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FFH has been a mainstay on adult contemporary Christian radio for years, with such smash hits as "One of These Days," "I Want to Be Like You," and "Watching Over Me." Their latest CD, Ready to Fly (Essential), has spawned more hits, including "You Found Me." But it's not quite the same FFH. The group—Jeromy and Jennifer Deibler, Michael Boggs and Brian Smith—has graduated from being primarily a vocal group to a band that now plays many of its own instruments. We asked Jeromy about the "new" FFH.

Jeromy Deibler (vocals, piano,guitar), Jennifer Deibler (vocals, guitar), Michael Boggs (guitar,vocals), Brian Smith (bass, vocals)

What excites you most about Ready to Fly?

Jeromy Deibler: One thing is the freedom we felt in making the record. We were all involved a lot more in the recording process than normal. That's kind of weird to say, because we all sing and play on the records. But there was a lot more open conversation in making this record. We adopted a rule at the beginning that we wouldn't leave the studio until we were happy with it as a group—not just with our producer and the record label being happy. The four of us wanted to be able to look at the final project as a statement we want to make.

Everything began with us sitting around a grand piano, with Michael and his acoustic guitar. We played about 30 songs. The label and management representatives, along with us, graded the songs. We simply took the songs with the highest grades. That process got kind of political, because each of us said what grade we gave and why. One song that made the record was one Brian had given a thumbs-down. He just didn't like it. We had to convince him it really was a good one. [That song, "You Found Me," ended up being a smash hit on Christian radio.]

What else was different about making this record?

Deibler: Normally, I was the only one who talked with the producer. But both Brian and Michael had open conversations with Scott [Williamson] about things they did and didn't like. It was nice because it took a little pressure off of me.

The other big change was a musical one. Our progression as a band has been kind of opposite from most bands. Other bands typically start out with some songs and they find a singer. But we started out as vocalists and created the band around that. We're just now coming into our own as a band. We played more on this record than we ever had before.

I played piano on quite a bit of it. Michael played a lot of the guitar stuff and Brian played some bass. That's been cool because when someone hears the record, they're actually hearing what we feel is a more sincere statement of where FFH is and what we've been doing—not that our other records were dishonest. On this one, it was great to be able to say, "Nope, that's how I wrote it, that's how I like it, that's how we're playing it."

This project goes beyond just the guitar pop sound of your past CDs.

Deibler: Yeah, and that's more consistent with FFH than most people might think. We started in 1991, and at the time I had never picked up a guitar. I wrote all my songs on piano. But I had started playing a lot of acoustic guitar around the time we signed with Essential Records. I wrote three of our biggest hits on guitar—"One of These Days, "Take Me as I Am," and "I Want Be Like You."

So this record is a better representation of us than most people think. Our other records sort of developed the image a lot of people have of us. At a recent concert, one of the promoters came up to our manager and said, "What happened? This isn't the band I booked four years ago!" Our manager said, "Well, this is what they're becoming. This is them now."

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