For you who love the Christian rock genre, you must be already familiar with the band Casting Crowns. The band is a Christian rock band who won the Dove Award and Grammy Award. Their story can be followed back to their early time back in the 1999 when the group started by Mark Hall, the youth pastor at the First Baptist Church that located in Downtown area of Daytona Beach as a youth group for the church. Soon after that, they relocated to Georgia’s Stockbridge and included more members to form the band Casting Crowns. Some of the band’s members now work as ministers for the Eagles Landing First Baptist Church that located at the same city.
The band began as a youth worship band in 1999. Founded by youth pastor Mark Hall who also take part in the band as singer and also songwriter, the band at the beginning also include guitarists Hector Cervantes and Juan DeVevo and also Melodee DeVevo, a violinist. In 2001, the band moved to Stockbridge and added Megan Garrett as keyboards player, Chriss Huffman as bassist, and also Andy Williams as drummer. This new formation of the band released 2 albums that independently published and distributed on CD, which distributed in Atlanta area and well received there. Soon after that in 2004, the band won the “Best Artist” and “Best Song” categories in the GMA regional songwriters tournament at the Palm Beach Atlantic University. Although the band wasn’t planning to work with major recording label, Mark Miller signed the band to his Beach Street Records shortly after he got one of the band’s album and became interested with their pop/rock music style and Hall’s voice of his rock but devout musics.
Miller took the band into the recording studio and record a new album along with Steven Curtis Chapman as the co-producer. The new self-titled album, ‘Casting Crowns‘, finally released in 2003 and became so popular that it break the record of Christian music industry and became one of the most popular newcomers in the industry of Christian music. The single titled ‘Voice of Truth’ created an amazing sensation after topped the Christian music charts for 14 consecutive weeks.
In 2005, the band released a new album titled ‘Lifesong’ and quickly reached the number 9 on Billboard 200 Albums. The new album had 3 singles titled “Praise You in this Storm’, ‘Lifesong’, and also ‘Does Anybody Hear Her?’. The album became so popular that it gave them their first Grammy Award in the 2006.
Their third album titled ‘The Altar and the Door’, released in the 2007 and quickly reached the number 2 in the Billboard chart and on the number 1 of Christian Albums chart quickly after its release in the August. 10 weeks after its release, it received gold certificate by RIAA. In 2007, Casting Crowns went into the tour with John Waller and Leeland promoting their latest album. In 2007, they broke their previous record by their new single ‘East to West’ that topped the chart for 16 consecutive weeks and also became the most popular single of the band until now.