LOS ANGELES, CA (ANS) -- Singer David Crowder was once described as “a lanky 32-year-old with a cartoon character-inspired hairdo,” by Lane Murphy writing in the Summer 2008 Baylor Magazine (www.baylor.edu/alumni/magazine).

David Crowder performing

Murphy added, “His tall frame, spiky hair and bushy goatee have become iconic symbols of the electric authenticity that exudes from Crowder and his band.”

Now, four years on from when this was written, this tall, affable musician, who until recently led what was called “David Crowder Band”, has gone solo, as I discovered when I talked with him last Saturday (September 8, 2012) before he went on stage at the Harvest Crusade LA with Greg Laurie.

However, at this event, he was joined by a group of talented musicians for his performance.

I began by asking Crowder how many Harvest crusades he had played at and he smiled and replied, “Well I’m no math doctor, so it’s hard to count, but I think this would be number five that I have been a part of and I’ve loved every moment.”

I then talked about the fact that his award-winning band is no longer with him, and so I asked him what had happened.

“It sounds kind of complicated, does it not?” he laughed, and then added, “Yeah, for twelve years we were a band and we got our start at a little church in Waco, Texas, and it was wonderful. We had a couple of contracts that we went through with the label and by the time we got to the end of the second one we were looking at each other and felt is was time for something new. It was as simple as that. We just we all felt like God was taking us to do something different.

Bono

“And so four of the guys have started a new band called The Digital Age, while another is working with the ONE campaign, which was started by U2’s Bono, and is all about the elimination of poverty and AIDS in Africa. So he’s making trips to DC and talking to congressmen and women and he’s just loving life.

“And then there’s me; and I’m out on my own. We’re going to get a little solo thing going here in the future and we’ll see what happens.”

How would you describe the sort of music you’re doing now?

David Crowder (in the red hat) performing with a band at Dodger Stadium

“It’s much more than we were doing with the David Crowder Band which was very electronic based -- computer based – music,” he explained. “I have just gone a one-eighty, with very traditional instrumentation, upright bass, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, cello -- that kind of thing and we’ll build from there I’ll see what happens. I’ll have to twist it along the way but for now we’re trying to get our roots back on the ground.”

Would it be like a country style?

“Well that creeps in as I’m from Texas and I can’t help it,” he chuckled. “But it’s basically pop songs with new instrumentation on top of it at this point. So we’ll see where it’s going but, at the moment, I can’t tell you.”

Part of the 30,000 crowd on Saturday night

As we were speaking, about 30,000 people were moving into Dodger Stadium, so I asked him if got intimidated by playing before such large audiences.

“I would say it is almost the opposite,” Crowder said. “You see, if there’s a room full of just five people, I’m terrified. But when you get that many folks as we have here tonight, I think there’s so much about it that’s almost Old Testament to me? The Children of Israel would come together once a year for these massive festivals and I think there’s some sort of power there’s that is translated through this.

“There’s this encouragement; that you can’t help but soak it in when you have my view of a thing and it’s pretty beautiful. So it goes the opposite direction and I only get wound up when there are just a few people.”

At the end of the two nights at Dodger Stadium, there was a total of 5,936 in-stadium professions and so I asked David Crowder what it did to him at the end of the evening to see so many people come forward to accept Christ into their lives?

“As I have said earlier, I’ve been a part of about five of these now, and each time I’m blown away to see so many people respond to the Story of God,” he said. “It’s so rare to watch that many people be engaged by the Story of God and then respond and you see this flow of humanity onto the field. It’s just wonderful. Talk about encouraging -- that’s encouraging.”

I concluded the interview with this delightful man before he left for the stage, by asking him if he had any albums in the pipeline, and he replied, “Oh no, we have got nothing right now. We’re biding our time. I’m not getting in a hurry and I’m just trying to pray for light enough for the next step and the courage to take it, and we’ll get there when we need to get there.”

It wasn't long before David Crowder and his musicians had the crowd on their feet dancing and clapping along to his wonderful music. And, of course, his eyes clouded up later when the mass of humanity began to move forward at the end of Greg Laurie's sermon to make the greatest committment of their life -- to Jesus Christ.

* I would like to thank Robin Frost for transcribing this interview.

Note to the broadcast media. I am making available the MP 3 audio file of this interview for broadcast only. If you would like to receive it, just e-mail me at: danjuma1@aol.com and give your name and your station or network and also which country you are based in and I will send it to you.

Dan Wooding, 71, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 49 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and he hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on the KWVE Radio Network in Southern California and which is also carried throughout the United States and around the world. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries. Dan recently received two top media awards -- the “Passion for the Persecuted” award from Open Doors US, and as one of the top “Newsmakers of 2011” from Plain Truth magazine. He is the author of some 45 books, the latest of which is “Caped Crusader: Rick Wakeman in the 1970s.” To order a copy, go to: http://www.amazon.com/CAPED-CRUSADER-Rick-Wakeman-1970s/dp/1908728302/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335474883&sr=1-1 .