Introduction

I’m Rebecca, I’m the oldest, and I play the guitar!

Hi, my name is Alyssa, I am the middle child in BarlowGirl and I play bass, keyboard, and I sing half the lead vocals.

My name is Lauren, I’m the baby. I play the drums and sing half the lead vocals, too.


I’m wondering about the title of your new album Another Journal Entry. Does this album relate with any of your personal journal entries?

Alyssa: Yea, this is the biggest question we got this year. “You know how you girls write your own songs?…” Yea, every single one of them definitely comes from our journal entries. It’s just different experiences we’ve gone through and different ones we’ve struggled through. Coming into the second album, we wrote in the same way. For us, this album is really just like another journal entry.

The first album covered the themes: choosing God, sexual purity, not dating. What main themes does this album cover?

Alyssa: Anti-compromise is the theme that we really dove pretty hard into on the second album. There is a verse in Revelations- I desire to be hot or cold, not lukewarm (Revelations 3:16), and this was a very big verse in our lives this year.

Another concept that we dove into this year is broken-heartedness. “Porcelain Heart” is a song that deals a lot with that.

You put a few recognizable worship songs in your new album, including Chris Tomlin's "Enough.” Is there any particular reason why you added worship songs in there?

Alyssa: For us girls, ever since we started off, we have taken some time out in the middle of concerts, and we just break it down and do worship. We share a lot and talk a lot. And we just feel like we need to get the people a chance to respond. We wanted a chance to stop as a body to worship God.

”Enough” and “No One Like You” are two songs that people have been really asking for a lot while we’ve been touring for about a year and a half. They really enjoyed it when we played it, and coming to the second album, we just really felt that the response of the people was so big on the songs, and we decided it should be part of our second album.

Both of the songs say a lot of what us girls try to communicate through our own songs.

How do you feel about going mainstream?

Alyssa: It’s so funny. It’s one of those things that are funny for us. We never expected that. We never pursued it- in a way. We always thought, ‘we will go where God leads us.’ We never thought mainstream would be a door that will be open to us. So we get calls from the label saying, “You’re the free download this week on i-Tunes!” or “you’re going "Yahoo!,” “you’re going to these places…“
When it happens, you’re just like, “Wow, God, You’re so much bigger than what we’ve even planned for our own lives.” It’s exciting, but it’s also a big responsibility at the same time. As artists, we must check up on ourselves, “God are we doing this for You, or for us?” There are many different things that we really have to stay in check. Yea, but its’ been really exciting.

How do three sisters come about finding their role in the band? Obviously you sync well in your roles.

Alyssa: It was a must in the Barlow household, to be a Barlow, you must know how to play piano, so we actually started at age 7 with piano lessons. Mom and Dad said, we could teach ourselves any instrument we want, but first it has to be piano.

So…

When Becca was 16, she started to learn the guitar. This was something she was just drawn into. My dad comes from a family with 14 kids, and all of them know how to play the guitar. So Barlow get-togethers are just huge- everyone brings their guitars and everyone sings. So Becca just wanted to be able to play guitar during the family get-togethers. She just picked one up- because there are so many guitars around the house- and started to teach herself.

When Lauren was 15, 16 maybe? We were at a church one day, and my dad was a musician so we were playing some of the kid songs he has written for our church up in Chicago, and she caught sight of a drum set, and literally sat down and could play a beat. Never had a lesson, the ADD (attention deficit disorder) really kicks, which is really a blessing for her. She just sat down and would just sing and play- because she was a singer first. This is something she really enjoyed doing.

I (Alyssa) was actually the keyboard player for the band. My dad played the bass for us when we were first BarlowGirl. And then my dad convinced us that having your dad in a girl band is not a cool thing. ‘You girls have to learn how to do this as a three-piece.’ And he said, ‘Alyssa, I want you to learn the bass.’ We had a show in five or six days. And my dad said ‘play this weekend for your show and see how you enjoy it.’ So I did, and I said, ‘Yea I think I could do this!’ That’s kinda how it happened. We were all kind of drawn to it. Now I split- bass and keyboard.

How has being part of the band allowed you to grow spiritually?

Alyssa- For me, being on the road has challenged me to grow, and the stories that we hear when we are off stage, that we get through e-mails. In different ways, people have been coming up saying, “I’m struggling here and I’m feeling like this… I heard one of your songs and it really challenged me.” And that really wakes you up as an artist –
“Omg, it’s not really about writing a song. It’s about God using you and using you as a tool to somehow impact someone’s life.”
This really forces me to grow spiritually. Because I go “God, take me deeper. Do what You need to do in my life, so that what I bring to the table, what I bring night after night can hopefully be used to impact someone’s life.”
That’s what matters. It’s not about having a #1 song, or having any kind of success. It’s truly about being used to impact a world. That’s what it is- That is what forces me and encourages me to go deeper in my walk.

Lauren- I would definitely say, being on the road, it kind of forced me to grow up. Just how I have to take God more seriously in my life. It’s a tough road… it really just made me grow spiritually. And it’s crazy… I’m still growing in this walk.

Becca– Honestly, it has stretched me beyond how I thought I could ever be stretched. I am an introvert, and melancholy. It’s very interesting how God has called me to do something that is opposite of my personality.
It’s a daily struggle of getting enough time with the Lord, and to be by myself so I could go out to minister to people. Its amazing to see how refreshing God is. The more that we need, the more He fulfills.








Interviewed by Michael Manny
michaelm@breathecast.com