River Valley AGES
River Valley AGES is a band, but their dream is for it to be so much more than that. They believe that God is doing something special in the next generation and desire to be a part of it. The heart behind their music is to inspire and empower young people to create.
Their new album, ALL AGES ADMITTED, leads people into worship with the Father. They are coming alongside the next generation and teaching them to be bold for the sake of the Gospel.
Tell us about the inception of River Valley AGES and you all’s specific purpose at River Valley Church.
AGES began in a simple way. There was a group of young people in our youth and young adult ministries who were getting together to write songs that would connect their friends to Jesus.
There's been a culture of songwriting at our church for a while now thanks to our older siblings River Valley Worship and AGES is rising up in the blessing of that.
At River Valley we say we'll do anything to reach the next generation so when these songs started bubbling up and impacting our church leadership naturally got behind it and this really organic move of God became "AGES".
AGES is a group of young people saying YES to whatever the Lord calls us to. It is a coming-of-age story.
Hopefully, one that inspires you to step out in boldness, to try and to fail, to get back up, to keep going and ultimately to point you to the One who deserves every bit of praise, honor, and glory we can muster up. Whose name is above every name. The only name worth singing... Jesus.
You all released your new album today: ALL AGES ADMITTED. Tell us about the title’s meaning and the overall concept of this album.
We love this question! We've all seen the phrase "all ages admitted" in different contexts. For example the general rating screen when you start a movie, "G for general audiences, all ages admitted."
Or remember being 16 and wanting to see your favorite band in concert (for us in Minneapolis the venue would have been First Ave.) but you couldn't go because it was 18+ and you needed that All Ages Admitted sign to get in?
Well, besides the obvious tie-in of the word "AGES" and the coming-of-age theme naturally in that phrase, we love that All Ages Admitted is an inclusive phrase.
The Gospel is for everyone! Not just different ages but different stories and backgrounds. It's for ALL people. No one on earth is disqualified from encountering the living God and having an authentic life changing relationship with Jesus Christ.
The album kicks off with an anticipatory, pre performance track. What was the energy like in the room the day of recording? Can you tell us about the setting and the engineering choices that went into capturing ALL AGES ADMITTED.
YES, so much energy in the room. This is the first time that the world gets to see and hear the move of God happening in and through our young people. They are passionate worshipers and truly want to follow Jesus with their whole hearts.
Hopefully we've done our job in the technical sense well enough that you can catch and hear the heart and passion from the people in the room.
We all love the old UNITED albums and remember being kids listening to those albums. We wanted to recreate that feeling for the next generation.
The authenticity and the passion was so evident and listening back to those albums we wanted to try and capture our young people in the same way.
Cody Soberski produced while Jack Nellis mixed and sometimes the person that mixes the album isn't always in the room when it's being recorded. We had Jack be a part of the process from the beginning because we wanted the final product to be as authentic to what happened in that room as possible.
You all incorporate pop vocal and production elements throughout - what is special and important to you all about adding these to worship music specifically?
Well practically for us we just want to write songs that connect with our friends and that's the kind of music they are listening to. We definitely don't feel like the tip of the spear when it comes to recreating worship music. We just want to write songs that work in our context.
Sometimes it's hyper pop and sometimes it feels like a more classic worship song.
pss.. There's definitely some punk rock coming.
We just do what works for us. Authenticity is a big piece here.
What song(s) from this record do you believe will connect with the Church most and why?
“Ask Seek Pray” is the song that has connected with our whole church the most! We wrote it for summer camp last year and it started to seep into our weekend worship sets. It resonated so much that our Lead Pastor Rob Ketterling made it the vision of our church for this year. We hope it blesses you too!
If you're looking for a Song 1, “Sunrise” is the way to go! We do this song regularly in our weekend worship sets and it goes great!
Lead songs from ALL AGES ADMITTED with your congregation. Resources available at MultiTracks.com.