The Afters – After The Storm

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There’s rarely a shortage of challenges to overcome or tragedies to move beyond. At some point in life, there will inevitably be more clouds than sun. For The Afters, life has been full of loss, heartache and tragedy. So it might seem a little strange that their latest album title is a far cry from loss. Live On Forever (buy) speaks of life everlasting, joy never-ending and rainbows pushing the clouds aside.

“I’ve always been a glass half-full person,” says Josh Havens, lead vocals of The Afters. “Our pastor had a sermon recently that talked about seeing God in the rainbows. Good things come after the storm.”

And they would know a thing or two about storms.

“My own family has been in and out of the ER six times this summer alone,” Havens shares. The many trips, bought on by troublesome appendixes, broken bones and meningitis, followed two previous years of many dear friends passing away. Ironically enough, the loss set their mind on the glory that is to come in the hereafter.

“With all the people we had lost, our minds had been focused on heaven,” says Havens. “Our hope was to encourage people, provide hope and remind them that we grow through tragedy and God is faithful through it all.

“A lot of our songwriting process was getting together and just talking through what was going on,” Havens continues. “We wrote all these songs together. The lyrics were the result of us processing and dealing with life. We’ve been doing this for seventeen years. This is our fifth record. We don’t want to make music just because. Music has to mean something, otherwise there’s no point. We pored over these songs for two years. Life’s too short not to do that.”

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