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Starting in March, Jump5 will headline the Radio Disney Spring Thing Tour, with special guests Play and Stevie Brock. In April, they'll release their first remix album, Mix It Up (Sparrow). Their fourth CD, Accelerate (Sparrow), is doing well. They're mainstays on the Radio Disney charts. Not bad for a group of Christian teens barely old enough to drive. At the moment, though, they're Jump5 Minus One. Sixteen-year-old Libby Hodges recently left, returning to her old high school and some semblance of a normal life. The remaining members—Chris Fedun (17), Lesley Moore (16), and siblings Brandon (16) and Brittany Hargest (15)—are now seeking a fifth. (The following interview was conducted shortly before Libby announced her departure from the group.)

Back: Lesley Moore, Chris Fedun,and Libby HodgesFront: Brandon Hargest andBrittany Hargest

You don't mix words at your concerts. You talk about God a lot. Have you ever been asked to tone down your message, maybe by the folks at Disney?

LibbyNo. As a matter of fact, Radio Disney is struggling to find groups that have something positive to say. They know when they hear a Jump5 song that they don't have to worry about the lyrics.

LesleyOur songs can be seen two ways. Someone might think we're singing about a friend or whatever, and other people say, "Oh, I get it. You're singing about God."

You're on the main rotation at Radio Disney, you're doing soundtracks. You must make a ton of money, right?

Libby (laughing)We really don't make that much. We're doing okay for kids, but everything goes back to the group, for stuff like microphones and touring.

LesleyWhen we were practicing for our last tour, we didn't want to spend money on a rehearsal stage, so we practiced at Libby's church in Nashville. We saved a couple thousand dollars right there. We don't make like a hundred thousand dollars a year, or anything.

Did you ever expect your first CD (2001's Jump5) to be so successful?

BrandonWe sold 3,000 CDs in our first week, and that was considered amazing. We were only expecting to sell a couple hundred. If you put out your first CD and you sell 300 copies, that's considered good.

A recent tour took you to 20 cities in two months. What was that like?

BrittanyWe never knew what city we were in. Some days we'd wake up and someone would call us and ask, "Where are you?" And I honestly wouldn't know. I used to collect postcards from every city we were in on our first tour, but that got old.

ChrisI used to send my grandmother a postcard from every city, but there's no way I could do that now. It'd get too expensive.

You do a lot of gymnastics—flipflops, aerials—during your show. Do they treat the stage so you don't flop instead of flip?

ChrisNope, it's just a stage. You never know what to expect. But we've been doing dance competitions for so long, we had to learn how to adapt to different stages, different things.

BrandonOne time we were in Chicago on a stage no bigger that. (He points to an 8-foot stage.) And there were five of us on it. Somehow, we do it.

Brittany (laughing)We may be tripping over each other, but we do it.

LesleyWe just ad-lib. If we run into each other or the music cuts out, we just ad-lib. The audience doesn't know it happened, so we don't worry about it.

What happens when you get older? Do you still see yourself singing to the same type of audience?

LesleyThe nice thing is that a lot of our audience is growing up with us—they'll be facing different things, like we do. I can't imagine us singing "Jesus Loves You" to little kids when we're 25.

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