It’s not every day that a band gets to create the album of its dreams like Everyday Sunday has just done with Wake Up! Wake Up! While the guys are anxious for people to hear their third record, one they had previously only dreamed of making, Everyday Sunday does not dismiss its long journey here. Made up of Trey Pearson (lead vocals), Dan Hunter (bass), Chris Hines (drums) and Jesse Counts (guitar), Everyday Sunday hails from Columbus, Ohio. The band first attracted a national audience with its 2001 independent Christian radio single, “Just A Story.” This was followed by the release of two successful projects, Stand Up and Anthems for the Imperfect. Numerous accolades ensued, including being named among CCM Magazine’s “Favorite New Artists of 2003,” as well as “Best New Artist of the Year” by TVU Music Television. Everyday Sunday received recognition as one of the Top 10 “Major Impact Artists” for CHR radio, and its single “Hanging On,” from Stand Up, was the No. 6 most played CHR song of the year. In spite of having experienced considerable success with its first two national releases, Everyday Sunday was ready for something new—even if the members didn’t know exactly what that something new would look like. Maybe it would mean disbanding; maybe it’d mean reconfiguring. What they decided was to dive deeper into the things they really loved and see what would unfold. The result is Wake Up! Wake Up!, a full-force gem of an album, glistening with modern-rock, radio-friendly hits. It’s a collection delivered with massive production by one of Everyday Sunday’s musical heroes, Ian Eskelin (Krystal Meyers, Stellar Kart, All Star United). The project drips with catchy hooks that camp out in your brain, guaranteeing many of these songs will rule radio for weeks on end. “Everything we said we were going to do with this record has happened and then some,” Pearson explains. “It just came out better than we ever could’ve imagined. We had the perfect team on this record, including our dream mixer, J.R. McNeely (Relient K, Underoath, Amberlin, Hawk Nelson, Jeremy Camp), who we’d been hoping to get for two years.” But it’s a record that almost didn’t happen. “We were just tired,” Pearson continues. “We had been touring hundreds of shows for several years non-stop and were pretty burnt out on not being home with friends, family and church.” He asked the guys in the band to think and pray about Everyday Sunday’s future. It became a time of soul-searching, a time for them to figure out what they really loved about what they were doing. “When we finally got back together to discuss our fate, everybody basically said, ‘We’re in; we want to do this.’ We decided to give it another shot, but this time we would make sure to write a record we were all totally in love with from top to bottom.” Mission accomplished. As Trey describes, this renewed focus as well as increased intentionality to its efforts helped the rock outfit create a rock, power-pop, pop-punk project of enormous energy (which Everyday Sunday live shows are known for), that at the same time is fun, hooky, catchy, and filled with big melodies. “Let’s Go Back” kicks off the project. “It’s a song about friendships,” Pearson explains. “It’s about its joys and my failures at relationships sometimes. But even though we are all bound to mess up, it’s about seeing the best in each other, realizing we are so much more than we think we are, and having fun experiencing those dreams and adventures God has placed on our hearts without letting Satan get a foothold.” “Find Me Tonight” unveils the record to AC and CHR radio formats. “This song reassures listeners that God will meet them, wherever they may be,” Pearson adds. “It’s very worshipful, hopefully in a unique and fresh way.” The first rock single, “Wake Up! Wake Up!” is a straight-ahead, power-pop tune about realizing we have a crucial role to play in God’s story, one that requires more than going through the motions, wasting our life in boredom. “I’ll Get Over It” is a sure-fire hit about a guy getting dumped by a girl and the extreme heartache that follows. “This is the first story song I’ve ever written,” Pearson says. “There’s not a huge, deep meaning to it, but we’re already getting a great response to this one, probably because we’ve all been through something like that.” —more— “The whole album is really about God, life, relationships, and emotions, from a Christian perspective,” Pearson concludes. “Hopefully it’s something people can relate to, music that will bring them joy, moments of reflection, and help them to think about their own life.” Poised now on the edge of even greater critical and popular acclaim, Everyday Sunday has made it to a place most bands can only imagine. But having created the album of its dreams, with refined vision and calling on the members’ lives, both musically and relationally, it appears that their true success has already been achieved. With Wake Up! Wake Up!, the rest of the world finally has a chance to catch up.