Tony Cummings pitched some questions at SIBLING's Phill Edmundson.

Sibling

Tony: Tell me about Sibling.

Phill: Paul and I have played in bands since we were at school together. I really wanted to put a band together that expressed how being a Christian effects our life, so we recorded a few songs together. We then wanted to start playing live so we had the choice, program a few sequences or look for musicians! We placed an add in Wesley Owen for a band looking for a bass player. On the same day Chris put an add up for a bass player looking for a band! I met Jon via the beautiful game. A load of us from different churches get together to play football, someone asked me to help out with a band that were doing some open air events and Jon was the guy heading up the band. We had our first rehearsal together as sibling in November '99. Chris and Jon's first contribution was to put all the songs through quality control - one survived!

Tony: Why the name Sibling?

Phill: It came from one of the early songs we had written, "brothers&sisters". Paul and I had been really bad at choosing band names (we once were part of a band called We Wear White Socks) so we decided just to latch on to the first idea we had. It's worked out well. It helps remind me that whoever make up the audience are our brothers or sisters.

Tony: You don't seem to be pursuing the usual route of seeking a record deal from the Christian companies. Why is that?

Phill: It just hasn't occurred to us really. We spent a year just practising, getting to know each other. Since then we've been concentrating on playing youth events and letting young people know what Jesus means to us. We don't really need a record deal to help us do that at the moment.

Tony: You did a storming set at Greenbelt and surprised many with how worship focused it was. Is worship where your hearts lie?

Phill: The one thing we decided at the beginning was that we would be overt about our faith. We didn't actually set out to do 'worship' music, but I think as a band and individuals we have a heart for worship that's not just about offering up songs to the Lord but our whole lives in honour of him - it pervades everything we do so in some aspect so I guess it's bound to come out through our music.

Tony: What do you see yourselves doing in two years' time?

Phill: I hope that we all continue in our pursuit of worshipping the Lord. We continually ask God to help keep us humble (Micah 6:6-8) but kind of like the Delirious? song, keeping our feet on the ground and heads in the sky, still dreaming for him and being confident in him. As we serve such an amazing God who has the best plans and purposes for our lives I have to believe we'll all be doing something amazing! Sadly, we live in an area where there are very few young Christians. We're working towards reversing that fact.