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Jekyll and Hyde sure does rock hard.

Schlitt: That's what Petra does. It's what we naturally do, even with Revival, God Fixation [the last studio album of all original material], and Double Take. When you saw us live on those tours, there was rock happening. Petra to me has always been an exciting music forum live. Our last four or five records haven't showed it as much and it hurt us, so we're really overcoming a lot of preconceived ideas that "they're not what they used to be." Oh yeah we are! And the fans have been right there with us, convincing the record label "We want Petra the way Petra's supposed to be!"

Aside from fan support, what else made the label so supportive of this project?

Schlitt: When the record company started hearing Bob's normal writing and our normal demos, they started going, "Well, maybe this is okay," and they jumped on board. It didn't hurt that [Newsboys leader] Peter [Furler] said, "You know, I'd like to produce this." And that combination of his fresh ideas and our normal sound was a one-two punch. Again, a lot of people said, "Ah, they're back." And recording-wise, yeah we're back to what we call a record. Like Bob said, we've had about two or three specialty records in a row—well, that covers about six or seven years. That's a whole generation basically, so we've got to be rediscovered by everybody all over again. It's been a strange time for us, but also one of the most exciting times.

For more about Petra and their musical legacy, visit our artist page for the band, where you'll also find reviews of their albums, including Jekyll & Hyde. Visit Christianbook.com to listen to sound clips and buy their music.

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