An Interview with To Fight For: On Trusting God, “Alive,” and the Christian Metal Revival.

To Fight For is a two-piece band from Nashville that incorporates thunderous guitar riffs, deep biblical lyrics and an interactive stage presence that absolutely shines the band’s desire to share the gospel. We discovered these guys through the Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands and are absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to sit down with Hal and Bobby to discuss the band’s history, their desire to play in some unusual venues, and the new single “Alive.”

To Fight For is:

Bobby Witt - Guitar, vocals

Hal Longview - Bass, vocals

Solid Rock Unplugged: Thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk with you. Can you tell me the story behind your band?

Hal: The story behind the band, I don’t know if you guys ever heard of We Are Victory, within the past decade. We Are Victory was more on the electronic33-core side of things. It was Bobby and me, and we also had several members in that band throughout its iteration. Essentially, from Bobby’s testimony, he said it very much became an idol for him, with We Are Victory being his brainchild. He felt led to pump the brakes and put it on hiatus. 

For me, it honestly kind of broke my heart, because I wound up running away from my calling of doing heavy worship for God. To see it kind of get stopped, I was in a lull period where I was like, “Okay God, let me just focus back in on you.” But then God really started pouring onto Bobby the songs that he wanted to have done and that’s what became our Glorify EP that we originally did back in early 2022. 

So Bobby reached out like “Hey, here’s what God’s been putting on my heart, do you want to be a part of it?” As soon as he brought that to me, I was like “Yes, I’m for it.” I know this is what God has called me to do. He wouldn’t put us both working on music if that isn’t what he wanted us to do. We did that, put out our EP and just been hustling and bustling. 

We had a drummer as well but due to issues, we parted ways, even after much communication, sit downs, and meetings. Unfortunately, it is what it is, but it was very much a blessing for him too, because it was honestly impacting his family. I’m not going to go into too many details, but it was better for all parties if he stepped away. That’s where “Alive” is coming out of now, the new song that we’re going to be pushing here within the next few weeks and onward. The new song, as well as the other material we’ve got lined up too. 

Solid Rock Unplugged: What are some of your influences? Both musically and lyrically?

Hal: I’ve heard Bobby say this a million times, so I’m going to parrot it as much as I possibly can. God really gives the lyrics over to Bobby, puts it on Bobby’s heart to go and put it down on paper. He’ll definitely tell you it’s very much Jesus who gives him the lyrics to write, stemming from a lot of what he had dealt with in his life. If you can tell from the lyrics of “Alive,” very much that feeling that a lot of people feel, especially nowadays, of this emptiness we feel inside. It’s like dealing with everything we deal with and realising God’s the only one who can make us feel alive.

Now musically, Bobby actually writes a lot of the music. A lot of his influences are August Burns Red. I know he’s stated Haste The Day is an influence of his as well. I think B.B. King was also a big influence for him as an artist. We tend to have a lot more of a pop structure, so to speak, with our material in terms of verses, chorus, bridges, and all that stuff. Especially with To Fight For, we also aim to have a very CCM, worship-esque atmosphere. That’s what we try to communicate in our live sets as well, since we also have professionally programmed fog lights and also a TV. 

Bobby joins the interview.

Solid Rock Unplugged: Bobby is there anything you want to add to that?

Bobby: I guess I’ll share a little of the context of We Are Victory and what God put on my heart with that. I’ll give you a really cool moment that God kind of brought full circle and still might be bringing full circle in other ways as well. Basically, when God told me to start We Are Victory, I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning. I would just let whoever in the band, thinking “Oh they can turn Christian. I can show them God and they’re going to immediately cling on.” It doesn’t work that way. 

As many bands can see now, there are very prevalent Christian bands that have a few members who are Christian and then you’ve got a couple members that are not. Nine times out of ten, those bands end up turning secular. As Jesus said, a little leaven spoils the whole loaf. That’s really how it is. Anyways, We Are Victory. I moved out to Tennessee. I found Hal and the old singer Jay and we just started. It took off really quick. We got signed within just releasing one song, basically. It was insane. We went through a lot of iterations of what that was. 

A little bit of the backstory, in Las Vegas, I was a part of a mega church called Central Christian and they were nice enough to let me come in. I was just newly following God at the time. I had this vision on my heart that God was like “From now on, you’re going to play music that’s for me, not for the girls, the money, the rock and roll dream.” God said “From now on, you’re going to worship me,” because the first scripture he brought me to was “Now is the time that I seek the true worshippers that will worship in Spirit and in truth.” That was something that really kind of clung to me. So I followed as close as I could. 

One time I was serving there and I found out that Brian Welch was going to be at Central and everybody wanted in there. It was packed. It wasn’t sold out, but it was not even standing room to get in there. I was newly at the church and I was like, there’s no way they’re going to let me in, even as part of the worship team. Technically, I was basically a stage manager, but I kind of left myself out. The worship leader ended up calling me, he’s like “Hey man, why aren’t you down here?” I was like “I thought I wasn’t going to be able to get in because I’m brand new to the church. They were saying no one could get in because the green rooms were closed and blah, blah, blah.” He’s like “No, no, no, no. Get down here. Come meet Brian.”

So amazing, I got to sit there with Brian. At the time, I had been going through some extreme spiritual battles that I did not understand. I was really confused about it. I’d wake up at 3 AM with this heavy breathing and demonic feelings. Always at 3 AM, always. I ended up going there and I believe God set that up because I sat right next to Brian and I asked him, “Hey man, have you ever experienced these things, these spiritual battles like this?” I explained it to him and he’s like “Have you read my book?” I was like “No, I’ve never read your book.” He says “I go all into that stuff in my books, about spiritual battles and stuff.” He said “Can I pray for you? Can I lay hands on you or pray for you or whatever?” I was like “Absolutely.” 

Well, he calls over the lead pastor of the church to lay hands on me as well. So they’re both laying hands on me and they’re saying these crazy things. They’re saying like “You’re going to go and do all these things for God.” Now mind you, I never told Brian I was in a band or played music. He’s sitting there saying these things and I’m just taking it in, like, God knows the desires of my heart. These are things that God laid on my heart that he was going to be doing. They’re literally prophesying this to me, saying this stuff. Coming from Brian, how significant that is to have the laying on of hands, by the elders and stuff. That’s a significant thing in the Bible. It’s a significant moment of transfer, you know what I mean? Like, transferring the mantle basically or passing the mantle on to someone else or sharing it. I thought it was the coolest thing. God is so awesome and great.

Fast forward seven or eight years, with We Are Victory, we got invited to play with Brian Welch in Oklahoma. I’m like, dude, this is a full circle moment! I go up to him and say “Hey, do you remember Central Christian Church in Las Vegas with Pastor Judd Wilhite?” He’s like, “Oh yeah, I remember that.” I’m like “Do you remember a kid that asked you about spiritual battles? You’ve met thousands of thousands of people. How are you going to remember that stuff?” But he’s like “Oh yeah, dude, I do!” I’m like, “Do you remember you were saying I was going to go out and do all these things? Here I am!” How crazy is that? Insane. 

So that was this awesome moment that I got to experience God's faithfulness. “Follow me. You don’t know the path, you don’t know how you’re going to get there, but just trust me.” So we basically found out that there were some things going on behind the scenes of why God was not going to let We Are Victory continue. But he was faithful in the fact that he was like “I know you put all this hard work in this, but I want you to kill it. This has been an idol for you for a very long time. I know I told you to do this.” It was an Isaac and Abraham moment, right? It was like “do you love me? Are you willing to sacrifice your child? Are you ready to give this up? So I ladi it down and said “God, if you don’t want this, I don’t want this.”

I had an emblem of the band. It was carved into a piece of wood from a guitar that we had custom made for a fretboard thing. I took it and I literally buried it in that backyard and said “It is done. I’m done with it.” Two weeks later, God started downloading the To Fight For stuff to me. It was just saying “You’re going to lay this down and pick up this new thing.”

Solid Rock Unplugged: I was asking Hal about some of the influences, both musically and lyrically. Hal brought up how you do a majority of the writing, lyrically, and a lot of it you feel is God speaking to you. Is there anything you want to add to that?

Bobby: I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those interviews with even secular bands and even really famous artists, they’re known for saying “When I wrote this song, it just came from out here. It wasn’t anything that came from within.” I can tell you the exact same thing. For some reason, that third watch, fourth watch, God likes to wake up people to be creative and do his stuff in the world. 

Some of the biggest ideas and lyrics, it would just literally fly out. I would be typing, I like to use iPhone notes, but it was prayer. Then, “Okay, God, what are you wanting to say through this?” Trying not to be overly poetic or be so metaphorical that people can’t understand it. Too many metaphors, too trying to go into that realm of sounding super intellectual. God was like “I want you to cut to the core and say it how it is. Not pull the facts and try to mask the fact that you’re Christian.” There is no masking, you know what I mean? 

That was the difference in the writing, just literally letting God say what He wants to say. Because in and of myself, I can speak of experiences that I’ve had, which obviously goes into the writing as well. But for the most part, it’s what does God want to say to His church and what does God want to say to people who are outside of the church? Bringing those two things in a world that can exist together. Which is the whole point of what we’re doing, with the video and the lighting, bringing the church that we know to the people who never would step foot in a church. But they’re seeing the same words in a style that we do on Sunday. They’re seeing these things and they’re saying, there’s no denying what these people are saying. They’re able to see what’s being said. 

Solid Rock Unplugged: That’s awesome. You guys are definitely bringing the worlds together so that Christians and non-Christians can understand what’s being shared. That there is hope for anybody and everybody.

Bobby: I can give you a couple of examples. We actually played an alternative bar in Iowa City, Iowa. Basically, we expected to get into a fight, because it was a pride bar. We went in there and with our words on the screen, played our stuff. They literally contacted our management and said “We want these guys back.” Look at God go! How does that happen? You know what I mean? We were just blown away by that. How can you have this message and have people moshing? Dude, it was insane. Only God can do that, man. It’s really cool to see. 

Some of the places we played, we played a place in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was a satanic thing. The places that God sent us, they were not easy shows to play. They wouldn’t have been. But when God gives you grace and favor to go somewhere, it doesn’t matter what we do. It really doesn’t. He’s the one that saves the souls. We might plant the seeds or help to water them, or whatever it may be. We got to literally witness that, because without the Holy Spirit with us, we probably would have gotten in a fight. The words that were coming across the screen, they’re very condemning in some instances. You know, coming to the end of oneself and crying out to God, saying there must be a better way than the way I’m living. 

Hal: I would say convicting more than condemning, so to speak

Bobby: Yes exactly. We would have gotten into a shouting match. We would have gotten into a physical altercation just because of the hostility. But going in there, trusting God, trusting the process, trusting in what he was going to do. You’re given that kind of wisdom that’s not of this world. 

Solid Rock Unplugged:  In today's society, there's such hostilities. But going in there, trusting God in the process, trusting in what he was going to do. You're given that wisdom that's not of this world and and just wisdom of speaking grace and mercy and love, showing people that there is hope that there's something for everybody.

Bobby: The one thing that we’ve found in common with everyone, I don’t care what type of group you’re from. Everyone wants to know, from atheist to agnostic, there is a part of them that wants to know that there is a God. The reason that people fall away from it, first, society pushes that agenda. Second, I find out there’s two reasons why people don’t go to church. It’s either super strict parents that made them go to church when they were younger, or something happened that they blame God for. 

So when we go into these things and God puts us there, I’ll be honest with you, there were a couple of shows that we went to where I’m like “I don’t want to play this.” I got an uneasy feeling going in. It’s like “We got to trust God. This is where God put us. Let’s do it!” The thing is, these are human beings that love and feel the same as anyone else. You know what I mean? Some people, there’s such a condemnation against these alternative things. God says hate the sin, but love the sinner, just like Jesus did. It really is, you can just see the outpouring of love and affection that they want to have. 

I actually gave a thesis on this in college, but basically every musical group or type of gang or group, they are all searching for belonging, right? If it’s a biker gang, they want belonging. Nine times out of ten, those people grew up without a dad or something that made them reach out to groups of people or certain types of things. So with different genres of music, you have different offshoots from those different genres of music. If you’re a person that likes country, you dress country, you talk country, and you’re probably from the country. The same with metal. If you like metal, nine times out of ten, you’ve had a pretty rough upbringing. You either live in the suburbs or the city. All these little stereotypes that kind of fit the mold, if you will. 

It’s incredible to see God work through anything. Anything we deem impossible, something that we’re looking at like “There’s no way this is going to work, they’re going to boo us offstage. Like, let’s just not play this,” to them literally saying “We want you guys back. This is amazing! We’ve never had so much fun in our lives!” They’re all moshing, literally moshing right there, like two step and the whole bit, dude. Insane. One of my funnest nights of tour, for sure. 

Hal: Yeah, exactly. I walked in, like I never really get this vibe unless things really go down, because I work with dependent neglect kids. I’ve grown to discern whether or not something’s about to go down. Honestly, that’s the exact feeling I had, like something was about to happen here. But hey, the Holy Spirit went ahead of us on that and just diffused whatever was going on there. 

Not saying I saw anything like this, but the scripture that comes to mind every time I think about this is when Elisha is talking with his servant. Elisha’s servant is like “Hey, do you see all these soldiers surrounding us here? We’re literally surrounded, what are we going to do? It’s literally just you and me, prophet. And Elisha says “Hey, look back out there and tell me exactly what you see.” He looks back out there and there’s a whole army of angels and seraphins just surrounding him. That’s honestly the scripture that comes to mind every single time I think back to that moment. I’m like, “Alright God, I see what you’re doing here.”

Solid Rock Unplugged: That’s really encouraging, that you guys don’t avoid that conflict or the uncomfortable situations. A lot of Christian bands just stick to Christian venues or Christian tours. Sometimes the Holy Spirit pushes us into uncomfortable situations to make us do the work.

Bobby: Absolutely, to trust. It’s really a trust issue. He’ll bring you to that very edge, where you go in expecting one thing. Wouldn’t every band love to play sold out venues? But the thing with Jesus, he didn’t go to where the crowds were, he went to the marginalized and the ones that were not being attended to. So you look at all these little dive bars, some people would snub their nose at these things, because it’s like “Oh yeah, we’re only going to have ten people at our show,” but yeah, that’s ten people! God wants to reach those ten people, but who’s going to do it? 

Most people would be like “Well, we’re not going to make any money doing that. We’re not going to sell merch there.” They look at the wrong things, and I’m not calling anyone out, but what I am saying is that a lot of smaller venues want to book bands, but a lot of bands don’t want to go there because they don’t have a stage, because they don’t have song, because they don’t have whatever it may be. But how are these people ever going to know? God has put us in all types of venues. We’ve played amazing venues and we’ve played the very bottom wrung that you could get to, where you can’t even get your stuff on stage, you know I mean? It’s that small!

Hal: That’s where we had to make the actual stage and use our own PA. We were the sound men. It’s not dig, that’s DIY for you. No dig at the show where we needed to do that. Just playing from huge stages and festivals, which was more in the We Are Victory days, to DIY. We’ve done pretty much any kind of show you can think of.

Solid Rock Unplugged: Let’s talk about the band. Bobby, as far as I understand, it’s just you and Hal. So what is it you do in the band?

Bobby: That’s a really loaded question.

Hal: He’s the everyman, I just work here!

Bobby: Hal plays bass, obviously. I will write. Some of the stuff is written before and I send it to Hal, then Hal puts his take on it. I do the production and all the stuff for the lights and stage, program all that stuff. I do lead guitar and lead vocals. I am a drummer as well, which allows me to program the drums to where they need to be. That’s another trust issue with God, right? 

We were put into some situations with We Are Victory where He kept on pulling drummers out. We were like “What is going on with this?” We played Michigan Metal Fest and we had no drummer! The very night before, he was like “I can’t, I’m not going to go. It’s a long story.” We played that stage and God made us get up there with no drummer. That’s where the whole thing with To Fight For started, we thought it was going to be with no drummer at first. Then we got a drummer and that was awesome, then God kinda made that decision. So we started analyzing it, like why does God keep pulling drummers from this thing? 

Then we figured it out, because the way we set up on stage, we stand on the outside. The screen is in the middle. There’s no denying, there’s no middle man, there’s no front man where it’s like “Look at me, I’m the center of attention.” It’s more that God is the center of attention. Everything is very much programmed to be an experience. It’s not just music, it’s literally a theatrical approach, kind of like Sleep Token or something like that. It’s very cinematic, that’s the best word I can put to it.

Hal: Without all of the sultriness that comes with Sleep Token.

Bobby: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don’t condone any of it and I don’t even really listen to that. The idea came from, before any of this stuff had been going on, God put on my heart that it was going to be worship and it was going to be visual and audio. It was going to be all things tied together, just like it was in church. The idea came from being a part of worship in church and seeing the production that goes on behind the scenes there, how it all gets put together. Then taking that and putting it in a small format that is also able to set up very quickly and travel. 

These shows, bands are expecting you to do a 15 to 20 minute turnover between bands. So when you have all that stuff programmed, MIDI, you got lights, you got fog, you got screens, you got all of this stuff, it’s like how are you going to get that set up in 15 minutes? It was a lot of trial and error, but we finally got everything exactly how it needed to be. That’s how it needed to be. God made it that way, He made us go through a lot of failed attempts and a lot of embarrassment. At Michigan Metal Fest, the laptop decided to be like “Oh I’m not going to work any more,” in the middle of the third song. Funny enough, the crowd didn’t boo, which I thought was going to happen. They were like “They want you guys to play more!”

Hal: There was a collective “Awwwww!” I was like “Shoot!”

Solid Rock Unplugged: When I was looking through your stuff, the whole two-man setup made me think of American Arson. They’re a two-man setup, one plays guitar and the other’s on guitar. When I saw that both of you are on guitars, I wondered how you do drums. You’re saying, Bobby, that you guys program your drums. That’s awesome to hear that you’re not letting that hold you back from what God is calling you to do!

Bobby: The drum part of it is no different than solo artists. My stepson’s dad is Jackie Vincent from Falling In Reverse. I talk to him all about it, he’s such a cool dude, he’s a really awesome dude. He would tour with nothing but an iPod. He would just go up, he’d have no band at all and go up and play with an iPod. We’re talking about in Japan, we’re talking about everywhere. So it’s no different than going to see a solo guitarist in those types of genres. It’s kind of the same ordeal, in that world with solo guitarists. A lot of times they don’t have a band behind them, it’s just them! 

One of the things that God put on my heart about it as well, is how much it’s going to inspire other people to be like “Look, I can’t find a drummer, but I play guitars and I can produce all of this stuff.” It is possible to go out and do this, just like American Arson did with two people. “Oh, so it’s just me and my friends, we don’t have to have five people on stage?” You really don’t, man. It’s so hard to tour with five people. It really is. So what you find is it can open a lot of opportunities for other people. 

I know of a lot of solo Christian artists right now that might see something like that and be like “Oh, so I can stand up and do my stuff and not be afraid of just getting out there and doing it. So what if I don’t have these instruments, as long as your mix is good and you got your stuff going, and it sounds like all your instruments are there.” We’ve had people literally tell us they didn’t know there wasn’t a drummer. Sometimes people just don’t care. If it sounds, it sounds good!

Hal: Exactly. Touring, they say you got to be like married to every single one of your touring members. Honestly, every time I see that, I’m like “Man, I’m already married to my wife. I don’t need to marry many other people.” All jokes aside!

Bobby: Pretty sure you’ve been married to me for a long time, bud!

Solid Rock Unplugged: It’s definitely possible to do that. There’s bands out there doing loops and stuff too.

Bobby: Absolutely, look at Ed Sheeran selling out stadiums with an acoustic guitar. Anything is possible. If it’s good, it’s good. No one’s going to care how you present it, as long as it’s authentic and real. Because people can smell phony a mile away. I can! I can tell pretty much immediately, “Is this band really about what they’re saying? Or are they just trying to join the fold?” Because it’s popular right now. 

You can see right now, Christian Metal has never been more popular, other than the 2000’s. It’s come back full circle. It always does. There’s always cycles of things that come back. Right now, Christian Metal is at the top of the chain. It’s the top of the chain. It’s about time. Like I said, I’ve been waiting for a long time for it to be like that again. But it’s here, man. There’s bands every day that are coming out, proclaiming the Gospel. So it’s cool. It’s a great time to be a part of it, for sure. 

Hal: Yeah, there’s even country metal nowadays. That’s not something I thought I would bring up on my bingo card in 2026. 

Bobby: That’s the other thing I was talking to Hal about. You can see metal in general is more popular now. It’s actually overtaken rap. Even the rappers are starting to add metal to their productions. You know what I mean? It’s gone to that world. And now you’re seeing metal kind of take over the music atmosphere.

Solid Rock Unplugged: I think before 2020, KB did a collaboration with Ryan Clark from Demon Hunter. Those are two different things, but it goes so well. We have the nu-metal from the 90s, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park and all that. So it can work. There’s country metal, hillbilly metal we’re getting now. But like you said, we’re entering a revival of Christian metal. We had the peak of the 2000s with Underoath and Emery, all those guys. Then it kind of dipped. My wife and I, when we started Solid Rock Unplugged last fall, we kept telling ourselves, “Man, we got in at a great time because there’s so many good artists coming out.” We can’t say that Christian rock, Christian metal is dead, because it’s not.

Bobby: It’s never been more alive than right now, man. I’ve seen origin bands like Haste The Day coming back out. They’re coming back in because it’s blowing up!

Solid Rock Unplugged: Let’s talk about the new single. I’ve been listening to it. What’s the story behind your new single, “Alive?”

Bobby: It starts out with saying “If I could take it all back, I wouldn’t hesitate. Deny my flesh that is weak, forsake society.” Basically it’s saying, if I could have to do it all over again, I would have never chose the path, I would have never went down the path that I did. Trying to reach out to people, saying “Look, that world is not worth it.” Then it goes into the chorus, basically it’s a cry out, “If I could feel that you were there, I wouldn’t wonder what it’s like to feel alive. I want to feel like life means something. It feels meaningless, getting up, doing the same thing over and over every day. For what reason?” You know what I mean? 

It’s just a cry out from the depths of the soul, saying I am kind of sick of the everyday sort of thing. To wake up every day and feel like I’m going to break, it’s that feeling when you’ve kind of come to the end of yourself, knowing what the day is going to be. It’s just the same thing everyday, right? There’s no point to it. I think everyone reaches a point in their life where they feel “Why am I here? What am I doing? Why do I feel depressed? Why does everything feel so hard? Why does it feel like my nine to five job is not enough? Why does everything feel empty?” 

I think God puts us in that position to realize who we actually are. Especially if you’re called to something, He’ll take you through a process that breaks down every bit of who you think you are. I liken it to how a butterfly goes from a caterpillar to a butterfly. I heard a really good sermon on this. In order to become that butterfly, you have to lose your entire body as you know it. You have to basically die and be resurrected as this new thing, which is what I think is so cool about that analogy, because that’s really what it is. 

So when God brings you to this place, He'll pull you away from friends, He’ll pull you away from anything that you used to know, the life you used to know, when you give and surrender your life to Jesus. He will take your life. It won’t happen all at once, but slowly but surely, you’ll start turning into that butterfly. He’ll put you in that cocoon season, where he basically takes everything away from you that you ever knew. Maybe not everything, like a Job situation, but you might lose your job and then you’re like “What do I do now?” Then God puts some other desire in your heart and starts forming you through that. 

Or maybe you have bad friendships. God will use that cocoon season to pull those friendships away and form you so that you are able to stand on your own without having to have those friendships and things to sustain you. There are some people who literally, their whole existence is their friendships and living for what other people think of you. What He’ll do is He’ll pull all that stuff away and then you start living out who it is you’re actually supposed to be. Some people find that season, endure it, and go through it, and come out on top and learn from it, just like how He refines gold, He says “I’ll refine you.” 

It’s that process and some people refuse it and go back to old ways, just like how Lot’s wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt, because they were saying “Oh, it was so much better back here.” But God’s trying to bring you to that new thing, and you’re holding on. God’s word is just so absolutely on point for what He does in people’s lives. It’s insane. If people would just open their eyes to what God shows them in their life, they would see that everyone’s life mirrors that of the characters from the Bible, everyone’s life takes on a characteristic of those stories. 

Solid Rock Unplugged: What was the writing process for “Alive?”

Bobby: The writing process goes back to what I was telling you before. It’s always been the same thing. I will never sit down and make myself write something. It’s always “Ok, it’s time to write. I’m going to wake you up at three or four in the morning, you’re going to get up and start writing this stuff,” and it just flows out. It’s not anything that I’m sitting there thinking “Okay, what needs to come next, this verse needs to come next or this chorus needs to come next.” 

It’s almost like it’s written and it just downloads to my brain and then I have the know-how of putting it together, producing it, and getting it all edited and mixed. All that through the stuff that God allowed me to have knowledge of, and use gifts and talents of certain areas. We’re expected to be good stewards of those, and using that and letting Him work through all those processes, basically. That is the writing process in a nutshell. 

Solid Rock Unplugged: So you guys self-produced the new single?

Bobby: Yeah. 

Solid Rock Unplugged: That shows a lot that you pour in of yourself, not only writing it lyrically, but writing the music, doing the producing and getting it ready. I was listening to it and I heard different influences of War of Ages, especially around the chorus, and I heard a little bit of old The Devil Wears Prada, back when they were good. It’s definitely a great song! What’s on deck after the new single release?

Bobby: That’s up to God, man! We’re literally of the mindset where it’s like “Where do you want us to go? What do you want us to do?” We do have some old releases that we’re working on getting up to our standard of where we have things now, putting them out as the Glorify deluxe reissue, getting those up on our page for people to enjoy because we play those at the live show. 

Then we have some new ones that we’re really excited about that are just right up there with “Alive” as well. So we’re really excited about that stuff. We’ll be releasing those. We did decide, well, God told us, that we’re going to do things differently. One of the things we’re not going to do, what I call the dance, that everyone does with the modernized, having to post all this nonsense to get our likes up and views and all that stuff.

Hal: The rat race.

Bobby: It’s not about that. God’s going to put it where it needs to be. So we’re not chasing visual likes and that type of thing. But a show like yours is a perfect example of God bringing something out of nowhere and saying “This is how I’m going to get it out there…” There’s some things where God does say “Let your light shine before men.” But it also talks about how you shouldn’t think more of yourself than you should. 

The enemy loves to attack in that area, because he doesn’t want you putting stuff out, so he’ll make you feel like it’s prideful, to put yourself out there. But the thing is, I believe that some things God does call you to put yourself out there and do. But with this particular thing, I think he wants to just say “look what I can do.” It’s not about what you’re doing. It’s not about what your marketing is. It’s about what I can do.” This is a perfect example of God saying “Yes, my blessing is on this. Let’s do it this way. This is my plan.” And through your wife, that’s a cool story. You can’t make that up, like out of all the bands on Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands, and she says “Yeah, I was watching that video.”

Solid Rock Unplugged: Yeah, she was scrolling through the website after voting for Saved By Skarlet and she saw your band’s name, saw the lyrics video and was watching some of it. When she told me about it, she said “Hey, do you know the band, To Fight For?” I was like, “No.” Then the next day, we got your email and I asked her, “Did you reach out to these guys? Because they just reached out to us.” So we were like, this must be meant to be.

Bobby: That’s wild dude, that’s really wild.

Solid Rock Unplugged: [Ernie Ball] is a great opportunity for you guys and for Saved By Skarlet to shine the light. We got a chance to talk to those guys last fall. They put their faith on their sleeve, just like you guys. You’re not afraid to walk into an alternative bar, a satanic bar, going in there with the love of Jesus, with the gospel. Some Christians will say “No, no, no, we don’t want that.” But you guys get in there and get your hands dirty. 

Bobby: The way we figure it, if God goes before us, He’s going to make the way. We’ve seen it happen a million times. At this point, we pull up to the venue, we’re like “Here’s where we’re playing tonight. It looks a little sketchy. It’s in a really bad part of town. Let’s do it!”

Hal: On that note, how some Christians will be like “Oh no, I don’t want that smoke,” makes me think about, have you ever seen the movie Nefarious? Honestly, that’s one of the very few supernatural horror or thriller movies that I think is something that everyone should watch. I hardly ever touch anything that’s supernatural or thriller. The one scene in that movie was when this psychologist and a death row inmate were having this interview to see whether or not he was sane enough to kill. This priest comes in to give him his last rites or whatever. The inmate was actually possessed. So the demon’s literally been talking through him for a majority of the psychologist’s conversation with him. The demon rears his head at the priest saying he’s a child of the Most High and whatnot. But the priest gets real shaken in his boots. The demon’s like, I could kind of play with him a little bit. So it kind of taunts him a little bit that way. 

That’s pretty much exactly what a lot of the church does, when it comes to difficult conversations, actually going out and doing spiritual warfare. Which isn’t just yelling in tongues, whether you believe in sensationism or continuationism. It’s not yelling in tongues or seeing how loud you can yell Jesus at a demonically oppressed person. But rather, it’s the truth that you stand on. It’s the power of the Spirit that the Lord has given us to go out and shake the kingdom of darkness loose. Unfortunately, people are not very comfortable with warfare. Bobby, correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s essentially what our name is, To Fight For. It’s literally, this faith is to fight for. No pun intended, just showing “Hey, this is warfare.” To quote the Meet Your Maker song, “Our worship is warfare.”

Bobby: Oh yeah, absolutely!

Solid Rock Unplugged: What’s one message you want to give your fans?

Bobby: One message? It’s just having a relationship with God. It’s so important. It’s what we’re called to do on this earth, first have a relationship with the Father, and then let our light shine before men, whatever that light may be. Whether you’re a plumber, a cook, or a musician. Whatever it is, we’ve all been given spheres of influence of our own to be able to affect that no one else will be ever able to affect. For instance, you have a sphere of influence that God has given you that I will not reach. Maybe through music, because we’re in the same realm of influence. But, your family members, your friends, things like that. You can really speak into people’s lives by the way that you live your life, right? 

The only way we can live our life is literally connected to the vine. If you’re disconnected from that, that’s when the enemy comes in and tries to steal, kill, and destroy. If you wake up every single morning and you just connect, abide is a great word. I’ve used that word so much. Abide in the Lord, which means cling. Cling to him. Literally satisfy yourself with wanting to know Him and the truth and the word. When he says “If you seek me, you will find me, and then I will give you the desires of your heart.” He knows the desires that you have. 

So to an upcoming musician, if He’s called you to music and our band or anyone else’s band has inspired you to do so, God has given you that direction saying “This is what I want you to do.” The very best place you can do that is just connected with your Heavenly Father, who’s going to show you what it’s going to take to do that. You know what I mean? And the very first thing is abiding in the Lord. If I had one thing to say, it’s just trust God. It’s the great Charles Stanley, man. I call him Grandpa Charles. Trust in the Lord, obey and leave all the consequences to God. Just obey what he’s telling you and let all the consequences rest on God.

Hal: Amen to that. One thing I would urge everyone is to go based on the scripture where Paul is saying you’ll have a reason for your faith. I can know exactly why you’ve got your faith. When someone asks “Hey, why do you believe this is true?” they’re not exactly asking for your testimony, which at the right time would be a powerful tool, but they’re asking “Hey, is this faith true?" Which it rests upon “Is there an uncreated creator? Does God exist? Did Jesus really rise from the dead?” If you can answer those questions with a yes, then Christianity is true. If you like Chronicles of Narnia, listen up to C.S. Lewis, because he said that’s the most important question of all time. “If Christian is true, it’s of infinite importance. If it’s not, then it’s worth forgetting.” 

Keep your eyes on our Facebook page for the release of their brand new single, “Alive,” dropping on Good Friday, April 3rd! Check out To Fight For on Facebook, Instagram, and listen to their music over on Spotify!