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Why do a worship record a decade into the group's existence?

Joseph Rojas: Because at end of every show, after we're done rocking out, we do worship. At the end of the night, we want the audience to leave with more than just good songs or a show. We want to share about our lives and how we've been broken, hurt and ashamed, but how God's delivered us. I was a drug addict with no hope in life, and he saved my life and gave me a beautiful wife and three beautiful kids. He deserves to be worshiped and honored and praised for what he's done in my life.

Rojas rockin' out at a show

What do you say to those who say you've jumped on the worship bandwagon?

Rojas: We didn't see it as a bandwagon, but a chance to show our love for God and incorporate it with some hard rock to make it relevant to a kid who likes to worship in a harder style. It doesn't bother me for someone to say, "Man, I'm not interested in that record because I already have Kutless or Jeremy Camp's worship album." I love those records and those guys are friends of ours, but they have their way of worshipping and we have ours.

How does a ballad like MercyMe's "I Can Only Imagine" translate to your sound?

Rojas: I wasn't a Christian while growing up, so I was into bands like Metallica and Rage Against the Machine. Nowadays, I have everything from Demon Hunter to Hillsong to Anberlin in my iPod, so sometimes the hard rock and worship intersect. With "I Can Only Imagine," it revolves around a Rage-like riff. So I guess it sounds like taking MercyMe, Rage, adding in some Seventh Day Slumber and seeing how that all turns out.

Do you ever worry some of the covers you've chosen will make longtime fans feel you've abandoned rock?

Rojas: We didn't want to alienate ourselves or exclude anybody. Some may say they wanted all heavy music and no ballads, but we want to reach out to a broader audience. We don't just listen to hard rock music and it's ridiculous to think we spend our whole lives listening to it. I listen to hard rock, I listen to worship, and I listen to pop. I love all kinds of music, so as we approached this record, we wanted to reach a broader audience.

What's the story behind the band's Teen Hope Line?

Rojas: The good and bad of doing altar calls [at our shows] is there are people giving their lives to Christ, but sometimes there isn't a follow-up with the local churches. We've gotten MySpace messages from kids saying a church never called them back and they just feel alone. A lot of them need help and they need a safe place to share it.

With Teen Hope Line, kids can call and talk through issues like cutting, eating disorders, homosexuality, divorce or suicide, though we don't want to leave anything off limits. Some churches aren't equipped to handle some of these issues, and some kids would rather not share them with anyone at their church for fear of how they might react. For example, a guy can say they're struggling with pornography and they don't get ostracized, but if they talk about homosexuality, they might be treated like they have the plague. We knew we needed a relevant forum for hurting kids to go through, and since we started, we've spoken to 55,000 hurting kids, helped prevent over 10,000 suicides, had another 7,000 accept Christ. And the number of lives changed continues to go up.

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