| Family Force 5 (often abbreviated FF5, formerly known as The Phamily and The Brothers) is a Christian crossover crunk rock band from Atlanta, Georgia. According to an interview, Derek Mount stated "There is a major revolution taking place in this thing that we call 'Christian music,' and Family Force 5 is honored to be a part of it."
Family Force 5 has played at Alive Festival, which was their very first festival, as well as Warped Tour, Creation Festival, Lifest, Rock the Light, Joshua Fest, Lifelight Festival, Ichthus Music Festival, Cornerstone Florida, Portable Sounds, Purple Door, NewDay 2006, Nazarene Youth Conference 2007, Elevation 2008 and performed on the Underground stage of Cornerstone Festival in July 2006 and the main stage in 2007. They also played at Rock the Universe in Universal Studios Florida in September 2007. Family Force 5 has appeared on mtvU's "The Freshman Class", DirecTV's CD USA twice (First performing Love Addict, and the second time, Kountry Gentleman), G4's Attack of the Show!, and CBS' The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on 14 July 2006. They have also played a concert on the one hour show "Front Row Live" on Gospel Music Channel.
A 2006 review by Andree Farias in ChristianityToday.com reported that Family Force 5 has "accomplished plenty in short time, amassing a massive army of fans through MySpace and generating buzz among critics and industry professionals."
Musical career
The three leading members of the band, Solomon, Jacob and Joshua, are all three sons of Jerome Olds, a Christian artist from the late 1980s. Growing up around music, the Olds brothers have been involved in it since a very young age. Prior to the formation of Family Force 5, the brothers were members of a "boy band" known as The Brothers, releasing Fact and Reality (1994), and RPM (1995). Both albums were released on Star Song Records, and produced by the brothers' father, Jerome Olds.
Between the Brothers and Family Force 5 the Olds brothers had a band called Ground Noise, which they classified as "a really bad version of Third Day." Before the band chose the name Family Force 5, they had taken on the name "The Phamily". They had to change it later due to copyright issues with Prince's band, The Family.
A decade later, the brothers had teamed up with two friends, Nathan Currin and Derek Mount and taken the aliases Soul Glow Activatur, Crouton, Fatty, Nadaddy, and Chap Stique. The band signed with Maverick Records for distribution to the mainstream market before signing to Gotee Records for the Christian market. The band sought out a dual recording deal in order to better distribute their music to both the mainstream market and the Christian market. According to Solomon Olds, "To me, and pretty much anybody that's under my age, most Christian music is a turnoff. I don't want to be affiliated with that. I want to be affiliated with something that is great music. I feel that Maverick and Gotee together can pull that off."
Family Force along with Xanadu, their stage dancer, Tofu Pup, their merch girl, Ziploc, their manager, and Tub-O, their camera guy and editor have a series of videos called the Really Real Show. They are made for their fan base to keep them updated and give them a laugh or two. You can find these videos on their myspace or on YouTube.
Their debut album has been both disparaged and praised by Christian and non-Christian critics respectively for not containing overtly Christian content in any of its tracks (with the exception of "Peachy", which was apparently written to convert a friend to Christianity and calls God by name). Although "Love Addict," "Supersonic" and "Replace Me" are not necessarily obvious faith-based songs, they are simultaneously praised and criticized by Christian critics for their subtly Christian themes. However, the band often does talk about singing for Jesus during their shows and occasionally one of the members (usually Fatty) leads a prayer at the end of the set.
Family Force 5 has also contributed the song "Mind's Eye" for the compilation album Freaked! A Gotee Tribute to dc Talk's "Jesus Freak". For Christmas, Family Force 5 released a few Christmas-themed audio blogs, two of which ("Christmas Carol Blog" and "Christmas Memories Blog") were available to listen too on their unofficial PureVolume page. They've also recorded "Grandma", a cover of Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer. In March 2007, their debut album was re-released as Business Up Front, Party In The Back: Diamond Edition, which contains three previously unreleased songs. Two of the three songs ("I Love You to Death" and "Never Let Me Go") are available to listen to on their PureVolume. A new unreleased song entitled "Whatcha Gonna Do Wit It" has been made available for download via exclusively at the Wal-Mart music download store as an EP titled Business Up Front/Party In The Back (Diamond Edition) (Exclusive EP). This song will also be made available on a new compilation produced by Gotee Records labeled Hip Hope 2008.
They were the May/June Winner of Yahoo! Music's Who's Next?.
The music video for "Never Let Me Go" was leaked on YouTube on December 9, 2007. It made its world premiere at a Wesleyan convention in Orlando, FL on December 30, 2007.
Family Force 5 debuted a new song titled Fever on the Heart Support Tour at Spring Arbor University. During a pre-concert, informal interview with Soul Glow, he stated that a new album will be released sometime in Fall of 2008.
The music video for "Never Let Me Go" was aired on the bands MySpace video profile March 24, 2008.
Their New Album, an EP entitled Dance or Die, was released on iTunes on June 3, 2008, and previews of their new songs can be heard in concert. There are three songs on the EP; "Dance or Die", "Fever", and "Wake the Dead". Fever" is featured in their most recent concert appearances starting in February where they ended the Heart Support Tour. The Band is currently getting ready for the 2008 Warped Tour.
On June 24, 2008, Tooth & Nail Records released a teaser trailer announcing that the band's new album Dance Or Die would be released on August 19 and that the band had signed with the label.
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