Alabama-based rock band HALO are attracting the attention of all lovers of quality AOR. But as Tony Cummings reports, their US success has hardly been overnight.

Halo

The average British band looks with something perilously close to envy when they view the American rock gospel scene. In the US of A, groups like Petra and White Heart sell mega-units, play huge stadiums and seem to breathe different air from Britain's grassroots semi-pro rockers, slogging away in church hall obscurity. But America's glittering Christian Music prizes are largely illusionary. For every CCM celebrity there are a thousand bands toughing it out in the harsh reality of audience apathy, battered PA's and zilch finance.

But hearteningly, years of dues paying can, by the grace of God, sometimes produce more than a scrapbook of memories. Take Halo for instance. Heralded by America's CCM industry as "one of the brightest new AOR bands to emerge on the scene" the band in fact spent nine years in grassroots obscurity in Alabama only giving up their day jobs little more than twenty months ago. Lead singer and lyricist Scott Springer is grateful that the band weren't catapulted to record contracts and subculture fame in the first bloom of youth. "Those years of playing parking lots and flat-back trucks were vital preparation for us" he drawled in his lugubrious Alabama accent. "We had an opportunity to mature as Christians so that we were ready when the recording contract and the touring began. I guess we still had a few stars in our eyes when we quit our day jobs. But we knew that nothing was going to come easy and knuckled down to working very hard."

Halo, originally consisting of Scott Springer (vocals, bass), Keith Mimms (guitar) and Mike Graham (drums, keyboards) had formed in 1980. Springer had been converted while at high school and had a straight-ahead zeal to preach the gospel. "We used to play some rock and then I'd tell the kids about their need of a Saviour. Sharing the gospel was what kept us going. God had given us a vision and I knew it would bear fruit."

The young band (Mike was only 14 when he joined Halo!) played weekends around the Alabama area until in 1986 a concert in Birmingham by Christendom's most popular rockers, Petra, proved to be a turning point for Halo. Remembers Scott: "It was after the show and we were at the side of the stage timidly waiting for our turn of a chance to speak to one of the band. Just as we got talking to Bob Hartman one of our friends shouted across to Bob "hey, these guys are a Christian rock band as well". It was pretty embarrassing; we weren't pushy sort of people and didn't send off demo tapes and stuff. But Bob seemed interested and asked if we had a tape. So one of us went out to the car and got one and gave it to Bob. We never expected to hear anything more, but about a month later Bob called me at home and said he liked the playing and the songs on our little tape."

The Petra veteran took Halo under his wing. Hartman drove down to see the band, and on a subsequent visit gave the band a lot of Petra's old equipment to replace the decidedly clapped out gear that the Alabama rockers had previously been forced to use. In 1989 Bob took Halo into his home studio and recorded a 4-song demo, subsequently playing it to Petra's producers John and Dino Elefante. The Elefantes were in the process of forming Pakaderm Records and Halo were one of the first acts signed to the fledgling company. The resulting 'Halo' album attracted immediate attention on US Christian rock radio, the press release description of "Pakaderm Power pop...in the style of Foreigner, Journey and Kansas" aptly summarising the classy AOR on offer. "We quit our own jobs when we began working on the first album," recalls Scott. "It really was an act of faith, a lot of bands would have kept their jobs until they saw some money coming in. But I really felt a call, a sense that God was saying 'now is the time!' I'd felt for a while that maybe the Lord was calling me to be a full-time youth pastor but when the Halo thing suddenly took off I knew that was it."

For the band's second album 'Heaven Calling' Halo have moved a little way from the simple (some might say simplistic) calls to faith that featured heavily on 'Halo'. "The songs on 'Halo' were largely the numbers we'd included in our live set for years", explains lyricist Scott. "We saw ourselves very much as evangelists, so the first album was what you might call straight in your face Jesus. I make no apologies for that. But on the second album I made a conscious effort to write lyrics with a little more sensitivity and also address some of the issues which believers are having to grapple with. For instance I saw there were a lot of parents bringing their kids to our concerts so I wrote a song called 'My Buddy', about the responsibility parents have in representing Jesus to their children. Then there's 'Jacobs Dream', which came about after I'd been reading Genesis 28 and 'Heaven Calling' which really speaks to both Christians and the non-saved equally."

The production of the Elefantes on 'Heaven Calling' is nothing short of masterly. The newest member of Halo, guitarist Barry Graul (who'd previously worked with Rich Cua) offers some blistering axe work, Scott's rich and bluesy voice rides effortlessly across the solid rhythms and the Elefantes tease the hooks to maximum catchiness. In Cross Rhythms 10 the reviewer enthused how the album establishes Halo as "one of the leading rock bands of the Christian counter-culture."

In Barry Grawl, Halo have found a superlative replacement for Keith Mimms who had to leave the band ("for personal reasons") Barry is an up and coming composer with a song on the current White Cross LP and another on the recently released Mark Pogue album. Currently Halo are writing material for their third Pakaderm album which will be released in the Autumn. In the meantime there's still the slog of on-the-road work to keep paying the bills. "We've never gone out as an opening act", comments Scott Springer. "We want a chance to minister, to preach, so we do a whole show by ourselves. The reality of our lifestyle isn't particularly glamorous; we still haul our equipment into halls. But we're seeing young people coming to Christ and that's worth a whole heap of tough times."