty rough go for you guys - your bio is littered with war analogies. . . (laughs) Yeah.
. . . and especially with such a promising start on your debut album, it must have been confusing as well. What would you say is the most prominent lesson that you've learned through all this? For me personally, it was. . . I've been doing music since I was 13 years old and I've just given my entire heart to that dream and that calling and that goal. And sometimes, I mean, just being a Christian alone, you have to let go of things that God gave you and just give it back to Him and let it be His. So, for us, I think the biggest lesson was just that, you know, God gave us this calling, but it has to belong to Him and it can't be something that I take ownership over so that I have to have this or it has to be this way. Just that whole idea of not planning your future and just letting it be what it is, letting God do what He's gonna do. It was a huge, huge life lesson for myself and I know for my brother as well. Just to let it go.
It's tough. Yeah, and we've spent so much time and so many years just trying to make things happen the way that we wanted them to and you get to a point where it's just out of your hands. So that's probably the biggest thing for me is just to know that if it had ended five years ago and there was one kid that was reached and that's what it was all for, then I had to be okay with that. I have to be content with that being my calling and it was fulfilled. I felt like, until I got to that place in my heart, God wasn't going to let this go any further. So we all kind of had that realization and just let it go and let it be what it is and God's restored all those things and brought us back to a place where we can just do what we really want to do and what we desire to do. I feel really blessed.