Cross Rhythms have gone on record to say the NEWSBOYS are the best band never to have played Britain. Jan Willem Vink spoke at length to the Australian pop rockers.

Commenting on their numerous personnel changes, Peter says, "It's always been just myself and John plus our manager. We were a duo but we weren't, because I play drums and he was the lead singer, so we always used musicians. The last time, with Jody our guitarist, and some of the guys that are with us, we started becoming a band. It takes some time. It's not something that happens overnight. We're just trying to get more of a band thing. I sat down at the computer on the last couple of records to write all the songs, and then gave them to the band to learn them. We're trying to get the band more involved."

Their guitar player Jody, on this album, played a lot of the guitar and wrote all the parts. "On 'Not Ashamed' we hired Dave Perkins to come in and play and he wrote most of the parts," says Peter. "We told him what to play. With Jody he would come in and be our guitarist. He brought all his own sounds."

Lyrically, the songs on 'Going Public' have a lot more depth than the Newsboys' previous releases. Especially "Elle G", a haunting and most beautiful track, describing the feelings a man goes through when a woman commits suicide. Though fictional, the track conveys emotion as if the suicide actually happened.

"It's just about a guy and what he goes through, when he's lost someone he loves," explains Peter. "It could have been his mum, or his girlfriend or his wife. It wasn't anybody in particular. But it was really written about how there can be people around us hurting and going through things. It was like the death of Kurt Cobain, and even a Christian artist in America called Vince Ebo, who committed suicide.

"And also the question 'what happens to Christians that commit suicide?'. It was a question that stirred up that business. God's grace is sufficient. A lot of times there is a double message, God's grace is something we can't overlook because his grace is so powerful. It's not in any works or anything we can do to maybe take away salvation, besides blaspheming the Holy Spirit."

Peter says the song hints at what we may expect of the Newsboys in the future. "I think it is one of the songs that will bridge the next album. We would like to carry on with the story, beyond the next record. Even when it was written, we planned it to be a long story, over several albums, looking at how he deals with the situation. I think that could be sort of cool.

"I was shocked at hearing about Kurt Cobain's suicide. His wife, in 10 years time, might be able to have helped him. But he won't be around then. As she gets older and 40 years old, she may remember him as a confused young man and maybe have some answers for him, but it would be too late... I think the hurt that she would go through will be tremendous. I realised I could have been there."

Kurt Cobain's death confronted Peter Furler with his own past. As a son of missionary parents, both Peter and John struggled for quite a while with their own faith. "I saw myself and John James, the lead singer when we first started. We had a choice on a path, a couple of paths we could have chosen. We started playing in the pubs and the clubs. I saw if we hadn't have found Christ, we could have ended up that way, one of us, especially John. I can see if it wasn't for Christ in our lives, then I probably would have blown my head off.

"There're days when you get depressed, especially making records, you feel like you're not putting what you meant to be onto tape. Making this record was hard. There were days where I was reading without any thinking. It enters your mind -if it wasn't for Christ; maybe I would have committed suicide. That was the way it affected me more than anything. So many people who aren't famous still kill themselves, and I think seeing that really brought it to light. Kurt was my age, he was a musician and we have other things in common..."

Another song that touches Peter's personal background is "When You Called My Name", which Peter co-wrote with Steve Taylor. It's kind of a tribute to their dads. "Steve Taylor's dad is a pastor and my dad is a pastor and we saw all the things that they went through and we just wanted to dedicate it to pastors and youth pastors because we just grew up in such homes. Homes where it's three o'clock in the morning and there's a phone call. It's Mrs Johnston; her husband has beaten her up. Dad has got to get the elders and meet them. Or it's a Saturday afternoon and everyone's in your house and all week meetings and stuff. All the things they went through when preparing a message and seeking the Lord and then preaching and looking down and someone's just yawning. That's something it does something to them. The song is just an encouragement to pastors and anybody in the ministry."

The Newsboys are known for their zany behaviour during their tours. Like, they play paintball in the 'Not Ashamed' video. Says Peter, "At the moment we have about seven trail bikes in the back of our truck. We tour with a semi-trailer. We will put our toys, we call them, in the back there. It's just something, when we tour a lot, it helps us to chill out and just to enjoy what we do. When we go to a town we like to get out and ride around the town and head out in the hills and just go out for a ride. Or we play paintball with each other. It's a good way to get rid of your aggression. We get on really well. We're like brothers, we fight like brothers, but we forgive like brothers. We hang out together a lot. We all have similar things that we like to do and paintball and motorbikes, and any sort of activity that we have a chance to do together.
The band has experienced that playing paintball with Steve Taylor is lots of fun. "He's a good target. We took him out playing and was shot up pretty bad. Most of it was friendly fire. He was on our team and we shot him more than the other team did... It was a lot of fun.
Finally, we discuss Peter's musical influences. "I liked the Lightning Seeds, they've got an album called 'Since' that was really good, that I've always really dug. I like a lot of U2 stuff, 'Achtung Baby' and 'Zooropa' were great records, I really enjoyed them, even though our records don't sound anything like either of them, they still have influence. I really try not to listen to stuff that much, because one thing that I'm really proud of with the Newsboys, if I could be with anything, is that we don't sound like anybody. We're not a Christian version of something. A lot of bands are like a Christian version of this or that. We are the Newsboys"