Luke Smallbone clearly remembers his Steph Curry second.
It got here proper after he and his brother Joel — collectively generally known as the pop duo For King & Nation — had sung the nationwide anthem earlier than a sport between Curry’s Golden State Warriors and the Minnesota Timberwolves in Minneapolis.
As he was strolling off the courtroom, Smallbone — an enormous Warriors fan — occurred to cross paths with the longer term Basketball Corridor of Famer.
“We walked by him and (Curry) type of motioned like ‘Hey, good job’ or no matter. And I simply checked out him and mentioned, “Sup, man” and stored on strolling,” mentioned Smallbone, realizing that had blown his probability at wanting cool in entrance of his sports activities hero. “That was my horrible Steph Curry story.”
“Luke had by no means mentioned ‘Sup, man’ earlier than,” Joel Smallbone provides for emphasis.
Bay Space followers may have the possibility to say “Sup, males” to the brothers Smallbone when For King & Nation performs June 8 on the Mountain Vineyard in Saratoga. Showtime is 7:30 p.m. and tickets are $36-$206, mountainwinery.com.
The multi-Grammy-winning act additionally headlines two main Christian music occasions — Spirit West Coast on the Stockton Enviornment on June 9 and Fishfest at FivePoint Amphitheatre in Irvine on Jun 10 — with CeCe Winans, Pat Barrett and different acts additionally on the payments. (See transparentproductions.com for data on each of these exhibits.)
I lately had the possibility to speak by way of Zoom with For King & Nation in regards to the band’s newest No. 1 album, “What Are We Ready For?” We additionally spoke in regards to the Nashville duo’s upcoming movie, “Unsung Hero,” which follows the Smallbone household — which additionally contains Grammy-winning vocalist Rebecca St. James — from their residence in Australia to the U.S. and, ultimately, the highest of charts. (Go to unsungheromovie.com for particulars).
Q: Promoters have lined up loads of expertise for this 12 months’s Spirit West Coast and Fishfest. It have to be enjoyable to play these forms of festivals.
Luke: Anytime you get to do these occasions and also you get to see all these genres of music, that clearly include an analogous message — you’ve received gospel with CeCe, you’ve received Pat Barrett with the worship aspect of issues — that’s at all times a particular factor. You get to listen to all these completely different flavors.
Q: I’ve been to Spirit West Coast earlier than and it was nice.
Luke: To be sincere, California might be one in every of our favourite states to play in America. It at all times looks as if it’s California, Texas and Florida the place the crowds — and simply the passion and fervour — are superb. So, I we sit up for making these new recollections with Californians.
Q: Danny Gokey as soon as informed me that these festivals are principally the one occasions when the artists get to meet up with one another – regardless that everybody lives proper down the highway from one another in Nashville.
Joel: To a degree, at the least, there’s that unusual second the place you might be like over in Norway and also you haven’t seen each other in like 4 years, and but you do stay three miles from one different. And that is what it took for us to really have an viewers with one another.
However you’d be stunned, Jim, Nashville — even with all its improvement — remains to be a remarkably form of large small city.
The place I stay there’s a neighborhood — loads of artists are in there — and there’s slightly espresso store. And also you’ll have Brad Paisley stroll by or Cody Carnes or Kari Jobe, who’s simply down the highway, or Carrie Underwood.
Q: And folks simply go about their enterprise.
Joel: Luke has it tougher than me as a result of he’s taller and he’s received tremendous recognizable hair that he hasn’t modified in 20 years. So, individuals discover him greater than they discover me.
However there’s a sweetness nonetheless to the low-key nature of being residence and having your private home be Nashville, Tennessee.
Q: I nonetheless should suppose that Carrie Underwood stops the group when she walks in to get her nonfat mochaccino.
Joel: No. Carrie is definitely fairly good as a result of she places a hat on, and he or she is with a few girlfriends, and is fairly low key.
Q: Do you know what sort of album you wished to make with “What Are We Preventing For?” while you first went into the studio? Or did its overriding themes – of unity, peace, working collectively — form of crystallize alongside the best way?
Luke: We wrote and recorded it through the pandemic. And we didn’t essentially need to write pandemic songs. However I do suppose we wished to write down classes that we had realized from the pandemic, as a result of I feel they have been classes that you may apply at any time.
Q: And they’re ones price remembering, for certain.
Luke: I feel life grew to become fragile for individuals. And I feel they starred in slightly little bit of a mirror and a few individuals realized they’ve these stored-up dormant desires that they haven’t gotten to stay out. And in some circumstances, these issues is perhaps their very callings and but they’ve simply form of gone by the motions.
I feel there was a litany of classes that got here from that time period.
Q: A few of these classes can definitely be discovered on the album’s lead single, “Relate,” which is such an uplifting cry for making an attempt to know each other.
Joel: I want artistry occurred on this method that you’re like, “I’ve this imaginative and prescient. That is what it’s going to be” and you then put pen to paper and it’s really what you suppose.
However there are all these twists and turns and it’s important to keep extra topic to the creativity then the creativity is topic to you.
With that in thoughts, “Relate” was really one of many final songs we wrote. We wrote it and, inside a day, we known as everybody and have been like, “Hey, that is really what we’ve been making an attempt to get at this complete time.”
It’s one of many songs that we really feel was actually given to us to steward.
Q: Inform me in regards to the “Unsung Hero” movie.
Luke: Our household’s story, coming from Australia to America, is one which we’ve got informed from stage for lots of years. We had lots of people come up and type of point out writing a guide. On the finish of the day, it type of began to hit me that the place we discover ourselves culturally — households want some encouragement lately — I feel that telling a narrative a few household that is still collectively underneath huge stress and loads of very unusual circumstances is price telling.
Q: The “Unsung Hero” within the movie is your mother. Why was it vital for individuals to find out about her story?
Luke: I feel persons are in search of heroes to search for. In some circumstances, it’s the issues that folks do behind closed doorways that really change the trajectory of individuals’s lives — that change historical past. And I consider our mom in the case of that. So, we’re fairly thrilled to have the ability to inform this story.
Hopefully, (the movie) can be out someday February or March. We’re working for Lionsgate to deliver it to theaters.
There may be loads of be glad about and loads of work to do and so much to be enthusiastic about.
Q: I do know you might be aware of my buddy Scott Smith from the “Scott & Kelli” present on Okay-LOVE radio. Once I knew I used to be interviewing you two, I texted him for recommendation on what to ask you. He informed me to ask Joel what it was prefer to play the function of his personal father within the film.
Joel: I’ve dubbed it, Jim, a really costly remedy session. However I’ll say this, in all truthfully, it’s an ideal train. One factor you do in counseling and remedy is you usually return to the second of both trauma and life expertise and also you type of take a look at the surroundings, you take a look at the individuals related to it, and that’s the place you discover therapeutic and forgiveness and empathy.
And whereas this genuinely wasn’t a traumatic expertise for both of us — the truth is, it was a very nice journey in some ways as younger youngsters — going again and residing out their trauma, notably our dad’s trauma, and understanding the load of transferring continents with six youngsters and one on the best way simply put a lot of their story and his journey as a person into perspective.
Q: Scott additionally recommended that I ask Luke whether or not or not he thought Joel nailed the function.
Luke: I feel Joel did a very good job of doing loads of the issues that made dad dad, but in addition making him a way more approachable determine within the sense of understanding the inner struggles that our father had within the early ‘90s.
