Grammy-Nominated Band Closes First Fridays Concert Series
The Owensboro riverfront was fully alive on August 2nd. Not only did music fill the air from multiple stages while crowds filled the streets along the “mile of music” at Friday After 5, but Grammy-nominated Sanctus Real also performed on the outdoor stage behind the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum to close out the 2024 season of the First Fridays concert series.
The First Fridays Contemporary Christian Music concert series is a unique offering for the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Presented on the Michael Horn Family Foundation Outdoor Stage, the series is an annual, family-friendly event made free for the entire community thanks to a long list of generous donors.
Sarah Kroger and Jordan St. Cyr headlined shows in June and July, but it was long-time chart toppers Sanctus Real who closed out the First Fridays series in August.
Just after sound check, singer Dustin Lolli and guitarist Chris Rohman sat down with Owensboro Living at a table on the third floor riverview room overlooking the lawn as a few early fans began unfolding lawn chairs and spreading blankets near the front of the stage.
The guys seemed relaxed and unhurried, giving me their full attention as we talked, but they were clearly energized and confidently ready to take the stage for the crowd that was steadily gathering below us.
We talked through the band’s 20+ years of touring and grinding, all the while amassing 24 radio hits and exceeding 750,000+ album sales. We also dove deep into their rebuilding year of 2016 and what it was like to basically start over. That was the year original lead singer, Matt Hammitt, decided to leave the band to spend more time with his family, which left the two remaining original members Mark Graalman (drums) and Chris Rohman to do some soul searching of their own. In that same timeframe, Chris and Mark also ended a longtime partnership with their label and began a search for a new booking agent.
“We started this band in our parents’ basement and never knew we’d get this far,” Chris shared. “When Matt left, Mark and I just started praying and waiting to see what God had planned for us.”
Luckily, they soon found former worship leader Dustin Lolli, who instinctively brought a creative influence to the band and a much more soulful vocal delivery than the band had before. The trio dove right into the next phase of the band’s career by writing, recording, and revealing their new sound to the world with their 2018 album Changed, which featured the breakout hit “Confidence.”
Since then, the radio hits kept coming with “Unstoppable God,” “Today, Tomorrow and Forever,” and many more that were blasted to the crowd on August 2nd. Later, after our pre-show interview, the band tastefully kicked off the show with a medley of the band’s pre-2016 hits to pay homage to their past, then settled in to their current sound and passionately delivered a message of hope, faith, and perseverance through song.
Here’s what Dustin and Chris had to share with OL readers:
OL – On a night like tonight, at an outdoor festival, do you feel a different energy from your vantage point on stage compared to a show in an indoor venue?
Dustin – At an outdoor concert or festival like this, I don’t expect to get the same energy as we do in an indoor show because people are sitting in their chairs, it’s hot, some people are up and moving around. They’re not here just to see you and packed right up against the stage like they would be at an indoor concert. But at the same time, I’ve been very shocked before, so I try not to come in with expectations. I try to be very aware of the audience; whether it’s a CCM (contemporary Christian music) audience or we’re playing at a church or at a festival, because if I know there’s a lot of people around that might not know Jesus then I try to present a much more welcoming vibe from the stage in how I speak and interact. So I try to feel it out from the stage and treat each night according to what it needs.
Chris – We usually can tell in the first few songs. We sense it and we can respond to it.
Dustin – Yeah, it’s an awareness. I can’t put it into words easily, but for me, the prayer is just to make every night unique. You don’t know what people think or believe, or where they’ve come from. So the prayer is to just be sensitive, but also be honest with ourselves, and not get into such a routine show that it’s the same exact thing night after night and there’s no value to it. I don’t want to get into this mode where I’m just doing a concert.
OL – That makes sense because your band is a ministry, but it’s music. It’s music that is ministry. Each Christian band handles that balance in their own way.
Chris – Yea. I would say some bands are artists first. But I think Dustin coming from the church world, being a worship leader, that’s part of the gig. You’re there to be aware of what people’s needs are and how the Holy Spirit is leading you. We’ve toured with plenty of bands who stick to a script. But in these types of events like tonight, we are attentive to what’s happening.
Dustin – I think the challenge for us is when you have a song that’s out there, then all of a sudden you start hearing all the ways God has used a song to change people’s lives. That’s very humbling. But you also start to realize that people look at you differently. That can be dangerous in some ways if you don’t take that seriously. So for me, it was like, if we’re already ministering to people through the music, then I don’t want to let people down in my own life. I’ve always been in ministry so that was easier for me. What was harder for me was learning how to put on a show – to play well and perform well. That was harder for me because I was a music pastor first. It comes naturally to me because I did it for so long. But for me the most important part is allowing every night to be different because every crowd is different. There might be somebody here tonight that we can speak into their life. We take that seriously.
OL – Chris, do you and Mark view it as “phase one” and “phase two” of Sanctus Real? And how does the grind of getting to where you were in 2016 compare to the blur of 2016 until now?
Chris – It is remarkable to look back and remember what it was like in those different seasons – recording our first album, hearing our first song on the radio. Then the tours. Then you get to a point with version A of the band we could have thought “This is it. We’ve done it. That’s all there is.” But we started when we were teenagers, and I couldn’t help but feel there was still more for us. It didn’t click to me that we were done. For me, it felt like God has given us these abilities and the experience of all those years. It takes countless hours of writing, honing, and grinding to get where we were then. So it would have felt like a loss to think “well that was good, but this is done.” For Mark and I, we just had to keep going.
But looking back now, though, that first year with Dustin, all the effort it took in that first year was like starting over. We had to make new connections. Get people to believe in us again with the new guy. Write good music. Figure out a way to pay for it. We have to support our families. What a daunting process. But I didn’t feel overwhelmed. I felt like we were on a mission. It was very clear to me that we were supposed to do it. It just wasn’t clear how. I give all the credit to God. The way Dustin came into the band. The way He saw us through.
Now there’s so much joy in what we do. Even when it is a grind, it is joyful. We knew the first time we sat down to write with Dustin there was compatibility. We knew there was chemistry, so we knew there was enough hope to give it a shot.
Dustin – Those first two and a half years were brutal. When “Confidence” came out, that was the turning point.
OL – Dustin, what’s your personal favorite “Matt” (early Sanctus Real) song to sing?
Dustin – “Forgiven.” It’s fun. We’ve always kept that in our show. We’ll play that tonight. We’ll do about 20% of the older songs. When I started it was about 80/20 old to new. Now it’s about 80/20 new to old. People make the comparison between old and new Sanctus more than we ever do. I think one of the genius things Mark and Chris did was choosing someone who didn’t sound like Matt at all. So for me, it wasn’t like trying to fit Matt’s style. The way I sing is different. My voice is different. My cadence is different. And they’ve always told me to sing how I sing, not like it sounded then.
OL – How do you as men of faith keep yourself spiritually healthy while you’re on the road?
Dustin – For me, I feel the weight of wanting to give my best. That forces me before every show to lock in to what I’ve been called to do. I’m not one to say I’ve got to read this much scripture or spend this amount of time in prayer every day. I approach it more like staying present with God all the time. There’s an awareness that God is with me, so I try to look at every moment as prayer. I try to be intentional about living like Jesus every day in my interactions with people, rather than a set devotion. Am I living like Jesus? Am I aware of Him? I try to keep that in mind even when I’m exhausted.
Chris – For me, it’s a reminder that we’re here to serve. Because when we’re on the road, we get served so much. So I try to remember that we’re here to serve people. And this is how we do that. We have the opportunity to share something that maybe somebody has never heard before. So I try to remind myself that dying to self is really important. This isn’t about me. I try to find those quiet moments to steal away and give it to God and remind myself that we’re here for God. We’re here to serve. Not the other way around. Easier said than done sometimes. But you know when you’re up on stage and you’ve lost sight of that. You can tell. We have to help each other. We have good people with us and that makes a huge difference when it gets tough.
OL – Is there one song the crowd always responds to? Or is it different each night as far as the crowd’s reaction?
Dustin – “Confidence” and “Our God is Still the Same” are the two radio songs that usually get a crowd reaction. But we’ve been surprised lately about songs that have done well on streaming that didn’t get played on the radio. That’s been interesting.
There are times when certain songs will do better in certain radio markets, and we can tell. One time we played in Canada, and they played a song in their market that wasn’t even in our set because it hadn’t done well here. So the promoter told us we should do it because it was our biggest song in Canada, and we had no idea.
OL – Anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
Chris – By the time this issue hits stands, our new single “Feels to be Free” will be out, which is a collaboration with hip hop artist Steven Malcolm. Also, we’re now supporting ourselves independently (without a record label) with the help of a strong management team and some really good distribution partners. We have our own publishing now, which is really exciting for us.
