CBA Industry Brief First Look: Eddie Carswell of NewSong

This week’s First Look brings readers into the life of Eddie Carswell, lead singer of the band NewSong. Now on tour with Bluetree and Chynna & Vaughn, NewSong’s latest CD, Give Yourself Away, released yesterday. Carswell spoke recently with CBA contributing editor Lauren Zaczek about the joyful chaos that currently swirls throughout his life.

What does a musician who’s been recording and touring for nearly 30 years do when he has a week off in the middle of a tour? He packs up his family in their van and heads to Disney World. With less than two hours left in their road trip to the happiest place on earth, the background noise of cheers and excitement from Carswell’s children continued to escalate. “The amount of noise in the car is always proportionate to the distance that you are away from your destination,” Carswell shared. “And if you couldn’t tell, we’re not too far away now.”

Having stopped at their grandmother’s home in southern Georgia for lunch an hour or so before, the Carswell family was taking advantage of a few days away from the routine of the touring the road on what may be one of NewSong’s most diverse tours to date. Not only is NewSong traveling the country with “a bunch of Irish lads who are fired up for the Lord,” but the Chynna & Vaughn team brings an unparalleled experience. “There’s a writer on tour with us who is writing Chynna’s life, and then there are the Baldwin brothers who are sometimes with us. When we were driving through Oklahoma the other week, Chynna said, ‘You know, I haven’t been here since my mother was in Dillinger and I was on set with her.’ That was in 1973. So we’re getting to see these different worlds that we typically wouldn’t.”

One would think, though, that NewSong had seen it all in the years they’ve been playing together. What began organically as four men feeling called by God in 1981 to see if they should pursue music full-time has evolved into myriad achievements, including 20 #1 songs, a GRAMMY award, and one of the largest annual tours in any music genre.

When we began, there weren’t nearly as many radio stations or opportunities to do things like there are today,” Carswell explained. “Things have just happened as we’ve gone along, though. We never believed in a million years that all this would happen and that God would have done all He has.”

I asked Carswell how he and the band have kept going all these years. After all, a life on the road isn’t always as glamorous as it seems. “Sometimes you’re the band nobody knows even if you’ve been doing it for years,” he joked. “But it’s all about moving in God’s grace. Sometimes I wonder, ‘Man, I don’t know how I ever did that. How did we do this?’ God gives you grace though. If you don’t have the grace to do it, you couldn’t do it. God redeems the time when we’re away from our families and lives, and gives us other things to get us through. My kids have grown up getting to do things they never would have been able to. Our schedule is a little different than the typical Monday-Friday work week.”

And with that, I let Carswell return to the swelling symphony surrounding him—one mixed with children’s giggles and God’s grace.