Big Daddy Weave will hit the main stage at Bulldog Bash at 8 p.m. with its signature Christian-rock sound.
The band, with seven years of experience, takes its name from the brothers Mike and Jay Weaver, of whom Mike takes the nickname “Big Daddy.” Mike brings lead vocals and guitar to the band, while Jay provides the bass and further vocals.
Other members of the band stick with group like a family, despite the lack of a common last name. Jeff Jones provides the percussion for the band, Joe Shirk plays saxophone and keyboards and Jeremy Redmon lends guitar and vocals.
The band is touring in preparation for the debut of their fourth album, Every Time I Breathe, which is being released by the label Fervent Records and will hit shelves on Sept. 26.
The band features a solid rock groundwork that builds into a Christian praise band similar to Jars of Clay. Their sound contains a fair amount of diversity, though, featuring songs with a more diminished feel similar to U2 and louder, more powerful songs that pound their message home.
Big Daddy Weave began as an exercise in faith, mostly created to have fun with friends but soon escalating into an effort to see where God would lead them, Jay Weaver said on the band Web site.
Their efforts paid off, and soon they had their first album, One and Only, by July 2002. The album was a hit, and made SoundScan’s Christian top five list. Soon after that the band was nominated for a Dove Award for best new artist.
The band continued to play, and a little over a year later they had released their second album, Fields of Grace, to a similar acceptance. However, after work began on their third album, disaster struck.
In September 2004, Hurricane Ivan hit Mobile, Ala., which Big Daddy Weave called home. The Category 5 storm ravaged the city, destroying the home of Mike and Jay Weaver and also taking the Big Daddy Weave main office. The band decided that instead of recording in their usual city, Nashville, Tenn., they would finish their album among the rubble in Mobile.
“From a recording side, there were a lot of things that all came together at once that allowed our album to be postponed past our deadline, including the hurricane,” Redmon said on the band Web site. “It definitely put a halt on things. Our worlds were upside down there for a while, in good ways and bad ways.”
However, the band managed to use their circumstances and fuel the recording process with their residual emotion from the storm. The band pulled the entire album What I Was Made For together for a July 2005 release.
Bigdaddyweave.tif: Christian band Big Daddy Weave brings Christian flair to this year’s bash.