Nothing Regal is the praise and worship band for Lakeland Community Church in Cumming, Georgia.

As for our approach to church music, we not only play popular praise and worship songs from other songwriters, but also write original worship music that reflects the grace-focused and relation-based culture of the church (it's hard to find a morality-cop on duty in the foyer). As a part of our intent to be "in the world and not of it" we readily admit that we're not big fans of a lot of so-called Christian music, and we really, really like to inject our worship sets with bits of spiritual truth from the O'Jays, Pete Townshend, Lifehouse, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Johnny Cash, The Youngbloods, Collective Soul, Stevie Wonder, John Hiatt, Bob Dylan, U2, and CCR (among others). Trust me, you haven't had church until your heard the congregation singing "Love Train" or "Shine" at the top of their lungs.

In addition to the groups mentioned above, our influences don't come so much from the contemporary praise and worship culture, but instead they come from classic rock and roll artists who have had a longstanding career of being able to speak the language of the common person. (That's not to say, however, that we don't enjoy a good praise and worship jam by Derek Webb, Todd Agnew, or Chris Tomlin every now and then either.) Songwriters like Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, John Cougar, the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Bob Marley, and U2 have managed to remain enjoyed and loved by so many for so long because they have a natural ability to translate truth and longing into everyday speak and not wrap it in "smarter than thou" artsiness that has everyday folks scratching their heads.

We want to do the same with praise and worship music and take it out of the lofty, esoteric realm to bring it down to the place where all are equal at the feet of Jesus, all are just as dirty and stained as everyone else, and all can understand in basic simplicity this beautiful thing called grace we are allowed and encouraged to live in -- and to come to appreciate and love and honor the God who gives such grace to everyday people.

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