Unlike most genres, country rarely imposes arbitrary term limits on an artist's tenure. The musical form boasts a long list of performers who enjoyed widespread acclaim and commercial success deep into their careers, including many whose zenith came a decade or more after their debut.
The primary criteria for this kind of career longevity are entertainment and emotion -- the ability to speak meaningful to the country audience while showing them a real good time. Such is the case with Sawyer Brown and their latest release Mission Temple, an almost perfect representation of the band's 24-year commitment to those twin tenets of country music.
Born of a high school friendship in small town Florida, boosted by their status as the first-ever Star Search champions, and cemented over a three-decade span of hit singles, top-selling albums and nonstop touring, Sawyer Brown have quite a remarkable history. But it is nothing more or less than invigorating and inspiring new music that continues to prove their relevance.
Opening with the explosive "Mission Temple Fireworks Stand" and its guest turn by acclaimed steel guitar wizard Robert Randolph, the band's latest projects the energy of their hyper-adrenalized live performances. In turn, the album's lead single "They Don't Understand" issues a heart-rending plea for compassion that has already compelled a humbling outpouring of emotion from listeners.
This wide-ranging facility with words, music and performance is no accident, but the culmination of hard work and devotion applied to a healthy measure of innate talent. Greg "Hobie" Hubbard on keys, bassist Jim Scholten, drummer Joe Smyth, newly-inducted guitarist Shayne Hill and frontman, vocalist, principal songwriter, producer, and frenetic showman Mark Miller comprise a uniquely positioned band -- one that is fully-realized and phenomenally accomplished, but possessed of a refreshing hunger to keep proving themselves.
"There is a real closeness within this band," Miller explains. "We've had to survive 24 years of the music business, and that in itself is a real trial by fire. Anytime a group of people endure something together, you get an incredible bond. It's us against the world, and we truly feel like when we strap those instruments on we can hang in with anyone. There may be 20 acts on a festival show, but we're going to be the one the crowd walks away talking about."
And so they have, for more than 20 years. "I was working at the Pizza Hut in Apopka, FL when Mark came in and said that he'd written some songs, then asked if I'd be willing to come over and play piano on them," Hubbard says. "I was completely unprepared because he not only wrote the songs, which I had no idea about, he was planning to sing them, too. But once I heard him, I had no doubt he would make it."
The two eventually ended up in the touring band of country singer Don King, later branching out on their own with Scholten, Smyth and guitarist Bobby Randall under the name of a Nashville area street. Their strategy, still found at the core of what they do, was to play live. A lot.
"It was a different time," Scholten says. "People thought we were too different, too outside the box. But we were all about playing -- five sets a night anywhere that would have us. And then Star Search happened. Even then, it took L.A.-based Curb Records to sign us."
Though the music industry was slow to warm the fledgling country band, they'd earned their keep heating up crowds, never shying from the chance to connect with their audiences. "The energy onstage is what has kept the fans coming back," Smyth says. "Their energy is part of why we rock so hard, and why we rock harder as the night goes on. The more we play, the harder they push back and the better it feels."
