Newsboys... Disbanded?

Big news in the Christian music world! The announcement was made yesterday that Peter Furler is stepping down from the lead singer of Newsboys. Newsboys have gone through their share of changes, most recently a short stint with Paul Coleman as guitarist, but this news comes as a shocker to the Christian music world.

The dfiference here is that Peter Fuler founded the Newsboys over 20 years ago in a garage in Mooloolaba, Queensland AU. He is the man who started the band, and has been with it the entire time.

Whats more interesting is the replacement for Peter Furler. Michael Tait (of DC Talk fame) will be taking over Peter's role. While he is an amazingly talented musician, Mike Tait is also very different in style from Peter. The most noticeable difference is that the Newsboys lead singer has always been Australian.

I love Newsboys, and I love the late DC Talk even more, but I am unsure about this combination.It has brought me to a question: Does Newsboys - Peter Furler still = Newsboys?I saw one person had posted on a Newsboys forum that 'if you take Bono out of U2, it is no longer U2.' I think it's a good comparison. You have to question whether a band is a name only, or a sum of its parts. I think what we are looking at here is something like we saw with Sonic Flood. The band today is not the same band as in their debut. Rick Heil, the current lead singer, bought the rights to the SonicFlood name. They are still a worship band, but the band itself is not the same one it began as, now with an entirely different group of people than it started with in 1999. Even so, the difference is not as evident as in the case with the Newsboys.My opinion is two-fold (not that anyone asked). First, to answer my previous question, I think that no, it is no longer the Newsboys as their fans all know them. I would prefer that they say something like 'the Newsboys are disbanding, but we are starting a new band and bringing in Mike Tait.' While that is not the case, Newsboys will no longer be what it has been. They may still be very good, but not the same. Secondly, I am also excited to hear what it will sound like with Michael Tait as lead singer. Again, he is possibly the most under-rated vocalist out there, and has an amazing voice.