Four-piece Dove Award-winning hard rock band Red’s third album, Until We Have Faces, is released Feb. 1 on Essential Records.

What’s the inspiration behind the new record?
Anthony Armstrong (guitar): We are all fans of C.S. Lewis and his book Till We Have Faces. The record is not really about the book, but there was a phrase (there) that we all kind of gravitated towards, and it talks about that no human being could ever receive messages from the divine until they find their true identity. That’s the most relevant thing that stuck out to us in the last record cycle ... meeting a lot of kids and a lot of people who are kind of searching (for) who they really are. ... This record—that’s the anthem for those people.

How has Red’s music changed since the last album?
Michael Barnes (vocals): We combined some of the elements that we loved about the first record, End of Silence, and the inspiration that had, and Innocence and Instinct, some of the heaviness and the drive that record had. Until We Have Faces is those two records on steroids.

As an unapologetically Christian band, how has it been playing on the road with leading secular bands (Papa Roach, Godsmack)?
Randy Armstrong (bass): There’s obvious differences in the content, but at the end of the day, we are all musicians just trying to do the same thing, make a living doing music.  ... We really try to find people where they are at and inspire them and really brand sort of a lifestyle change through our music.

How has the digital revolution impacted Red?
Randy Armstrong: The digital age has leveled the playing field for a lot of music because bands don’t sell records anymore. It all comes down to, are you going to earn it on the road by playing live shows?
Anthony Armstrong: It’s also a place for our fans to find out, to gather and talk about the music.

What does 2011 hold for Red?
Anthony Armstrong: We are going out on Winter Jam (through) March.

GRAMMY- and GMA Dove Award-winning band Third Day sees the release of Move (Essential Records/Provident Label Group/Provident-Integrity Distribution) on Oct. 19. Frontman Mac Powell, bass player Tai Anderson, drummer David Carr and guitarist Mark Lee talked with Christian Retailing about the latest recording.

Your new album is simply titled—Move. How did you come up with the name?
(Tai Anderson) We were answering the question from “Revelation” (the title track from our last album), which says, “Tell me, should I stay here or do I need to move?” and we really liked the idea of go, move—put your faith into action.

What are some of the album’s other highlights?
(Mark Lee) “Children of God” is a powerful song with a great message that we’re excited about sharing with our fans. “Surrender” is another fun one. It never fails to get a reaction when we play it for our friends.

If you had to pick a favorite song on the album, which would it be?
(Anderson) “Surrender.” It starts so small with just a single slide guitar. By the end of the song, the band is rocking, accompanied by a huge string section. The song is just epic, and made more so because we allow it time to develop.

What is special to you about the sound or the lyrics of this album?
(Mac Powell) This album somehow has this mix of a sound that you haven’t quite heard from Third Day before and yet there’s a familiar sound as well.

Has Third Day developed through the years?
(Lee) When the band started out, we were all single, high school and college students. Now we’re all married and have school-aged kids. But we’re still the same guys.

Any message for stores?
(Anderson) Crank it up! I think this is a project that even passive Christian music fans will respond to if they hear it.
(Powell) When you have been around for as long as we have, you come to realize very quickly that we don’t achieve success on our own. There are so many people behind the scenes sharing our music with others and getting our music out to the masses. Christian retail has been a key element in the success of Third Day, and if it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t still be here doing this.

A former Marvel and DC Comics artist, Brazilian-born Sergio Cariello is the illustrator of The Action Bible, an updating of the David C. Cook’s successful Picture Bible, releasing this month.

How does your faith inform your art?
Because my parents brought me up taking me to church and Sunday school, I learned about the Bible at a very young age. Even as I kept drawing and getting published, I had a strong desire to know God better, so I went to a Bible school to study God’s Word full time at age 16. But I never stopped drawing and I dreamed of one day combining the truths of the Word with my ability to draw.

How did your career develop?
After I finished further Bible training in New York, I applied to an art school there and was accepted. I became a janitor in a church 40 miles away in order to attend (art school). Later I entered the business as a letterer for Marvel. Soon I was fulfilling my dream of drawing comics for a living, working at home.

What was your greatest professional achievement prior to this Bible?
I was fortunate to be able to draw Spider-Man, Avengers, Batman, Wonder Woman and many iconic characters in comics, but one character who got me an Eisner (Award) nomination for best new series in 2007 was The Lone Ranger.

How do your illustrations differ from the original in The Picture Bible?
I have a great respect for the original work done by (André) Le Blanc. Mine differ in style, just by being a different artist with (my) own personal tastes. Maybe also in the dynamics introduced, where I tried to jazz it up and modernize it, adding more impact and action to it, hopefully implementing what I’ve learned in my career as an artist for so many different genres.

What is it like to draw Jesus?
It’s a great thrill combined with a great weight of responsibility. I imagine Jesus not as portrayed in most history books, with very delicate, angelic gestures, but someone strong, well built, ready to walk a few miles on foot and work hard as a carpenter, always ready for the task ahead of Him—even the one that took his life for three days.

Which was the hardest Bible story to illustrate and why?
The battle scenes were the hardest ones because of all those people I had to draw (laugh).

Don’t cartoons trivialize the Word of God?
Only if the ones behind the production don’t have the respect and the seriousness of the content. No matter if the style is cartoony or different from one someone might be used to seeing, the key is the motivation behind it.

Singer-songwriter Michael Card visits the Gospels in his new “Biblical Imagination Series,” with books, DVDs and CDs dedicated to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Christian Retailing talked with him about the series and its first installment on the Gospel of Luke.

What do retailers need to know about the “Biblical Imagination Series”?

It’s going to cover the four Gospels initially. We’re thinking it’s going to take five to six years to finish it. There will be a book, a record and a teaching video on each one of the Gospels. … The video has already come out, it’s with Day of Discovery. The book and the record are coming out with InterVarsity. 

You started with Luke. What drew you to his Gospel?

I had just written a book on slavery, and because of that research, I became convinced that Luke was a slave, so (with) this whole idea of engaging with your imagination, you ask, who is it that wrote the Gospel? What is it about their personality, what about them as an individual would shape the Gospel in certain ways? So I started out just trying to read the book as having been written by a slave. Certainly he was a doctor—we know that for sure because Paul said so. So that’s how I got into it. The book really came to life.

Four-piece Dove Award-winning hard rock band Red’s third album, Until We Have Faces, is released Feb. 1 on Essential Records.

 What’s the inspiration behind the new record?

Anthony Armstrong (guitar): We are all fans of C.S. Lewis and his book Till We Have Faces. The record is not really about the book, but there was a phrase (there) that we all kind of gravitated towards, and it talks about that no human being could ever receive messages from the divine until they find their true identity. That’s the most relevant thing that stuck out to us in the last record cycle ... meeting a lot of kids and a lot of people who are kind of searching (for) who they really are. ... This record—that’s the anthem for those people.

How has Red’s music changed since the last album?

Michael Barnes (vocals): We combined some of the elements that we loved about the first record, End of Silence, and the inspiration that had, and Innocence and Instinct, some of the heaviness and the drive that record had. Until We Have Faces is those two records on steroids.

As an unapologetically Christian band, how has it been playing on the road with leading secular bands (Papa Roach, Godsmack)?

Randy Armstrong (bass): There’s obvious differences in the content, but at the end of the day, we are all musicians just trying to do the same thing, make a living doing music.  ... We really try to find people where they are at and inspire them and really brand sort of a lifestyle change through our music.

How has the digital revolution impacted Red?

Randy Armstrong: The digital age has leveled the playing field for a lot of music because bands don’t sell records anymore. It all comes down to, are you going to earn it on the road by playing live shows?

Anthony Armstrong: It’s also a place for our fans to find out, to gather and talk about the music.

What does 2011 hold for Red?

Anthony Armstrong: We are going out on Winter Jam (through) March.

Co-creator of VeggieTales and now vice president of creative development for Big Idea, Mike Nawrocki oversaw the production of this month’s release, Sweetpea Beauty—A Girl After God’s Own Heart, the first-ever VeggieTales episode just for girls.

How did the idea of a girls-only episode come about? When General Manager Leslie Ferrell, offered a woman’s perspective and said, “Let’s make a show about inner beauty.” To be honest, it’s not the first thing a development team of three guys would think of. But we embraced the challenge and, being fathers of daughters ourselves, created a couple of stories that we would love for our own daughters to watch.

What did you do differently to reach this niche audience? We didn’t really change much of what we usually do in that, with any story, you want to try to write from a place of experience and truth. You need to speak to your audience with the story you are telling—whatever the niche. As male writers, we needed to rely on the input and feedback of our wives, daughters and female co-workers.

Isn’t the message of Sweetpea one that boys need to hear, too? Absolutely. Boys are also under a tremendous amount of pressure in our culture to “look good.” The message that God looks at the heart and not on our outward appearance is also important for boys. As Petunia says (in closing), “Anyone can learn a thing or two from a princess story, Larry.”

Will there be other targeted episodes, and if so, on what kind of topics? We’re currently working on an episode where we are partnering with World Vision on a lesson in serving others.

How did Nichole Nordeman come to write a song for Sweetpea? She has some huge fans at Big Idea. Because of how she has addressed the topic of true beauty in the past, both personally and professionally, we felt that her unique perspective as a singer-songwriter—in addition to her role as a mother of two small children and her love of VeggieTales—would be a great fit. We were so thrilled when she agreed to write a song for the show and were absolutely floored when we heard it. ″Beautiful For Me″ is a wonderful and moving song that captures the lesson of Sweetpea Beauty perfectly.

How is today’s VeggieTales audience different from the one in your beginning in the early 1990s? People are much more visually sophisticated than they were at the birth of 3-D computer animation. Twenty years ago if it was computer animated, it was cool. VeggieTales benefited from that early wave of enthusiasm. As I go back and watch the shows, I notice the stories and lessons hold up well, but they look very rudimentary. Visually, we’ve had to improve as the art form has improved, and our audience’s expectations have grown.

Will there be another full-length VeggieTales movie? We have a script for The Bob and Larry Movie, which tells the story of how Bob and Larry met, that we would love to make into a movie when the time is right.

For an extended audio version of this interview, visit the specialty blogs at www.christianretailing.com.