Lee Marie and David Hostetter: Well, thanks Jenny! *laughs*

David: Well, to be honest, he sang on this one! See if you can hear it if you listen to it! But if you mean, "Is Seth ever going to sing an amazing Ringo Starr, 'Yellow Submarine' solo?" well, that'll be entirely up to him!

Lee Marie: One time, we were playing this show with some friends of ours and we were on stage playing "Fond of Dying" and I'm singing into the mic and I see out of the corner of my eye - I don't know what's going on, but one of the guys in this other band has this girl with him and he's standing back behind the stage a little bit and he kind of pushes her up the steps and pushes her onto the stage. And she just walks onto the middle of the stage and just stands in front of my amp. I don't know who this girl is and she's just standing on the stage. Like in the middle of the stage, not on the side! And I was just like "What?! What's going on?? Uh..." And I'm wondering, "Is it her birthday or something?" *laughter*

David: "It must be her birthday, uhhhh....?!?!" *laughter*

Lee Marie: So she just kept standing there and finally I had to go over and, like, push her off. And then halfway through the next song I noticed she was off the stage.

David: What show was that at?

Lee Marie: I dunno. Some outdoor festival thing where it had all those white kittens and we all tried to see who could drink a bottle of water fastest?

David: I think I won, didn't I?

Lee Marie: I think Steve won but he cheated, so it was probably you.

Seth Hostetter: He spilled. ... Once, I was doing a drum solo at this festival and totally just dropped the stick right in the middle of it. It was really embarrassing.

Lee Marie: I don't even remember that!

Seth: Good!

Lee Marie: It couldn't have been that bad.

Seth: It was pretty bad. I just stopped! *laughing*

David: Think anybody noticed?

Seth: Yeah. Then I grabbed another stick and just finished.

Lee Marie: Everybody was probably like, "Man, that was AWESOME!" *laughs*

David: Well, we did the record in Nashville. And in Nashville, Tennessee, there's this church called The Anchor Fellowship that we always go to. They always pray for us... hear from God... give us encouraging words. So that happened more than once while we were down there. So that was neat. It wasn't the easiest time - I mean, don't get me wrong. Making records is SWEET! But, y'know, got some encouraging words from the guys. Thanks Josh and Dave and everybody at The Anchor.

Seth: I would say just the fact that we came out with the record that we did and it's a complete project. It's totally God, cuz we went into the studio with seven or eight songs - not near enough. And we had a lot of time to write and nothing was coming. We were just praying and trusting God to come through. And we came up with some really great stuff that we love while we were in the studio, which is a new experience for us. And so, I mean, a lot of prayer went into this record, and He came through and gave us the songs that we neeeded to complete this project.

Seth: *laughing* Star Trek? Isn't that a movie that just came out or something?

Lee Marie: *laughing* What's that?

David: *laughing* I SAW that movie! It was funny! I saw it in Nashville.

Seth: *laughing* Isn't there some guy named "Spock" or something?!

Lee Marie: *pointing to Seth* You were watching it that one time and I was trying to go to sleep.

Seth: *laughing* It's like the most boring-est show ever! They had spandex and big foreheads. It was so slow!

Lee Marie: I don't really get it! It was slow to me, too.

Seth: Star Wars is AWESOME! ... Totally just trumped Star Trek.

Lee Marie: Star Wars is cool.

Seth: Besides, you have Han Solo!

David: Han Solo... you have an icy planet! And soldiers.

Lee Marie: I kinda always wanted to be Princess Leia.

David: Star Wars is nostalgic! It's kind of like a feel-good movie. It's kind of like watching the Swiss Family Robinson or White Christmas. They just make me feel good! Y'know? We used to go to Sam's Club when we were little and Mom and Dad would shop for stuff and I would stand in the TV section and I'd watch Star Wars.

Lee Marie: I always remember it was this big decision, and it took me forever to figure out "Should I walk around the store with Mom and Dad, eat the samples" - cuz they always had all these awesome samples at Sam's Club of all the food and stuff - and we were so little so we could only do one. We could stay with Mom and Dad or stay with my brothers and watch Star Wars. So I was always like, "Do I watch Star Wars or eat the samples?"

David: I like Star Trek too.

Seth: The movie or the show?

David: Well, the movie was pretty funny. And the show, I've watched like...

Seth: Isn't the guy from X-Men in that or something? The bald guy?

David: *nods* Yeah. He was in Dune as well.

Lee Marie: Well, "Children 18:3" comes from Matthew 18:3 in the Bible. And that says, "Unless you change and become like little children, you shall by no means enter the Kingdom of Heaven." And that's what that means.

Lee Marie: The thing about lyrics... we spend so much time writing and working out the lyrics and trying to make them sound cool and it's SO important at the time - it is! - and you think so much about them, but once it's all finished and we start playing them live and I'm singing 'em, I don't really ever think about the words anymore. Which is maybe not a good thing. Maybe I should probably think about the words and what I'm saying, but I just sing them and they become part of the song and I don't really think about the words anymore, except one song on the new album is called "Oh Bravo" and I do usually think about those words when I'm playing it live cuz it's a story. I always think of myself as acting out part of this story instead of singing a song.

The story is actually about this little girl that is in this talent show at her school and she's all excited and she got all ready and she got this little song ready that she's going to do. She's super excited and her mom got her all dressed up. The story starts and she's waiting in the hall at the elementary school and her teacher has her all lined up by all these other kids. She starts looking around and she hears the crowd cheering and in her mind, it's this HUGE deal. And all these other kids have costumes, but she doesn't have a costume. And all these other kids have all of these cool things that they do on stage, like there's a cowboy and a clown and a ballerina and they're all so cool and she just starts to feel like she has nothing to bring to the stage, really. And she doesn't think anyone's going to like her. And then she goes on stage and she sings her song and she thinks it just went terrible and then her dad comes back stage and he just tells her she's awesome. And it's just kind of the happy ending.

Seth: Well, since being in a band with my siblings is the only thing we've ever known, [we] don't really have anything to compare it to, but it's pretty awesome because we get along super well. We've known each other our whole lives and we're really good friends and we know everything about each other, so it works well. And when we're on the road, everyone kind of does their own thing. And then when we get to the venue, everyone splits. *laughs* I guess it's different because we're not on the road with like five of your best friends, goofin' off and being stupid. You're siblings, so we're pretty chill, just hang out. It works cuz we get along really well I guess.

Seth: No way!! *laughs* We are who we are - probably for a big part of it - is because we're homeschooled and the way our parents brought us up and the upbringing we've had. We never had a TV. [We] were super conservative, because we were homeschooled - that's why we are such good friends and get along so well. With homeschooling, we had a lot more time. We just get up and do our school and get it done and have all afternoon to do whatever else we wanted to do; practice a lot. I went to public school one day, just with a friend just to check it out and... I'll just say... I was glad I didn't have to do that!

Seth: Oh man, that varies. Some of the songs for this, our second record, Rain's A' Comin', we've been working on ever since the first record. One song, David wrote shortly after - I think he was even working on in the studio when we were working on our first record. In that sense, some of 'em take quite awhile. We've had songs that have come together - like the biggest chunk of it - in a day, in the past. But, for the most part, we just jam for quite awhile and just work things through. It's definitely a slow process for us. This record we wrote three songs in the studio, so obviously that's a lot more scheduled environment to write music. So, in that sense, we wrote some really fast, but we were writing with our producer. But mostly, it takes quite awhile to write songs. It's been two years since our first record came out, so it takes us quite awhile, but we're happy with what we came up with!

David: Well, Andriella, "Rain's 'A Comin'" is about revival. It's about something big on the horizon. Something off in the distance. Maybe a little cloud the size of a man's hand. And something big is coming. You can start to see things happening, even in our nation. And we just need to ask the Holy Spirit to soften our hearts so we can be a part of what He's doing.

David: Well, Austin, I don't think we dress gothic OR emo. We're just trying to be cool, y'know? Like rock bands in the 80's and punk rock. Just puttin' on a show, trying to be cool. Criticism? People are usually nice to us, thankfully.

David: Well, Brandon, you want to talk about songs? Come to a show, we'll talk about songs! Yeah, lyrics are tough. It's hard. You want to write lyrics that sound cool but I don't think writing just nonsense is being a good steward of artistic expression. Sometimes I wonder. You listen to lyrics - does this mean anything or is it just nonsense? It sounds really cool, but... yeah! Lyrics are tough.

David: Well thanks! I like it too. It's always kind of bittersweet when something bad happens at a show and stuff breaks because it's annoying for whoever's stuff it was that broke, but then for me, it's like, "Ooo! I get to sing my song! Ooo!" *laughs* I would love for that song to be recorded someday! Hopefully! We'll see.

Children 18:3's new album Rain's A' Comin' is available now!