Newsboys to perform at the Civic Center on May 1.

    The Australian band Newsboys will bring its pop/rock with a Christian message to the Civic Center on May 1.
    The band is in the midst of a tour to promote "Go," their first album in four years. Article One, newsworldson and Rush of Fools are joining the Newsboys on the tour.
    The Newsboys are based near Nashville, Tenn., but still consider themselves an Australian band. Earlier this year, they were named Australian Christian music's Artist of the Year for 2007 and won Song of the Year honors for "Something Beautiful," one of three number-one hits from the "Go" album.
    The Globe recently interviewed Newsboys drummer Duncan Phillips, who has been with the band since 1993, about the group's sound, its influences and the inspiration for its songs. Excerpts from the interview follow:

    Daily Globe: Why did you join Newsboys?
    Duncan Phillips: It just was an aligning of planets, so to speak. I happened to be in Nashville. I was playing with another band, and the band had just lost their keyboard player. They also needed a guy who could play keyboards and drums. And I was at church one day, and their manager at the time happened to see me, and he tracked me down and said, "Mate, come audition. We need a keyboard player who can play drums."
    They didn't make it easy on me, of course, because I knew the guy — I'd known him for a long time. They made me audition, and I sweated it out. There were two or three other guys there. I won the audition, and I guess the rest is history.
    DG: How would you describe the band's music?
    DP: I think the band has always prided itself on having its own sound, but I'd say to categorize it, pop/rock. Obviously, there's influences. You can listen to different records and hear influences of maybe INXS and some of those bands. When we first started, it was U2 when we were growing up.
    I think if you listen to our stuff, I think you'd probably say it's probably fairly uniquely Newsboys when you hear us.
    DG: Does the band write its own songs?
    DP: Yes. We'll have a couple of songs that we've had in the past that we've covered, but 95 percent of our songs we write ourselves.
    DG: Where does the inspiration for the songs come from?
    DP: I think our lives. You know, if you sing about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, what are you singing about? What it comes from, it comes from your life — your life experiences. So for us, it just comes from our life experiences.
    It comes from our faith, obviously, our belief, and it comes from inside. ... The inspiration comes from deep within, if you've written a song. It comes from your very core.
    DG: Does the band have any particular message it's trying to get across in its songs? If so, what is it?
    DP: Obviously, there's a message we're trying to get out. I think we do have an answer to the world, and obviously that comes out in our songs. A lot of people are looking for answers, and I think we do have the answers. I don't think we know everything.
    I think the word (of God) represents hope. It represents hope for the future, which a lot of people need these days. The world keeps getting crazier and crazier. And I think it's a real hope — I don't think it's just a hope that's trumped up. I don't think it's a crutch in that sense.
   
Reach Eric Swanson at (620) 408-9917 or e-mail him at eric.swanson@dodgeglobe.com.