With their 'Liquid Prayers' album out now through Authentic, RIVERDEEP continue to make progress on the UK scene. Steve Perry spoke to the band's Sam Warren.

SW: "No its not quite 'Hosanna singers', no, but the youth are really relating to it and secular kids who don't know the Lord are really enjoying the music and really getting touched by the presence of God. And that really is our whole aim."

SP: So really, the new album is not just a new album, but it's a real new direction for you as a band then.

SW: "Oh, totally, yeah totally!"

SP: Do you find that people have reacted well to that then? Or do some people say "Oh no, I'm not quite sure if that's the right way to go for you."

SW: "Well, we've only had positive reactions. A few people have been very surprised, but to be honest with you we know that this is what God has called us to do so, you know, we're not really being shaken at all. We know where we're going with the music you know, and we're enjoying doing it. Certainly from a songwriting point of view it's a lot stronger than the last album, so yeah, we're very pleased."

SP: So there's been a difference in emphasis, has there been a difference in style in the music?

SW: "It's slightly heavier - a bit more rocky than the last album."

SP: Do you find that kind of affects people listening to you, because again there is this kind of underlying thing that we ought to be nice in worship.

SW: "Yeah, but worship's about power as well isn't it? It's not overly heavy in the sense that it would be too heavy to worship to, although some people probably could worship to some real nu-metal. It's not nu-metal type, it's just heavy rock really. When we started to record the album we actually had to re-record a load of it because it was a bit too heavy we thought. It's been a bit fiddly trying to find a balance and we think we've managed to hit that pretty well."

SP: Have you got any gigs planned for the summer?

SW: "At the moment we've got these events that we're putting on every six weeks, down our neck of the woods and they're taking up a lot of the time, in terms of advertising and the whole multi-media side of things - it's a lot of work! We've got a few events coming up, we're going to France soon and we're doing all that kind of stuff. We're doing a lot of gigs outside of England actually at the moment, 'cos four out of the five members of the band speak fluent French and Spanish."

SP: Wow! Does that include you?

SW: "Yes, I speak fluent Spanish. My wife's Spanish. Actually, we're trying to not to too many gigs this summer because my wife's expecting a baby, and that takes priority over the music. We believe that our families should always take precedence over the music we do. It's all about a testimony of how we live out our Christian life, and so we've got kids who are following the Lord and stuff like that, and we've come from Christian backgrounds and we've all managed to get through that difficult patch in our lives and keep following the Lord. So, we really want to promote that as much as anything else with our music. 'Cos at the end of the day it's God who raises up people, we can try and do as much marketing as we like, but you know God's got to help along the way hasn't he?"