Copious Notes

Wilmore-based Rookie is Landon Cunningham, Abe Parker and Grant Ebright. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.

WILMORE — The trio Rookie did a lot of the right things when they started performing together.

They picked bandmates they liked hanging out with. They defined a sort of jazzy edge to their sound that they say makes them different from most other Christian rock acts. They jettisoned a meaningless name, Auburn, for one that said something: Rookie, they say, is a commentary on the clumsiness with which most people go about their faith.

And they got the director of the Ichthus Festival to come see their show.

OK, that last element isn’t necessarily part of the prescription for most bands. And a few years ago, it might not have yielded much.

Kevin Young of Disciple performs on the main stage at Ichthus on the festival.

But, while Ichthus’ calling card is still chart-topping international Christian bands such as Skillet and Family Force 5, Kentucky musicians have had a growing role in the festival, whether it’s competitors in the fest’s 3-year-old battle of the bands, local rockers invited to perform on secondary stages, area church leaders playing during late-afternoon worship sessions, or the occasional national artist who resides right here in the Bluegrass.

“My family got to come out,” Disciple frontman and Central Kentucky resident Kevin Young said of the band’s Thursday main-stage set. “That’s why I like Ichthus a lot, because I actually get to do this and my family is close by. My daughter is 81/2 months old, and yesterday was her first Disciple concert. I didn’t get to see her face, but my wife said she was kicking a lot, so apparently she liked the music.”

The biggest concentration of local talent was earlier that day on the worship stage where bands competed in the third annual Ascenxion Scout Competition. The first year of the competition, three bands were selected in an online competition to play Ichthus stages. The past two years, the competition’s finals have been live the opening morning of the festival, meaning even if they don’t advance, all the competitors can say they played Ichthus.

They included 16-year-old Radfordville resident Allison Stafford, who said when she saw Christian rocker’s BarlowGirl at Ichthus two years ago, “I decided I wanted to do that.”

Playing a festival like Ichthus gives local acts, as well as other less familiar bands, a chance for people to run across their music as opposed to concerts or club dates, where a lot of people who come are already familiar with the band.

“We got a really good crowd response,” Landon Cunningham, Rookie’s drummer, said the day after their Friday set on the Edge Stage. “It’s great that they are providing this kind of opportunity to local bands,” he added, noting some other area acts such as Wilmore’s Shane Tracy Project also got moments in the spotlight.

A few locals even got main-stage shots: The Lee Roessler Band, which won the Ascenxion Scout Competition, and Lexington’s Too Many Drummers, which got there via another competition.

But possibly the most prominent local musicians on the Ichthus stage this year were area worship leaders who led devotional times late each afternoon.

Amaris Blevins sang with the worship "all-star team," at Ichthus on June 12.

A group from Quest Community Church and then a worship “all-star team” — comprising musicians from churches such as Southland Christian, Centenary United Methodist and Southern Acres — took the stage in the evenings, where nationally known artists used to play.

“It’s different from church,” said Amaris Blevins, a singer at Southland who was part of the team. “It was a lot more people and a different energy from church.”

And while the worship all-star team isn’t looking for a recording contract the way bands might, the musicians did appreciate the opportunity.

“I like that they’re getting more locals involved,” Jonathan Mckeowen, a guitarist with the group, said. “It used to be kind of hard to get in here.”

Ichthus CEO Merk Vermilion (left, 10 oclock) interviews Disciple (Kevin Young, Israel Beachy, Andrew Welch and Tim Barrett) for an Ichthus podcast. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.

Disciple frontman Kevin Young met and married a Kentucky girl, so the band’s two Ichthus sets — Thursday afternoon on the main stage and Friday night at the Deep End — were home gigs for him.

Disciple

“My family got to come out,” Young said Friday afternoon. “That’s why I like Ichthus a lot, because I actually get to do this and my family is close by. My daughter is eight-and-a-half months old, and yesterday was her first Disciple concert. I didn’t get to see her face, but my wife said she was kicking a lot, so apparently she liked the music.”

Disciple’s two gigs at Ichthus were prime examples to the band of how much its fan base has changed over the past few years.

“If you come to one of our gigs, you’ll see a 60-year-old guy, and a 12-year-old guy,” Young says. “It doesn’t matter: guys with punk rock haircuts, guys with heavy metal hair cuts, guys in polo shirts, eight-year-old girls in Hannah Montana shirts — very diverse.”

It’s quite a diverse audience for a band that started out aiming for rebellious teenage boys that like heavy metal music.

“We basically wanted to play music that they thought was good so we could share our faith with them,” Young says. “That’s what minister to me meant as a kid, listening to Christian bands: their music was amazing, but they had an uncompromising message talking about their faith in Christ. With Christian rock music in my teenage years, I definitely know it had a huge impact on my relationship with Christ and a huge impact on why we do what we do.”

What Disciple is doing now is working on a new album and, “it has been a lot of fun. We’re having a blast writing songs and everything is going really well,” Young says.

Blast may be a really appropriate term.

The album’s tentative title is Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, referring to the Southern-ism that close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades.

And Young is entitled to use Southernisms. He is, after all, a Kentuckian now.