David Od
With a long history soul-feeding, eardrum-rupturing hits, you might know NEEDTOBREATHE as a “Christian rock” band—and that’s cool with frontman Bear Rinehart.
Just be careful how you say it. Formed in South Carolina in 2001, the band’s brand has long been anthemic rock with uplifting themes and Rinehart’s distinctive, awe-inspiring vocals. With five Number One albums and two billion career streams to their credit, their songs have indeed been spiritual enough to often place high on Billboard’s Contemporary Christian chart. But while they’re proud of their faith, they’ve always had a broader view of their mission.
“The thing that always annoyed us about it was there’s a stigma around what Christian music is,” Rinehart says. “Probably rightfully so, but just having a label in that way feels limiting. You hear it said in this way like, ‘Who’s playing tonight?’ And the bartender says, ‘Well, some Christian band.’ That’s hurtful because it feels like we’ve always been way more than that.”
Now, two decades into their career, the band looks to make it official. Their ninth studio album, Caves, aims directly for the mainstream of modern rock, and it’s not so much a shift as it is a progression. Along with their Contemporary Christian chart Number Ones, NEEDTOBREATHE has landed on the Alternative and Rock charts, collaborated with mainstream stars like Gavin DeGraw (“Brother”) and Carrie Underwood (“I Wanna Remember”), and even made a CMT Music Awards appearance. As explained by their friends and folk-pop hitmakers, The Avett Brothers, “What’s really cool about the Christian thing for y’all, is that you never did it—it kind of did you,” so Caves is really just a continuation of their crossover quest.
Due September 15, the album features all the energy and inspiration the band’s fans love but with a bolder-solid rock foundation, purposely built for filling arenas on their upcoming world tour.
“I think now we see it clearly as we want to make music that people live their lives to,” Rinehart says. “That means funerals, weddings, births—all the monumental moments—and making music people can really hang onto when they need it. That’s really simplified things to me. I think we think much less about who the audience is or what might get us on this or that chart.”
Saying he and the band worked harder on Caves over the past year than any other time the band’s history, the project features 11 fresh tracks, and marks the follow-up to 2021’s Into the Mystery. That was a very different animal, Rinehart explains, since it was written in pandemic isolation and then recorded in two and a half weeks. What emerged was a “very introspective record,” but Caves finds Rinehart and the band looking outward. Sweeping atmospherics, heart-pounding rhythms, and Rinehart’s booming vocal set the stage for the “best material of our career,” and the stages they’ll perform on are some of the world’s biggest. With Judah & the Lion as special guests, The Caves World Tour kicks off October 13 in Savannah and will feature high capacity shows around the nation (and beyond), including a November 15 stop at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena.
Marking a new high point in the band’s touring journey, the headlining run follows a steady build of arena shows with other artists, which NEEDTOBREATHE used as fuel for their Caves presentation.
“The crazy thing about how long we’ve been doing it is that earlier in our career, we almost had to envision it, make it up, but now we really have these experiences of playing Bridgestone or Red Rocks and those kind of places,” Rinehart explains. “Now when you’re writing the songs, and especially producing, you start thinking ‘OK, close your eyes, you’re on stage. What would you do here? How big would you make it?’”
Judging by the early-released track “Everknown,” the answer to that question is “larger than life.” With sparkling melodies and a canyon-wide vocal echo, the track is a tribute to the unsung heroes of the world; people like teachers, coaches, janitors, or even grandparents. Starting slow and swelling to epic proportions, it’s a deep-feeling anthem geared for the ecstasy of massive arena crowds written while on tour with One Republic.
“I like the idea of putting attention on people that maybe don’t get it,” he says. “We live in a world where everybody’s vying for attention, and it’s all about some sort of fame. But when I really look at it, the people that aren’t even on social media had the biggest impact on me. That really is what the song is about, and it’s been fun to see how many people relate to that.”
Other tracks feature guest appearances by country stars like Old Dominion and Carly Pearce, indie rockers Judah & the Lion, and Irish folk-pop star Foy Vance, further establishing their genre-defying evolution. It adds up to a truly dynamic album with many ups and downs, and an overall message about emerging from isolation.
Perhaps the title track, “The Cave,” is the best example of that. It’s the opening song on the record, beginning with a frantic, anxious fiddle and lyrics about feeling lost and alone. But with Rinehart narrating a quest to escape the world, rediscover yourself, and return with renewed confidence, the band explodes with theatric muscle after the first chorus. It should make for a giant moment of rock catharsis on stage.
“With the artists I love, what I want them to do is go away, search themselves, spend time with the things that are uncomfortable, and come out with a story I can relate to,” Rinehart says. “I think that’s sort of the job of the artist and that’s what it felt like this last year and a half. That’s a lot of what ‘The Cave’ is about.
“It’s been a lot of lonely days in sweatpants working on this music,” he says with a laugh. “And then you finally get to show it to the world. That song is really about coming out of the cave, which is what releasing an album feels like to me.”
Call it whatever you want once it does come out, Rinehart continues. Just make sure you give it a chance.
“I think if people can dive in and spend some time on the record, I think they’ll find some pieces that are true to them, because really they’re true to us,” he says. “We’re all more similar than we think we are.”