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Thursday October 16th, 2003

Hot Christian trio ZOEgirl to play Epiphone acoustic guitars on tour

ZOEgirl, an all-woman Christian contemporary trio, stopped by Epiphone recently and demo'ed a variety of acoustic guitars to take on the road with them while headlining the current Gibson-sponsored ShoutFest tour and their own upcoming tour in spring 2004. ZOEgirl members Alisa Girard, Kristin Swinford and Chrissy Conway have the current No. 1 single on the Christian contemporary chart, "You Get Me." Their new album for Sparrow Records, Different Kind of Free, was released September 16 and debuted at No. 2 on Billboard's "Heatseekers" chart, spending three weeks in the Top 5.

Girard, Swinford and Conway have been writing songs and recording together nearly four years. The guitar-driven pop and groove-laden R&B group met through a family friend of Girard's and they felt a musical connection almost immediately. "He saw that there was a void in the [Christian] industry for a group like ours, so he called me with the idea," Girard recalls. "He introduced Kristin and I in Nashville, and we just hit it off and knew that this was the right thing. This random mutual friend gave us Chrissy's number, and so Kristin gave her a call and she came out. From that point on, we started writing and working on the first record. We literally went into the studio a couple days after we met."

Kristin, Alisa and Chrissy with their new Epi's

Alisa and Kristin played Sigma acoustic guitars while growing up. Alisa has also played Takamine, but she believes her new Epiphone PR-6E Quilt is just what she needs in her home studio. "I've been trying to record with my guitar and it just sounds bad. I'm so excited to get a good sound in there," she laughs. Kristin will play a EJ-300S on the road, while Chrissy selected a EF-500 RA to accompany her.

ZOEgirl has released three studio albums, their self-titled 2000 debut, their sophomore album Life in 2001 and their current release, as well as a remix record, selling over a million albums to date. They were awarded the 2002 New Artist of the Year at the 33rd Annual Gospel Music Assocation's Dove Awards. Alisa, an L.A. native, played guitar and piano as a teenager. Kristin, who grew up in Jackson, Missouri, was trained in classical voice and piano. Both majored in music while in college. Chrissy, who hails from Mt. Ephrain, New Jersey, took voice and music theory. They each bring their own musical tastes and talents to the group.

"I really like rock and kind of poetic singer/songwriter type music. Kristin loves that as well," Alisa says. "I love jazzier type of things, too, although I would never claim to be a jazz musician," Kristin adds. "We write so many different ways. I have more of an R&B influence, so I do 'hookier' types of songs," Chrissy explains. "Lyrically I think they're a little deeper. My strong point is melodic stuff." Her strong point, indeed - ASCAP honored Conway with one of their top airplay writer awards for the ZOEgirl hit single, "With All Of My Heart." It was one of the 25 most performed Christian songs of 2002.

The group has a common goal: ministering to girls through their music. They receive lots of fan mail from troubled teens and even elementary school-age girls, who feel pressure to conform to values portrayed in the media that are often confusing to them. "We get a lot of letters from girls, and they really don't have a good opinion of themselves, or they're not confident or they have a warped view of who and what they are," Kristin explains. "They've compared themselves to an image that they feel like they don't measure up to. We speak to that as best we can, and try to drop in things [in our songs] that we go through."

Their song "Plain," from their album Life is one that has inspired fans as young as 7 years old; it deals with the painful issue of self-esteem. While Kristin was writing it, Alisa and Chrissy were not sure it would work for them musically, but she kept coming back with different versions of the song until one of them clicked with the ZOEgirl sound.

"It turned out to be one of the most successful songs as far as reaching people; we got the most letters on that song, and people we'd meet at concerts would say that the song really touched them," Alisa comments. "People are in such desperate need for someone to simply say, 'I understand.' It talks about how we all feel plain at times, but God made you beautiful just as you are. It's like the principal in the Bible that says, 'Cry with those who cry.' If you validate what they're feeling, then they can try to find a solution from there," she concludes.

"We've seen our fan base expanding to older girls and guys," Chrissy adds. "Our music, as much as it's helping the girls, it's helping the parents as well to talk to their kids about tough issues."

Two years ago ZOEgirl took a mission trip with 300 other American girls to Caracas, Venezuela for five days, and it was so inspirational to them that they made a similar trip the following summer to Ecuador for 14 days. The experience had a major impact on their music: "You think you're going there to build houses and to minister to orphans, but what you end up doing is getting ministered to by these girls. That really helped shape where we went with our records," Alisa says. "We got to spend days with these girls. That was really inspiring as far as where we went lyrically."

"We are so fortunate in this country and when I came back here, I had a whole new outlook on life and what we have here," Chrissy says. "We have paradise, even the smallest house is like a mansion over there. They had nothing, but they were completely content and completely happy."

The girls will embark on their first major headlining tour in the spring with Christian acts Superchick, Joy Williams and inspirational speaker Susie Shallenberger from Brio magazine. It's the first time they've put a tour together from the ground up, Chrissy says, and they couldn't be happier. For now, they continue to tour with co-headliners Tait and Skillet on the ShoutFest tour through the end of October.

In their time together, ZOEgirl has made big strides as a band, although it hasn't been easy at times. "It's taken 2-3 years to figure out our audience and what the ZOEgirl sound is. We've had a common mission and goal as far as our lyrics go, but now we're really settled into that group identity," Alisa explains confidently. "We've always gotten along very well because of our faith and our belief system. We've come into our adulthood as a group now - the group was a baby four years ago."