September 20, 2011

Adam Trabold, 22, counts the acclaimed Southern/Christian rock band Needtobreathe among his top five favorite bands. Trabold says he would attend the South Carolina band’s Sept. 22 concert in Lincoln even if his band Adelaide were not the opening act.

Adelaide is an Omaha band that has been mostly on hiatus for the last eight months while band members finished college and their drummer, Phil Collison, 21, got married.

When a Needtobreathe representative called Lincoln radio station KFRX for a local band recommendation, the DJ known as “Chi” suggested Adelaide. Trabold had played an acoustic selection at the studio and Chi had observed the band’s high-energy performance at a local shopping mall.  

Taylor Swift handpicked Needtobreathe to open for the country/pop phenom on the North American leg of her blockbuster Speak Now World Tour. The two sons of an Assembly of God pastor and their two childhood friends had two down days, so they added the Lincoln date and a concert in Wichita before Swift’s tour resumes in Kansas City, Mo., Sept. 24.

Needtobreathe released its highly anticipated fourth album, The Reckoning, Sept. 20.

Trabold’s band formed in 2008. The alternative rockers have built a following playing both church and secular venues. Adelaide served regularly last year for one area church during a worship pastor search.

“We do a lot of worship events,” said Trabold, the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist. “We’re doing worship for a retreat two weekends from now.”  

Like an increasing number of young artists, the members of Adelaide are reluctant to define itself within the genre of Contemporary Christian music. Christian artists from the iconic Phil Keaggy to Jeremy Spring of Abandon Kansas and Tim Skipper with House of Heroes chaff at what they see as the artistic limitations of CCM.

The term, such as the record industry uses to sort artists into marketing slots, is a perceived problem. “It can separate you from your music, and why would you want to separate yourself from other people? It just doesn’t make sense to me,” explains Trabold.

He laughed again, recalling words by Switchfoot’s lead singer. “There’s a great quote from Jon Foreman. ‘Christ didn’t die to save my music!’ I guess that kind of says it all.”

A dominate lyrical theme for Adelaide is hope. Even in a song with a melancholy feel like “Find Me Love,” Trabold says the resolution is the discovery that love is possible.

Trabold claims he picked up guitar as a self-described nerdy seventh grader to meet girls.

He and bassist Dan Fuhs, 23, grew up in the same church, playing in church and youth group bands. They also played in a high school rock band that disbanded, but not before playing “to about seven people” at Papillion’s The Rock with a yet unknown Ohio band known as House of Heroes.

Lead guitarist Alex Woodard, 23, and Trabold met at Waypoint Church in Omaha. The two brainstormed about a new band. “We started jammin’ and I said, ‘I know a bass player!’ (Alex)  said, ‘I know a drummer!’

“We pull from so many different influences. Our drummer is into hardcore pop punk and I’m into stuff like Coldplay, Switchfoot, Counting Crows. Alex pulls from some of those same influences and the same with Dan too. There’s just a lot of variation in what we listen to, as a band.”

He struggled to pinpoint their eclectic positive sound. “I’d say alternative pop rock is where we’re landing. Obviously there are other influences there that make it a little more organic, not as hyper-produced as a lot of pop bands.”

Trabold is the main lyricist. “We do collaborate quite a bit and more so as time as gone on, musically. We have found that stuff sounds a whole lot better when all of us are in it.”

As for Thursday’s 8 p.m. show at The Bourbon Theatre, Trabold says, “It’s an opportunity to hang out in a super intimate venue. I love the Boubon because it’s big enough to hold 750 people, but it feels like a smaller venue.

“Needtobreathe is still on the (Swift) tour… you’re not going to see ‘em (again) at a venue like this.”