Casting Crowns

Casting Crowns ranks among the longest-lasting and most honored acts in contemporary Christian music, a Grammy- and Dove-winning ensemble established and fronted by youth pastor Mark Hall. Defined by intense guitar textures, soaring melodic lines, and expansive studio polish, the group has drawn both mainstream listeners and church audiences through widely praised releases such as The Altar and the Door (2007), Come to the Well (2011), The Very Next Thing (2016), and Scars in Heaven (2021). Active since the close of the 1990s, Casting Crowns have moved more than ten million units and ruled Christian airwaves with standout tracks including “Lifesong,” “Until the Whole World Hears,” and “Courageous.”

The collective began in 1999 as a student-led worship ensemble in Daytona Beach, Florida. With singer-songwriter and youth pastor Mark Hall at the helm, the original roster featured violinist Melodee DeVevo alongside guitarists Juan DeVevo and Hector Cervantes. In 2001 the musicians moved to McDonough, Georgia, where bassist Chris Huffman, keyboardist Megan Garrett, and drummer Andy Williams joined the lineup. This expanded configuration issued two independent projects that earned strong local support around Atlanta. One of those recordings reached Mark Miller, frontman of the country band Sawyer Brown, who responded to Casting Crowns’ forceful pop-rock approach and to Hall’s direct, faith-driven songwriting. Miller placed the group on his new Beach Street Records imprint—an affiliate of Reunion Records distributed through Provident Label Group—and booked studio time with co-producer Steven Curtis Chapman, a leading CCM artist.

The self-titled debut Casting Crowns appeared on Beach Street in 2003. It performed strongly in Christian markets, eventually attaining platinum status and reaching number two on the CCM album chart. A five-song sampler titled Live from Atlanta followed on Reunion Records in 2004, bundled with a bonus DVD that included interviews and a music video. Lifesong, issued in August 2005, became the band’s biggest commercial triumph to date, entering the secular Top Ten while retaining its core religious following. Like the prior album, it went platinum; heightened visibility then propelled the next studio effort, 2007’s The Altar and the Door, to number two on the Billboard 200. During this period the single “East to West” logged a record 16 straight weeks at number one on the Christian chart. The holiday project Peace on Earth surfaced in 2008, supplying fans with the chart-topping track “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” while the band prepared Until the Whole World Hears, which arrived late in 2009.

Drawing inspiration from the biblical account of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, the fifth studio album Come to the Well reached stores in October 2011. Guitarist Josh Mix took over for Cervantes the next year, and early 2013 brought The Acoustic Sessions, Vol. 1. The Top Ten effort Thrive appeared a year later. In 2015 Casting Crowns issued the singles-and-hymns collection Glorious Day: Hymns of Faith together with A Live Worship Experience, captured that summer at Eagle’s Landing Baptist Church where Hall continued to serve as youth pastor. September 2016 marked the arrival of The Very Next Thing, the studio successor to Thrive. The holiday EP It’s Finally Christmas followed in late 2017.

November 2018 saw the veteran act unveil Only Jesus, which climbed to number two on the Christian chart and earned Dove and Grammy nominations. Their twelfth studio album, Scars in Heaven, emerged in 2021 and included songwriting input from Matthew West along with production from longtime associate Mark Miller of Sawyer Brown.