Dear friends... It's hard to believe it's been almost eight months since I wrote you from this website. If you've been following our band this past year then you probably know that on July 1st of 2015 after 19 years of band life together - our lead singer Matt Hammitt announced he would be leaving the band at the end of 2015. Matt is, and remains my friend for life. We started Sanctus Real in 1996 with our drummer Mark. To say our bond is thicker than blood is probably an understatement. There is an incredible amount of life we've shared with each other that I will never forget and will always be grateful for.
Through this process we were afforded the opportunity to release a greatest hits project through Capitol Records. If you haven't checked that out yet it's a pretty cool way to hear 13 years of music all in one place. And I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to thank everyone who made this possible. You have taken our songs as your own and allowed us the opportunity to create music that I believe has always come from a very real place. I need to thank our earliest supporters; those from our hometown of Toledo, Ohio to Christopher York, our first A&R guy who believed in this band enough to offer us a record deal when we were just kids. A huge thanks is due to all the radio stations that have played any of our songs over the years and to the wonderful radio team at Sparrow Records. I also need to thank those who have cheered us on through this transitional process. Your prayers have carried us even when it may have seemed easier to give up the fight.
Now let me share with you some great news. You see, on July 1st when we made our announcement I shared this thought;
We may not yet know what Sanctus Real will look like in the months to come but I do know that God is allowing each of us to pause in the moment. To learn. To love and to trust that He is in control.
And I'm humbled to say that it remained a completely true statement for the many weeks that followed that announcement. I absolutely took a breath and had to surrender myself and this band's future to whatever God had in store. I learned to Love more deeply the things that maybe I had grown too accustomed to always having. And ultimately I began to trust, more than ever, that God is in control of every situation that will ever come my way.
It was sometime in August when introductions were made to a long-time friend of our bass player Jake. Dustin had agreed to 'see what this band was all about' and sat down for dinner with us which was then followed by a writing session which in turn was followed by an impromptu ice-cream session. Of course we entered that meeting somewhat guarded, after all we had been through how were we seriously going to just go look for a new singer? But after we closed down the ice cream parlor it was obvious to me that there was a future. A whole brand new one and that if I could just trust enough to believe it without seeing every detail, then it could in fact be worth seeking out and opening my heart to.
It wasn't until mid September that we both decided to take the plunge and to start writing songs every free moment we could get together. The band had a tour on the horizon and Dustin held a full-time position at his church leading worship. We were certain to make the most of these sporadic sessions and ultimately wrote an albums' worth of songs and even more important than that, we began to forge a new friendship. It became obvious to me that Dustin had a voice that needed to be heard - not only for his vocal abilities, but for the voice coming from his heart and what he desired to sing about.
I'm excited to share with you a little of what we've been working on. I hope you enjoy This Is Love. I hope it speaks to your soul as much as it does to mine. It's one of the first songs we wrote together - and I hope the first of many you'll be hearing from the new Sanctus Real.
- Chris