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New Creation Events Concert August 6th

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - July 12, 2018

Unspoken with David Dunn at the Tioga County Fair

Please join us, Monday, August 6, for a night of worship and entertainment as Unspoken and David Dunn perform at the Tioga County Fair followed by fireworks.
The concert starts at 7:00 p.m. Doors open at 6:00 p.m.

VIP tickets are $35 and include early admission and photo/autograph op
Track seats are $25*
Bleacher/Stand seats are $20*
Bleacher/Stand Group (10+) seats are $18

**Price increase day of – $5

For tickets and more information:
www.newcreationevents.com
Call (570) 439-9077

Unspoken

Unspoken

“I don’t think we ever expected we were going to reach as many people as we’ve been able to reach. The fact we’ve been able to speak into millions of people’s lives is crazy. Thinking back thirteen years to when I was dealing with drugs and alcohol in a very serious way, to think I would one day have a wife and kids and a solid family and home life and then be playing music for a living—God is surely able to do more than we ask or imagine. That might be a big theme on the new record too. Something we’ve often said to each other in the last few months is ‘Look what the Lord has done.’ He’s just opened doors we didn’t think could be opened.”
–Chad Matson, Lead Vocalist for Unspoken

When you ask the guys in Unspoken what it is that their audiences most connect with, they’ll bring it down to a single word. It’s a word that doesn’t have much to do with the unapologetically soulful pop sound they’ve built of skilled musicianship, adventurous production, and complex vocal harmonies. It has little to do with the international influences of the band (guitarist Mike Gomez hails from the Dominican Republic and drummer Ariel Munoz from Puerto Rico). It isn’t a quality that’s anchored in the success of their first Centricity Music album which sold more than 100,000 physical copies and spawned four top ten singles and a number one as well. And it’s not even a byproduct of their recent success as a headlining act or their pick for a slot (alongside David Crowder and Steven Curtis Chapman) on the 2016 K-Love Christmas Tour.

The strong bond that seems to turn Unspoken listeners into fans as it turns out isn’t primarily about the music at all. Instead, it’s about their willingness to take the stage together night after night and to put their hearts and lives on display with a raw and engaging honesty. In a word, the band says, the connection is about transparency.

“People just relate better to somebody who has been broken and redeemed,” Mike Gomez notes, “than to someone who pretends to have it all together. What we say from the stage and what we say in our songs, they’re not stories from somebody we heard about. Our songs are written out of places we’ve been and places we are.”

With the release of Follow Through, Unspoken’s second full-length project for Centricity Music, the band seems to have found a place of new freedom to push the boundaries of their trademark sound, mixing in horns and electronic elements in fresh ways without altering the core of their musical identity. Tag-team produced by Seth Mosely (2014 SESAC Christian Songwriter of the Year), Tedd T. (For King & Country, Mute Math) and Chris Stephens (Toby Mac, Michael W. Smith), Follow Through picks up where the last record left off, blending hip-hop, soul, pop and folk influences to tell the story of the season of life the band members have found themselves in over the last couple of years.

“These new songs came out of a different place from the last record,” Chad explains. “In the past, there was so much uncertainty and struggle in our lives that was reflected in our songwriting. Now we’re writing songs that are gratitude-driven. This new record is joyful and uplifting as opposed to being born out of the grind and the struggle. We’re just grateful for where we are now, for where God has brought us on this journey.”

“There’s a lot more praise and thanksgiving on this record,” Jon Lowry, the band’s bass player, agrees. “When we wrote the last record we were all literally living below the poverty line. We’d been doing that for years. We were leaving our families every weekend to play music and working odd jobs when we were home to try to make ends meet. Life was such an immediate struggle. But with the success of our last record, for the first time, we were able to focus on the music without having to worry about the electricity being turned off. That change in our lives as a band is an answer to prayers we’ve been praying for the last decade. We’re all in awe of what God has done, and that gratitude is present all over the record.”

The project’s first single, Higher, is one of the most direct expressions of that joyful gratitude. A soulful celebration that the band collaboratively wrote around an inspiring horn riff, Higher ends up being a very unconventional praise song.

“Through all of our ups and downs one thing has never changed,” Chad says. “God is worthy of our praise and we’re constantly going to use our talents and our platform to lift Him higher. We were a little surprised when Higher got picked as a radio single, but we’re glad it did. Sometimes the thing you think makes something too different for pop radio—in this case, the Chicago-style horn section—actually turns out to be the thing that sets it apart just enough to make people sit up and take notice.”

While much of Follow Through contains that celebrative edge, it still draws from the grittier roots of personal experience. The straight-up-pop cut The Cure was inspired by Chad’s firsthand knowledge of what it means to be broken and seeking a remedy. “We live in a messed up world,” he says. “I came out of the drug culture. From what I can tell it’s even worse now than it was when I was in it. We’re all looking for some kind of answers, some kind of fulfillment. That’s been the state of humanity for thousands of years. But the good news is, there’s something to fill that hunger. There’s something to heal that pain. There is a cure and it’s Jesus.”

A third standout song (and a band favorite) on the new project tells Chad’s story of personal redemption more directly. Life In The Death Of Me is an autobiographical, soulful, hooky, hip-hop-influenced cut that showcases the skilled musical versatilities of Unspoken.

“Life in the Death of Me” tells the hard story of where Chad was,” Mike explains, “and how once he was raised out of those baptismal waters he found life in the death of everything else that he let go. That hit me so straight because I believe that is the gospel. We lose our lives to follow Christ, but in him, we find real life.”

A band favorite—especially when they’re playing it live—is the down-and-dirty, forward-leaning slow-groove track, Good To Me. “This song was an absolute blast to create,” Jon says. “We wrote and recorded a lot of it in the back lounge of our bus while we were touring. I love the groove between the bass and the drums and I actually got to use all the music theory I studied back in college to figure out where I wanted to go with the bridge progression. For the musician in me, it’s probably the most satisfying song on the record.”

After a dozen years of hardscrabble touring, music and ministry, the members of Unspoken find themselves in this new season taking stock of where they are in light of where they’ve been and where they’d like to one day be. The title track itself, Follow Through, was written as a prayerful plea for the grace, strength and leading to continue the journey, and to one day get from here to there.

“We often talk about how it’s easier to start something than to finish it,” Mike says. “I think we’re all at a place of saying ‘Lord we want to follow through with our side of the deal. We know we’re covered by grace so it’s not about earning our salvation or God’s love. It’s about how we want to be faithful to you and continue our calling. We don’t want to start something and leave it halfway.”

“We’re happy to be in this new place in our careers,” Jon adds, “but when you finally receive something you’ve been longing for, it never quite fulfills in the way you think it will. Ultimately our satisfaction and fulfillment can only be found in surrender to Christ, and we see that now more clearly than ever. Follow Through as an album, and a song title expresses the desire of our hearts to make good on the commitments we’ve made to God, to our families, and to everyone else. It’s about learning to live in contentment and faithfulness in whatever situation God places us in.”

“I had felt burned out for a while,” Chad admits, “like I didn’t have anything left to give. The whole process of the last few years had just worn me down. I feel like this record was kind of a resurrection. And with the title track being Follow Through, the theme of finishing as strong as we did in the beginning, has emerged. We’ve found our second wind and now we’re feeling just as much passion and purpose as we did a decade ago before any of us had families, when it was just a bunch of guys traveling cross-country in a beat-up Cadillac, serving people, not worrying about the money or bills or anything; just making music and doing ministry. I think this new album represents a fresh beginning for us spiritually and musically.”

David Dunn

David Dunn

In a world where conformity is often the path of least resistance, singer/songwriter David Dunn has always managed to stand out in a crowd. And considering he grew up with three brothers and two sisters in a city where working in the oil industry is practically a given, that’s really saying something.

Before forging his own path as a musician, however, all roads pointed to a future career in engineering. It wasn’t a move totally out of left field since that’s what David majored in. But as he indulged his inner nerd at Texas Tech University and even enjoyed his studies to a certain degree, David also felt an undeniable pull toward more creative pursuits.

For some music lovers, writing songs and performing is more of a hobby, but for David, an honors student who moonlighted as a singer/songwriter, playing the local acoustic scene in Lubbock only added fuel to his passion. In fact, during his senior year, David seriously upped the ante by recording his first full-length album before heading to Africa for 13 months of humanitarian and missions work.

After what he describes as “probably the biggest growth period of my life,” David returned to the States with a horrible case of malaria and plenty of songwriting fodder. As David tweaked his sound and continued writing about “the things he cared about,” it became increasingly clear that his engineering degree would remain unused.

As it turns out, his persistence in pursuing the road less traveled would pay off. In addition to appearing on TV’s “The Voice,” his music was gaining traction with audiences in a major way, not always the easiest of feats for an independent artist.
And now, with the support of Seattle-based BEC Recordings, Dunn is making his debut on a national stage with Crystal Clear. Culled from nearly 100 songs that were written over two and a half years, Dunn’s main goal is “to tell the truth, and do it in a beautiful way.”

“Two and a half years is a lot of time for me to change as an individual,” David shares. “When I write songs, they are usually about what I’ve been learning. Art is my context for being able to say what’s on my mind, and hopefully, it can help encourage those who are in a similar place in life.”

Gravitating toward big beats with piano or synths surrounding them, Dunn’s music is vibrant, dynamic and instantly memorable. To wit, just when someone thinks he/she may have his formula all figured out, David is quick to throw a curve ball with unorthodox production and musicianship that’s still chock full of catchy pop hooks.

“I want people to almost be jolted by the kick of what we’re trying to do sonically,” David says. “It’s often very difficult to describe what I do. It’s often easier to tell you some of the bands I’m trying to pull from.”
From a songwriting standpoint, Dunn’s turns of phrase are equally affecting. With his first single “Today is Beautiful,” David provides an intriguing snapshot of humanity that was inspired by a trip to Disney World of all places. While visiting every kid’s idea of paradise with his parents, siblings and a gaggle of nieces and nephews, the outing yielded some surprising revelations.

“Their motto is ‘The Happiest Place on Earth,” and every kid should just be thrilled to be there, right? My nephew had been having the best time, but between rides, he had a meltdown because his older sister refused to let him push the stroller with my baby nephew in it,” David recalls. “And because she refused, he just couldn’t take it. He threw himself into a state of absolute misery, just bawling his eyes out and causing a scene.”

Later on that afternoon, David couldn’t help making a correlation between his nephew’s random outburst and the average grown up’s behavior whenever life deals an inconvenient card.

“We, as humanity, do the same thing when we’re going on about our lives, and this little problem comes up. It irks us, and we focus on it so much that it becomes this huge ordeal that puts us in a state of misery that we can’t get over,” David shares. “We neglect to just lift our eyes and see that, in reality, we really are living in Disney World. We are in this place where we have a God who loves and cares about us and wants the best for us. If we can view that problem from His point of view, from an outside perspective, we can see it for what it is, just a stroller that our older sister won’t let us push. It might even be an opportunity for growth.”

With “Nothing Left,” which draws from the C.S. Lewis quote “To love at all is to be vulnerable,” David reflects on the inevitable clash of beauty and pain that comes from truly loving someone the way God does.

“If you look around the world, the number one thing that people think about and talk about and exist to do are relationships,” David shares. “Most of the time if you’re willing to love somebody the way God intended, however, it’s going to be difficult, and you’re really opening up yourself to be squashed. Rather than focusing on the false perception that love is supposed to make me happy, this song is like a hammer. Love is the reason we are here. Love has turned into what makes me feel good, which I think is absolutely ruining relationships across the board.”

Filled with confessional songs that engage both the ear and heart, Dunn’s music, like the artist himself, just can’t help standing out. Drawn from a personal place of reflection and crafted with a creative type’s attention to detail, Crystal Clear is an engaging introduction to an artist who doesn’t pretend to have life and faith all figured out. At the end of the day, however, he still knows where his help comes from, and that’s definitely worth hearing about again and again.

On Monday, August 6th at 7:00 PM – New Creation Events presents Nashville Christian music artists Unspoken.

Don’t miss Unspoken along with David Dunn at the Tioga County Fair!

Bring your youth group, friends and family to enjoy this one incredible concert!!

Unspoken with David Dunn, August 6th at the Tioga County Fair
Fireworks following the concert…

For tickets and more information go to www.newcreationevents.com or call (570) 439-9077.

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