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Those gorgeous golden tresses have been his trademark for a decade, even though they've long gone out of style. But Phil Joel isn't planning on cutting them off any time soon.

"I've had the same long hair for 10 years," says Phil, bass player for the Newsboys. "I'm not exactly a slave to fashion, you know!"

The way Phil sees it, he might still have those long locks 30 years from now—though they might have turned a shade of gray by then—when the Newsboys go out for their 45th anniversary tour.

What?!? The Newsboys jamming in their 60s?!?

"Why not?" asks Phil, a Newsboy since '95. "Look at the Rolling Stones. They're still rockin', and they're in their 60s. We have this lame mentality in Christian music that when you get to a certain age, when you start getting gray hair, that you'll lose your relevance to young people. But that's garbage.

"I mean, the gospel is the gospel and God will use those who choose to honor him, not those who have the coolest hair style. Who knows? Maybe we will be the Rolling Stones of Christian music, if that's what God chooses."

If Phil's passion for the Newsboys and God's plan isn't already clear, just wait till he gets really cranked up.

Um, Phil, would you crank it up?

"I really feel that the Newsboys have been constructed by God," he says. "I feel like he has really pulled us together and said, I've got some seriously great things for you guys to do. You think you've been places so far, you just wait.

"I don't know how it will pan out in the end, but I do know we're all committed to one another. I can't say the band will be together for 50 more years, because that would make us 80. But then, it could well be."

Maybe there won't be a 45th anniversary tour for the Newsboys. But this much is certain: There will be a second annual Festival Con Dios tour. The first FCD tour—all-day events featuring the Newsboys, Supertones, Audio Adrenaline and sixteen other bands—was hugely successful in 2001. Phil and the band, who came up with the FCD idea, had hoped it would become an annual thing.

"It's just a great event," says Phil, obviously biased. "As far as people coming out and enjoying the show, it's beyond anyone's expectations. We've always tried to provide more than what the concertgoer would expect. We sort of have this saying, If they pay $10, we want to give them 20 bucks worth of entertainment."

FCD is more than just a concert. It's an event featuring pro motorcycle riders, extreme sports, interactive games, popular speakers, and more. And it's portable. That's right, the 8,000-seat amphitheater—anchored by a stage and surrounded by 35 brightly-colored tents featuring various activities—is packed up and moved from town to town. (For more on FCD, see festivalcondios.com.)

"It's pretty unbelievable," says Phil.

While the band eyes a second year of FCD, they're also getting ready to release their 10th album, Thrive (Sparrow), due February 26. And Phil is looking ahead to his second solo album, due later in the year.

Phil's first solo project, Watching Over You (inpop), and the "Strangely Normal" tour that followed it, went so well that he's going to do another.

"I've got some songs, and my songwriting has developed since that first project," Phil says. "It's just a matter of getting into the studio and putting it all down. But I've got to make sure everything else is in order first. My primary ministry is to God, my family"—Phil and wife Heather have a 14-month-old girl named Phynley—"and then the Newsboys. My solo thing is pretty low down on the totem pole right now."

But that's OK. Phil's got plenty of time. Decades, if necessary.

Wonder what his hair will look like then?

Read more from 'Bands & Artists'

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