Needtobreathe makes it through the wasteland

June 3, 2014 at 12:05a.m.

Bands oftentimes use subtext to wear their hearts on their sleeves.

Take for instance Christian rock/alternative band Needtobreathe, which depending on the night can be found covering Modest Mouse’s “Float On” or Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me.” On the surface the popular tunes are an easy way to get audiences excited, but the selections represent a deeper meaning to the trio, which first broke into Christian radio nearly a decade ago.

In both cases, the songs are about letting go and standing together. “Float On” represents the band members floating on like a twig on the shoulders of a mighty stream. As for “Stand By Me,” the classic is about the group overcoming adversity that almost led to Needtobreathe calling it quits.

“We almost broke up during the process of making our new record [‘Rivers in the Wasteland’],” said bassist Seth Bolt, calling from Charleston, S.C. “There were a couple of months where we just stopped talking to each other. That was pretty tough. We kind of decided if we couldn’t do it a different way, we were going to hang it up.”

He added that the pressures of continued mainstream success — or material success — presented the spiritual-based Needtobreathe with hypocrisies and personal agendas.

“I like to think our motives when we started the band were very pure and then the more and more we wanted to chase success, we sort of lost touch with that,” Bolt said. “We just found ourselves not being happy.”

Originally the band’s latest album was going to be titled “Wasteland,” but once the group convened to write the material, it soon felt a renewed vigor and creative focus that belied the wasteland mindset. Instead, the Needtobreathe band members felt as though they could ride “Rivers in the Wasteland” out of the darkness.

The result finds songs about redemption (“Rise Again”) and friendship (“Brother”). Keeping the former and latter themes in mind, that’s where “Float On” and “Stand By Me” come into play.

So far, Christian audiences are enjoying what they’re hearing from the new album with top 20 hits “The Heart,” “Difference Maker,” “State I’m In” and “Wasteland.” Fans can hear those tunes, as well as the group’s hit-laden catalog, tonight at Stage AE in Pittsburgh, and Thursday at House of Blues in Cleveland.

The one area that still plagues Needtobreathe is the fact that despite its Dove Award-friendly tunes, a large amount of alternative-rock fans dismiss the group because of its spirituality.

“I feel like that’s a misrepresentation of what we do,” Bolt said. “Unfortunately, I feel like there are a lot of negative stereotypes that go along with that label. Some people don’t give us a chance, but there’s nothing we can really do about that.”

Whereas at one time the Needtobreathe members would let this get to them, these days they’re feeling like a twig on the shoulders of a mighty stream. Now, all this band does is “Float On.”