For King & Country Celebrate One Billion Streams, Announce ‘A Drummer Boy Christmas’ Album [Exclusive]

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Curb | Word Records duo for King & Country has accumulated career accolade after accolade in the past few months. They’ve settled in at the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Christian Airplay chart for the past several weeks with their current hit “TOGETHER,” a soaring call for unity, featuring Kirk Franklin and Tori Kelly, and the track is already in the Top 30 on the mainstream Hot AC chart. Already five-time GMA Dove Award winners, for King & Country’s Joel and Luke Smallbone lead this year’s nominees, with six nominations heading into the Dove Awards in October.

And this week, they’ve hit a new career milestone, reaching 1 billion on-demand streams since they first began releasing music eight years ago.

“We found out about a week or so ago that it was getting close to that number,” Joel tells MusicRow. “I sort of sat back and didn’t quite know how to comprehend that at first. But behind every single number or stream is a pair of ears and hopefully in some way they’ve been encouraged or entertained or impacted by a story that we’ve told through a song.”

The brothers relocated from Australia to Nashville, Tennessee with their family in 1991, including their sister and singer-songwriter Rebecca St. James. The duo formally created for King & Country in 2010, and released their first album, Crave, in 2012. Since then, they’ve produced seven No. 1 radio hits, including radio staples such as “Fix My Eyes,” “Shoulders,” “Priceless,” “joy.,” and “God Only Knows,” and earned four Grammys. Along the way, the duo has also built a reputation of immensely creative, theatrical live shows that could easily find one of them climbing production scaffolding during a performance (as they did during a Grammy Block Party in Nashville in 2014), or climbing over balcony seats to bring the music closer to their fans, as they did during one Ryman Auditorium concert (part of their Burn The Ships tour in 2018).

Last year, for King & Country infused the Christmas exemplar “Little Drummer Boy” with an ethereal, U2-esque vibe when they performed the song as part of CMA Country Christmas. The rendition stole the show, earning a standing ovation from the in-house audience, while the official video of the performance has earned more than 10 million views on CMA’s Facebook page, with another 3.2 million views on YouTube. The track also topped Billboard’s Christian Digital Songs chart following the performance.

On Oct. 30, for King & Country will expand on that performance, with their first full-length studio Christmas album, A Drummer Boy Christmas. The 13-track album follows the duo’s previous holiday offerings, the 2017 live album Christmas: Live From Phoenix and 2013’s Into the Silent Night: The EP. A Drummer Boy Christmas was executive produced by aqualung (Matt Hales).

For Joel and Luke, the Christmas album has been eight years in the making. Before they had even released their debut album in 2012, Luke, Joel and their band went on a Christmas tour.

“We very unreasonably decided to do a Christmas tour,” Joel recalls, “and the reason I say unreasonably, is we had no album out at that point, no radio single, we just decided to hit the road. We shoved ourselves into a warehouse for two days to work up Christmas renditions and from that came this very drum-centric version of ‘Little Drummer Boy’ that we have done and refined over the years. This Christmas music has shaped and reshaped not only the way we present Christmas music but the band itself. We’ve taken two or three of those original versions we came up with in that warehouse and then to take everything we’ve learned as a band over the past eight years and create this piece of music, it feels like a culmination moment as a band.”

For King & Country has found massive success through collaborations, ranging from their current chart-topper “TOGETHER,” to the Grammy-winning “God Only Knows” featuring Dolly Parton.

That strategy finds its place on two tracks from the upcoming album. Gabby Barrett lends her powerful vocals to “Go Tell It On The Mountain.”

“From her time on American Idol, and just being in Nashville, we’ve been aware of her talent and when we reached out, we found out she was sort of a fan of the band and believed in what we are doing. Her voice is beautiful and it worked really well with this song,” Joel says.

Another of the songs for King & Country gravitated toward in those warehouse sessions from 2012, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” gets a reworking, featuring NEEDTOBREATHE.

“NEEDTOBREATHE started out as a band with brothers. So we always had that respect for one another from afar. ‘Emmanuel’ was one of those classics that we came up with in that warehouse that night in 2012. We thought when we started working on it this time around, we thought it had a slightly folksy, rock feel to it.

“When [NEEDTOBREATHE lead singer] Bear [Rinehart] sent his vocal track back, I looked at our producer and Luke and I said, ‘We need to go back in the studio and re-cut our vocals to up our game.’ There’s this wonderful moment in the second verse where he’s singing and I meet him halfway with a harmony. But I really tried to match his timbre and energy and it really came out beautifully. That’s the template of a good collaboration, when you have these moments and you didn’t know you needed to get better, but all of a sudden you are kindly encouraged to up your game.”

While classics such as “Silent Night,” Angels We Have Heard On High,” and “O Come All Ye Faithful” make the bulk of the project, several original tracks are interspersed throughout, including “Heavenly Hosts” and the stunning “The Carol of Joseph.”

“One of my favorite parts of Christmas is how Mary is celebrated. But there’s this quiet hero all along the way. Even when you go back and read the Biblical stories there’s not a lot of emphasis on [Joseph]. You put yourself in his shoes of having this child who is not his, but he chooses to love and be a good father to him. I think one of the things we don’t think of is Jesus—being human and a strong character that he was and the graceful character that he was—obviously much of that would have come from his mother but there’s a portion of that that would have come from his dad, as well. It became this grounded story of taking a snapshot of those initial moments between Joseph, Jesus and Mary. One of my favorite moments is in the song when Mary says, ‘I believe in you,’ and this idea of the mother of God saying to her husband, ‘I believe in you,’ that you can raise this child. Each time it gets to that moment in the record—I don’t cry often, but it is one of those moments that is emotional.”

The duo’s plans for a large-scale tour during the first portion of 2020 were stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but silver lining has been more time to focus more intently on the upcoming album.

“The album might not exist because we had been planning on traveling so much this year,” Joel says. Partially due to COVID-19 restrictions, for King & Country reached out to fellow creators around the world to help piece the album together. The album was mixed in London, mastered in New York, with orchestration done in Copenhagen, some production work done in England, and brass parts tracked in Los Angeles.

“The record was literally bouncing around from continent to continent as it was made. It’s literally been this worldwide creative team that has spoken into this project as well,” Joel said. “I think the spirit of the record speaks very internationally because of that.”

Given the weight of sickness, death, job losses, and industry devastations that have affected the world as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, those pains brought the project’s mission into sharp focus for the brothers.

“We toyed around with the ‘Holly Jolly Christmas’ songs or ‘Frosty the Snowman’—which, from an Australian’s perspective, ‘Frosty the Snowman’ when you are in the dead heat of summer celebrating Christmas, makes no sense—but, just coming out of some of the hell of 2020 so far, we really wanted to make this album 45 minutes of spiritual hope, and a celebration of the hope of what Christmas has to offer. Even songs that we wrote for the project were specifically focused on how to bring to light to people.”

The album is available to pre-save and pre-add, and can be pre-ordered via for King & Country’s official website.

A Drummer Boy Christmas Track Listing:

  1. In The Bleak Midwinter (Prologue)
  2. Joy To The World
  3. O Come, O Come Emmanuel (feat. NEEDTOBREATHE)
  4. Won’t You Come
  5. Heavenly Hosts
  6. Silent Night
  7. A Christmas Monologue
  8. Little Drummer Boy
  9. The Carol of Joseph (I Believe In You)
  10. O Come All Ye Faithful
  11. Go Tell It On The Mountain (feat. Gabby Barrett)
  12. Angels We Have Heard On High
  13. In The Bleak Midwinter (Epilogue)

Weekly Register: Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen Top Sales Charts

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Luke Combs. Photo: David Bergman

Luke Combs‘ What You See Is What You Get jumps from No. 3 to No. 1 on the country albums chart this week, with 23K in total activity, according to Nielsen. Morgan Wallen‘s If I Know Me is at No. 2 this week, with 21K. Combs’ This One’s For You is at No. 3 with 19K, followed by Kane Brown‘s Mixtape Vol. 1 at No. 4 with 15K. Luke Bryan‘s Born Here Live Here Die Here is at No. 5 with 13K.

The top album debut this week is Colter Wall‘s Western Swing & Waltzes and Other Punchy Songs at No. 8 with 9K.

The Country On-Demand Audio Streaming chart’s Top 5 stays the same this week, as Wallen’s “7 Summers” continues to dominate, with 9 million streams this week. Gabby Barrett‘s “I Hope” remains at No. 2 with 8.3 million streams, followed by Maddie & Tae‘s “Die From A Broken Heart” at No. 3 with 6.9 million streams. Wallen’s “Chasin’ You” is at No. 4 with 6.5 million streams, followed by Diplo with Julia Michaels (ft. Morgan Wallen)’s “Heartless” at No. 5 with 6.3 million streams this week.

Chris Stapleton’s “Starting Over” is this week’s top debut at No. 7, with 5.7 million streams.

Josh Thompson Maintains No. 1 Spot On MusicRow Top Songwriter Chart For Fourth Week

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Josh Thompson maintains the No. 1 position on the MusicRow Top Songwriter Chart for the fourth consecutive week this week, with co-writer credit on “One Margarita” (Luke Bryan), “Ain’t Always The Cowboy” (Jon Pardi), and “Be A Light” (Thomas Rhett feat. Reba McEntire, Hillary Scott, Chris Tomlin & Keith Urban). HARDY maintains the No. 2 position for another week.

Lance Miller makes his way inside the top 10 this week, with credit on “I Called Mama” (Tim McGraw) and “Everywhere But On” (Matt Stell).

The weekly MusicRow Top Songwriter Chart uses algorithms based upon song activity according to airplay, digital downloaded track sales and streams. This unique and exclusive addition to the MusicRow portfolio is the only songwriter chart of its kind.

Click here to view the full MusicRow Top Songwriter Chart.

Nashville’s Indie Music Venues Partner To Launch Virtual Livestream Series "Music City Bandwidth"

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Fifteen of Nashville’s independent music venues and 120 Music City-based artists will come together for a series of 30 free livestreamed shows, to help Music City’s independent music venues and Nashville-based musicians who have been heavily impacted by the economic damage due to the COVD-19 pandemic.

Nashville’s Music Venue Alliance has teamed with the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp to launch the series of shows, titled Music City Bandwidth, which will begin Sept. 14 and run through October.

Artists taking part in the events include Andrew Combs, Brett James, Creature Comfort, Devon Gilfillian, Giovanni Rodriguez & 12 Manos, Jason Eskridge, Kalie Shorr, Marshall Chapman with Tommy Womack & Will Kimbrough, Patrick Sweany, *repeat repeat, The Last Bandoleros, The Pink Spiders, The Shindellas, The Wild Feathers, Trigger Hippy, Victoria Shaw, and Wooten Brothers.

Nashville venues taking part include 3rd and Lindsley, DRKMTTR, Exit/In, Mercy Lounge, The 5 Spot, The Basement, The Basement East, The Bluebird Cafe, The East Room, The End, The High Watt, The Listening Room, Rudy’s Jazz Room, Springwater, and Station Inn. The marketing initiative is being paid for by the Tennessee CARES Act funds earmarked for destination marketing organizations.

These 15 independent music venues have averaged a 90 percent revenue loss since mid-March. The Music Venue Alliance estimates 15 percent of them will permanently close in one month; 38 percent in six weeks; and 13 weeks from now all but one will permanently close without financial assistance. That could result in the loss of 5,600 annual concerts; $5 million paid to 46,000 musicians annually; 389 lost jobs; and more than $2 million in lost city and state taxes annually. The city recently approved $2 million in CARES Act funding for small music venues.

“We have crafted a unique, Nashville-branded virtual experience to go to a worldwide audience that promotes the Music City brand, the diversity of Nashville musicians and all the iconic independent music venues that are the soul of Music City,” said Butch Spyridon, president and CEO of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. “If these music clubs don’t make it, our Music City brand and music ecosystem will be in great peril.”

Exit/In owner Chris Cobb, president of Music Venue Alliance Nashville, said, “Nashville’s independent music venues have been devastated by the pandemic. We have been closed since March, and even though we have operated frugally and responsibly, have been forced to lay off 90 percent of our employees. We fear many of us will close permanently. We know there are many people rooting for us to survive, and this marketing initiative is one of the first pieces of assistance to finally come through. Thank you to the state and the NCVC for this much-needed shot in the arm. We can’t wait to start booking shows again, supporting our ecosystem, and sharing music with the world from some of Nashville’s most beloved stages!”

“During the global pandemic, the music stopped — for fans, venues and musicians themselves. But Jack is here to help keep the music playing,” said Ed Carias, Jack Daniel’s U.S. brand director. “Music has always been at the heart of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, and we are excited to support talented artists at these iconic venues in Nashville while celebrating the friendship and fun that makes live music so special.”

The shows will not have live audiences due to social distancing and crowd limitation mandates. The concerts will be streamed around the world at musiccitybandwidth.com.

Donations to a relief fund for local venues and musicians can be made at musiccitybandwidth.com, where Music City Bandwidth t-shirts will also be available for purchase with proceeds benefiting these venues.

Major Bob Music Signs Ben Williams

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Pictured (L-R): Major Bob’s Chandler Thurston, Ben Williams, Major Bob’s Tina Crawford.

Major Bob Music has signed songwriter Ben Williams to a publishing agreement. Williams graduated from Belmont University in May and is excited for this next step in his career. Williams’ passion for songwriting comes from his love of lyrics.

“Country music is different. The lyrics, stories, clarity, truth, and ultimate feeling the music gives you inspires me to write every single day,” says Williams.

Williams also recently penned a pop/EDM single with artist Caroline Romano which was remixed by R3HAB, released in May, and is nearing 2 million streams.

Major Bob VP Tina Crawford says, “Ben’s passion for songwriting is paired with a hard work ethic and we are thrilled to start this journey with him.”

The Secret Sisters To Release ‘Saturn Return’ Commentary Album

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The Secret Sisters are releasing a special commentary version of their album, Saturn Return, on Sept. 18.

Recorded this past February at their last shows before the pandemic at the Seattle Symphony, the release will feature real-life sisters Laura and Lydia Rogers discussing each track on the album alongside Brandi Carlile.

Produced by Carlile, Tim Hanseroth and Phil Hanseroth, the project was released earlier this year on New West Records. Recorded at Carlile’s home studio in Washington state, the album finds the duo with a new creative focus, singing individually for the first time instead of relying solely on their trademark harmonies, which Carlile challenged them to do.

Named after the astrological occurrence that takes place approximately every 29.5 years, the album heralds the arrival of a new era for the two following a period of extreme change and transformation during the making of the record. Grappling with the grief of losing both grandmothers, while both becoming first-time mothers, the sisters reflect on their world view, relationships and own mortality throughout the project.

SATURN RETURN (COMMENTARY VERSION) Track List:
1. Silver (commentary)
2. Silver
3. Late Bloomer (commentary)
4. Late Bloomer
5. Cabin (commentary)
6. Cabin
7. Hand Over My Heart (commentary)
8. Hand Over My Heart
9. Fair (commentary)
10. Fair
11. Tin Can Angel (commentary)
12. Tin Can Angel
13. Nowhere, Baby (commentary)
14. Nowhere, Baby
15. Hold You Dear (commentary)
16. Hold You Dear
17. Water Witch (commentary)
18. Water Witch
19. Healer In The Sky (commentary)
20. Healer In The Sky

Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit, Blackberry Smoke Join Live Nation’s ‘Live From The Drive-In’ Series

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Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. Photo: ­­­Alysse Gafkjen

Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, Blackberry Smoke, Indigo Girls, and Yacht Rock Revue will headline the upcoming Live From The Drive-In concert series shows, live each night across two weekends, Oct. 16-17 & Oct. 23-24, in Alpharetta, Georgia, at Lot A at Ameris Bank Amphitheatre.

Tickets for the shows will go on sale to the public beginning this Friday, (Sept. 11) at LiveNation.com/DriveIn. Tickets will be available to purchase as car passes. Fans will only need to purchase one ticket per car, with a maximum of four people permitted in each car. Citi is the official presale credit card of Live From The Drive-In and Citi cardmembers will have access to purchase pre-sale tickets beginning Sept. 8-10 through Citi Entertainment.

“We are thrilled to have live music returning safely to the Atlanta area for a great weekend of Live From The Drive-In. We’ve seen such a great demand from fans to get back to concerts in a safe manner and from artists to get back on the stage to perform again,” said Peter Conlon, President of Live Nation Atlanta. “It’s also really great to be bringing live event jobs back to some local crew and workers who have been out of work since March. We can’t wait to see everyone come out!”

LIVE FROM THE DRIVE-IN Upcoming Dates:
Friday, October 16 – Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit
Saturday, October 17 – Blackberry Smoke
Friday, October 23 – Indigo Girls
Saturday, October 24 – Yacht Rock Revue

LiveXLive To Hold Lockdown Awards In October

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LiveXLive, a global platform for livestream and on-demand audio, video, and podcast content in music, comedy, and pop culture is holding its inaugural awards show, The Lockdown Awards, on Oct. 23.

Nominations will come from industry executives, peers and superfans plus LiveXLive subscribers who will be voting on winners in various categories: Best Virtual Festival, Best Show Shot with an iPhone, Best Use of Technology/Zoom, Favorite Remote Duet, Biggest Star Who Got It Right, The John Legend Award for Being Ubiquitous During a Pandemic and more.

The first-of-its-kind awards show honoring the best of content during the time of the COVID-19 streaming and at-home entertainment content consumer boom will be produced and distributed in-house by LiveXLive. The Lockdown Awards will include a virtual red carpet pre-show with celebrity appearances with social distancing guidelines and of course fashion and VIP digital meet and greets with nominees and winners.

Hosts, guest appearances and performances are set to be announced in the coming weeks. Airing from Los Angeles and New York, The Lockdown Awards will pay tribute to artists and independent venues across the country who have been hit hard by COVID-19 and where many of the performances will be hosted.

“We are living in the most unique of times,” stated LiveXLive’s CEO and Chairman, Robert Ellin. “The establishment of LiveXLive’s Lockdown Awards is rooted in our cultural ethos to provide fans and artists opportunities to perform and provide content to fans in significant ways. This event is honoring those artists who have brought energy, joy and fun to fans around the world. Our team at LiveXLive believes that acknowledging the best of performance and production value is a tribute to those who have innovated, and revolutionized the live-touring model during this unprecedented and historic time.”

Dreamlined Entertainment Group Adds Blake Duncan As Director, Creative And A&R

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(L to R): Executive VP of Creative Ginny Johnson, Director of Creative and A&R Blake Duncan, General Manager Jason Campbell, and Founder and CEO Keith Stegall. Photo courtesy of Dreamlined Entertainment Group

Keith Stegall‘s Dreamlined Entertainment Group has added Blake Duncan as the company’s Director of Creative and A&R. Prior to joining Dreamlined, he interned for Broken Bow and Riser House Entertainment/Song Factory. Duncan will help oversee a label roster that includes Kevin Mac, James Leblanc, Outlaw Apostles, and Dan Smalley, and a publishing roster that also includes Mac, Leblanc, and Smalley, along with Brian Maher, Keith Stegall, Jen Stegall, and Margaret Valentine.

“I’m so excited to have Blake join our family. His enthusiasm and dedication to our writers and their songs is immeasurable,” said Stegall.

“I couldn’t be more pleased to welcome Blake Duncan to Dreamlined’s creative team,” added Ginny Johnson, Dreamlined’s Executive VP of Creative. “I have certainly been in this industry long enough to recognize exceptional talent when I see it, and Blake is the real deal!”

“I am grateful for the opportunity at Dreamlined Entertainment…There’s a high energy at Dreamlined that can’t be matched. I look forward to contributing to the team’s success by working with these great writers and artists each day,” said Duncan.
In 2015, Stegall launched Dreamlined Entertainment, a company specializing in artist development, publishing, and record label services.

Congressional Support Increases For Save Our Stages Act

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Bipartisan Congressional support has continued to grow for the Save Our Stages Act (S. 4258, H.R. 7481) since it was introduced in July. To date, 144 U.S. Senators and Representatives have signed on as co-sponsors of the legislation, which is aimed at providing relief to independent live venues, promoters and festivals across the nation that have been shuttered with no revenue and high overhead since March with no timeline for reopening.

When asked if the shutdown were to last six months or longer with no meaningful federal assistance, 90% of The National Independent Venue Association members said they would be forced to fold forever.

Introduced in the Senate by Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and in the House by Representatives Peter Welch (D-VT) and Roger Williams (R-TX-25), the Save Our Stages Act provides vital support for independent live music venues that have lost nearly 100% of their revenue since the pandemic began in March, yet have enormous fixed overhead with rent/mortgages, insurance, taxes and utilities still due.

“Our members expected resolution in July and have held out past their breaking points borrowing or scraping together anything they could until Congress makes a decision, but there is no further to go,” Dayna Frank, president of NIVA and CEO of First Avenue Productions in Minneapolis. “Businesses will be closed, and homes will be lost if Congress doesn’t take immediate action. We need action now.”

In June, more than 600 artists, including Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters, Mavis Staples, Lady Gaga, André 3000, Coldplay, Willie Nelson, Jerry Seinfeld and Billie Ellish sent a letter to Congress advocating on behalf of NIVA.

“Independent live music and entertainment venues help bring together and entertain Americans across the country,” said Rep. Peter Welch. “Any music fan or performer knows that a livestream is just not the same as a live concert. Unfortunately, the PPP and other federal aid programs simply do not work for live music venues that cannot reopen until we stop virus transmission. I am pleased that more than 100 members across the political spectrum recognize the importance of these venues, and have cosponsored this bill to make sure venues get the support they need to survive the pandemic so they are ready to host all of us at a show in the future.”