Biography
One of the more media-exposed Christian rock bands of the ’90s, Newsboys formed in the late ’80s around a core of John James, Peter Furler, and Philip Urry. Though early in its career the band was panned for a perceived over-reliance on religious cliches in its lyrics, Newsboys later grasped secular music’s alternative revolution in the early ’90s for an image makeover, with good results. The group gained six number one singles on the Christian charts, and has been featured in more secular media outlets than the average Christian band.
At the beginning of 2009, after a year of touring, Coleman left the band to go back to his solo career and Jody Davis returned. More shockingly perhaps, Furler announced soon afterwards that he was going to scale back his involvement in Newsboys, no longer touring with them but instead staying behind the scenes as a songwriter/vocalist. His replacement came from one of the other titans of Christian rock, namely Michael Tait of DC Talk. Before Tait took over entirely, the band released one last album with Furler as lead singer, In the Hands of God, in May of 2009. By September of that year Furler was gone and Tait took over vocals for the band’s next album, 2010’s Born Again. The new-look Newsboys featuring vocalist Tait returned in 2011 with the studio album God’s Not Dead.