of a secret weapon ) I use a Telefunken AR51 . It ’ s just an incredible sounding mic on any vocal . The band uses that for our recordings and I use that for all my production .
And then I recently just got a preamp called the “ UnderTone Audio MPEQ1 ” and it sounds unreal . It ’ s just very versatile and the best preamp that I think I ’ ve ever used .
That ’ s some of my gear . And then as far as writing goes , just “ Logic ,” it ’ s a software for production and for writing . You have to have a Mac to be able to use it , but it is a very inspiring tool with a lot of different built-in sounds . So those would generally be my creative tools .
[ WM ] What are you working on right now in this quite unusual season ?
[ Andrew ] I ’ m so grateful to have stayed really pretty busy through the season , writing and producing . Right now , I ’ ve been able to be on a song that I wrote with Darren from We Are Messengers and Mitch Wong , and it ’ s called “ I See A Light ”. It ’ s gonna be on We Are Messengers new record . That ’ s been a really fun song to be a part of .
I ’ ve been able to work with Mike Donehey , who ’ s doing a solo project that has been really fun and creative . I ’ m working , you know , I ’ ve wrote a few songs with him and working on I think four songs for his record . And then the band We The Kingdom right now is in a season of writing again for our next record . I ’ m so excited about that . We just wrote a song the other day that I cannot wait to the show people . It ’ s called “ Mine ,” and yeah that was super fun . We actually went out to Scott ’ s cabin and wrote out there and finished up that song out there .
[ WM ] Tell us about We The Kingdom , what is the story and dynamic like being a part of a family band that has been so successful in such a short time ?
[ Andrew ] So We The Kingdom has been a crazy journey , and the crazy thing about it is it does feel like in such a short time period . It just got legs and ran , and then got wings and it started to fly . And now it ’ s out in the stratosphere and we ’ re just like hanging on for dear life .
But , I had tried to start a band called We The Kingdom about ten or so years ago in Kansas , City . So , for me , it ’ s actually felt like a very long journey as well . And I think all of us had desires to be artists at one point or another in our lives . Everyone in the band has worked on a solo artist career , or a career in a band at some point in their life , and for one reason or another it never took off … it never was the right time . And so for me , I grew up doing worship music and love writing for the church and so I tried to start a band called We The Kingdom with a few friends in Kansas City . But I could never get it to really go anywhere , and I had just decided to move to Nashville .
So when I moved in Nashville , I set that dream aside and got into writing and production fulltime for the last eight years . So , when the band came around , it was very surreal and it kind of snuck up on all of us , because we were just writing and creating together for students at a Young Life camp … just for the joy and the fun of it .
Then people started encouraging us to actually start a band , and we were a little bit hesitant at first . I think it ’ s a little bit sensitive when you