For King + Country‘s Luke Smallbone well remembers his dad’s 12-year-old Yuletide suggestion. Smallbone is half of the genre-fluid Grammy-winning brother duo, and in for King + Country’s infancy, dad David Smallbone wanted his sons to do a Christmas tour.
Luke balked. He and his brother/duo partner Joel didn’t have a Christmas album and had never performed Christmas music.
“How do you do a Christmas tour without all those things?” Luke said. “It was basically like, ‘Just to try and survive.’”
Even though Luke questioned whether he wanted to be known as “a Christmas band,” he and Joel worked up a few highly original Christmas covers. They’ve mounted a holiday tour nearly every year since then. The men will release their for King + Country: A Drummer Boy Christmas Live, a feature-length concert film, to theaters worldwide this Friday.
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for King + Country: A Drummer Boy Christmas Live Is In Theaters Friday
“My heart was captivated by some of the greatest songs in the history of the world,” Luke said. “We’re celebrating the birth of Jesus. You don’t get the death unless you have the birth of Jesus. And, our faith hinges on who Jesus is at birth.”
On Wednesday, the men hosted a red carpet debut of for King + Country: A Drummer Boy Christmas Live at their hometown theater in Franklin, Tennessee. It was the theater they went to as children after moving to Franklin from Australia. Fans, friends, and crew members packed the room. Their dad, David, was in the audience to see his dream realized. Joel quipped that his dad was responsible for filling the room because he had been texting people on his phone for days.
A Drummer Boy Christmas: LIVE – for KING + COUNTRY – Concert Film (Official Trailer)
This is the second movie for King + Country released this year. Joel starred as their father, David Smallbone, in Unsung Hero, a feature-length biopic the men released in spring. Unsung Hero details the tribulations of the Smallbone parents moving their family to the United States from Australia, struggling to make ends meet, and starting to break into the music business.
Joel pitched the idea of using the team that made Unsung Hero, which grossed more than $21 million, to capture the live concert event. The men filmed the concert in a cavernous arena live last year. Joel said he and Luke had to be precise in their language on stage to ensure it worked in the moment but also one year later in theaters.
Joel Smallbone: “We Believe in the Power of Music”
“We believe in the power of music and the power of live presentation,” Joel said. “The Christmas season is so short that we can only (take the Christmas tour) to so few cities. I’m so proud this film is going to be in 1,500 theaters across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and all for the sake of sharing the greatest news the world has ever heard.”
for 4King + Country are among the most dynamic performers in any genre of music. The Smallbones carefully craft their concerts to be nuanced explosions of music, energy, emotion, choreography, athleticism, and technology. They float high above the crowd, playing with a small string section on a small stage. Joel and Luke take their instruments into flying lanterns, bringing them eye-level with the fans on the top level in the last row. They perform like their next breath depends on it –and they do it without missing a note.
Every drum beat to the last teardrop is artfully captured in for King + Country: A Drummer Boy Christmas Live. And there are special guests. Gabby Barrett appears in the film to sing “Go Tell In On the Mountain,” and they pipe in Dolly Parton to cover her part in “God Only Knows.”
for King + Country is Staying In the Movie Business
The movie is a mix of Christmas classics, including “Joy to the World,” “O Come All Ye Faithful,” and their jaw-dropping version of “Little Drummer Boy,” which features Luke’s son Phoenix. In addition, the men please with a few of their hits, “Joy,” “Burn the Ships,” “God Is With Us,” “Unsung Hero,” and “Shoulders.”
They’re not stopping cinematically with for King + Country: A Drummer Boy Christmas Live. At the film’s end, Joel and Luke revealed they are going into the business of movies. The Smallbones are already working on their next projects – a personal documentary and a second feature film.
“We’re proud to bring Jesus to the cinemas and families this Christmas,” Joel said. “We’re proud to be stepping into this kind of cinematic universe with more films and documentaries and this type of content. We ask for your prayers this week as (this movie) goes out.”
(Photo by Jason Davis/Getty Images)
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