• Martin Smith (vocals, guitar)
• Stu "Stu G" Garrard (guitars)
• Tim Jupp (keyboards)
• Jon "Jonson" Thatcher (bass guitar)
• Stew Smith (drums)

• Rock, Inspirational/Worship, Pop

• Furious/EMI Records

• Active

• The Mission Bell (2005)
• World Service (2004)
• Access:D (2003)
• Touch (2002)
• Deeper: The d:finitive Worship Experience (2001)
• Glo (2000)
• Mezzamorphis (1999)
• King of Fools (1998)
• Cutting Edge (1998)
• Live and In the Can (1996/1998)

Bio
 
Take a look at the titles of the Delirious? albums over the years and the story tells  itself. There were days of being Cutting Edge youth workers, assaulting the UK mainstream  charts singing about the King of Fools followed by the delivering deeper messages of  transformation and Mezzamorphis. Glo took the focus back to the source, while World Service  indicated the new global view that was coming into focus. And now this, The Mission Bell.  Ringing loud, ringing clear, this latest offering makes one thing abundantly clear: the time  is right for change. No compromise, no holding back, now is the time to shine.
Delirious? have always talked about being on a journey, always embracing change and looking  out for direction. It all goes right back to the start. In 1992 producer/engineer Martin Smith (vocals and guitars) teamed up with studio owner Tim Jupp (keyboards) and graphic  designer Stew Smith (drums) to provide the music for a local event aimed at joining the dots  between church and young people. The blend of Smith's open hearted lyrics with the rest of  the band's home grown delivery made immediate sense to those who saw it first hand. Things  were rough yet soaked in the sweat of honest enthusiasm, and the band quickly made a name  for themselves as the most exciting band on the UK Christian scene.
But if you're thinking that this was all part of some cynical plot to manipulate good will  and deliver fame via the back door, you'd be wrong. Like they simply got there by merit.  Early tapes sold in abundance, and each project brought in revenue that was ploughed  immediately into bigger and better successors.
Within four years the band were full time?joined by Stu G on guitars and Jon Thatcher on  bass?and within five they were releasing singles and albums into the UK charts. Their early  Cutting Edge recordings had shaped the way people thought of worship music; the tracks  released from 1997's King Of Fools edited the way in which the mainstream music industry  thought about Christian bands. For some they were controversial, but for all, their success  was undeniable: two top twenty singles and a number 13 placing for the album on the UK  charts. The roughed-up guitars and euphoric melodies showed the way forward, with Radio 1  dubbing them 'pop's best kept secret.'
At the same time the North American market was getting ready to embrace the band. Sparrow  signed them and kicked off with the release of their Cutting Edge back catalogue, which  eventually went gold. With that under their belts the market then got to sample King Of  Fools, which took up lodgings in the Billboard 'Heatseekers' Chart for 18 weeks, selling  200,000 copies. The single 'Deeper' performed a similar role in America to the one it had  tucked into back home: sitting at the very top of the Christian CHR Charts for six weeks.  The band, it appeared, had well and truly landed.
Perhaps now might have been a similarly good point for the band to use the 'World Service'  tag. Aiming now for a global audience the band lined up some key players: the backing of  Virgin Records USA for mainstream releases, the headline tours in the United States, Canada,  Europe, Australia and New Zealand, as well as distribution deals under the wings of EMI. But  of all the forces at work none was so vital as their second studio album Mezzamorphis. A big  hitter by any standards, the self-produced project captured the most comprehensive  Delirious? soundtrack ever. With the sound of titans clashing in 'Heaven' and 'Bliss' and  the wisdom of ages in the decorating the lyrics of 'Mezzanine Floor' and 'Metamorphis,' the  album delighted press and fans alike. Q magazine called it 'dense, ingenious? expansive  guitar pop' while Billboard praised the 'aggressive edge? but passionate, insightful  lyrics.' It hit number 1 on the American Contemporary Christian Music Album Chart and number  25 on the UK charts, reaching number 2 on the indies. With further UK chart success with the  single 'See The Star,' Delirious? were confirmed as a world class act. Controversial,  uncompromising and committed, but world class nevertheless.
1999 onwards saw the band focus on live performances: playing to over 1 million people in a  single 12 month period, including fans on UK legs of both Bon Jovi (2001) and Bryan Adams  (2002) tours. In between they finished work on their follow-up album, Glo, a curious project  indeed. What started out as a retro-novelty act came out as a full-length masterpiece and  wound up getting tabbed by Amazon.com as the number one Christian/Gospel Album of the year  as well as being nominated for a Dove Award for Praise and Worship Album of the Year.
Installed as an A list live act, crowds regularly topped 30 and 40,000, pushing to 80,000 at  US festivals. Alongside the touring, however, came a fresh passion for supplying people with  songs that marched to the beat of a different drum. October 2001 saw the release of Deeper.  Billed as the 'd:finitive worship experience,' the album collated the band's very best  material from their first decade, remixing a few along the way, as well as unlocking some  previously unreleased versions.
Next came something a little different. Employing the skills of producer Chuck Zwicky  (Semisonic, Prince, Madonna), the band went in search of a different type of expression.  Just as Glo targeted a gospel audience, Audio Lessonover? crafted a more esoteric vibe. The  album was met with praise from the UK fans, and the edgier sound reflected the peculiarities  of the home market. However, for the rest of the world there was a wait in store, while  Audio? went back into the mixing booth to be re-sequenced, remixed and re-titled. Cue autumn  2002 and Touch was born, delighting fans and strangers along the way.
In the spring of 2003 the slipstream of Touch brought along with it Access:d, a live double  album showcasing the band's undeniable talent for bringing out the best in each other when  on stage. Fans were also still shouting 'gracias' for the release of Libertad, a  twelve-track best of with vocals re-recorded in Spanish by Martin himself. Of the 100-plus  countries in which Delirious? product is currently available, many are Spanish speaking, so  for the band, Libertad was just another one of those obvious choices that simply had to be  taken.
With headline tours of the US throughout the spring and summer of 2003, the band found  themselves perfectly prepared for the finishing touches to be applied to World Service. But  more than the mix, the design and the promotion, the final preparations were painted on a  bigger canvas. The year spent preparing the album was one punctuated by life in all its  technicolor realities: bereavement, birth, uncertainties, the good stuff that's easier to  deal with, and the hard that takes your breath away. With thoughts about the nature of  success, the realities of grief and possibilities of hearing God, Delirious? were on their  knees at the immense goodness of one heavenly concept: grace. In fact, they're still there on the floor today.
Epic, soaring and fully supersonic, World Service lined the listener up along with the band,  taking part in one gloriously tangible downhill tumble with God. This was head over heals  stuff, leaving the listener part of a global clan all taking part in the same service.
What happened next was bigger, bolder, brighter than they could have anticipated. Things  really did go global, with audiences including the Pope at the 2005 World Youth Day, world  leaders at the Athens 2004 Olympics and the biggest crowd of Muslims in Morocco at the 2005  Friendshipfest. Asia, Australia and beyond are now very much on the Delirious? radar, with  gigs in Indonesia, India, Singapore and Malaysia and beyond signalling new adventures and a  fresh time of following God.
Next up The Mission Bell now is the time.
"The winds are blowing through again, so we must follow. A people daring to believe we can  change tomorrow, and be the miracle of light Now is the time for us to shine."Martin Smith
Delirious has done the unthinkable in a constantly changing marketplace where the trend of  the moment often dictates a band's direction. Not only has the group managed to stay  together through thick and thin (with its original lineup, no less), but it's also continued  to make music on its own terms. Globally. The band, a galvanizing force that changed the  face of worship, played dates in 23 countries last year alone. From those stages they looked  over masses of people from every race and creed, most recently playing in front of a million  people at World Youth Day in Germany. How does a band stay motivated to create, motivated to  tour, year after year, What else is to be gained. Why the sense of urgency after so many  years?
"We are in this age 13 years into the band where these are questions we all talk about when  we get off stage. The footnotes of all the conversations are 'We love what we do, but  there's gotta be more.' We want to make a change," answers frontman Martin Smith. "Surely,  this whole God thing is not just for putting Christian records out. Surely God has called us  to higher things. I think it's using the thing that God has given us to make a difference,  whether small or large."
This is the shared vision of Smith, guitarist Stu G, keyboardist Tim Jupp, bassist Jon  Thatcher and drummer Stew Smith, delivered in the vessel that is The Mission Bell. What  really separates The Mission Bell, quite possibly the bands most ambitious offering, from  the pack (or even Delirious?' previous efforts) is the urgency, the call to action for the  Church to quit talking about what it believes and to take action with all it's been given.  "I think there's a lot of inspiration for people to get out of these songs," says Stu G. "I  think it'll help some folks kind of work out their calling, work out what they're supposed  to be doing."
In "Our God Reigns," the band's global emphasis continues as it tackles the subject of  social injustice, particularly A.I.D.S., abortion and the constant focus of Western culture  on self-improvement and materialism, definitely not the usual subject matter for rock 'n'  roll, but something Martin felt was important to address.
"All I had was the chorus when I started out, and I thought 'Oh, fantastic, this is going to  be another little church song that everyone will sing. That will be great.' But I could not  write any verses for it, and all of the sudden, these heavy lyrics came out," Martin  recalls. What happens is the marriage of a most heavenly chorus with the boldest most  poignant verses on the record. At this point in listening to the album it is clear there  will be no sidestepping the message Delirious? has to deliver.
And this message will resonate all over America as the band's first stateside radio single  from the recording, "Now is the Time," continues its call to action. "It was the beginning  of a new year, and this song simply started as an encouragement for our own people at church  to believe we were a 'city on a hill' and that the lives we live do make a difference in our  community," Martin says. "The God we believe in really is alive and wants to transform us  and to take responsibility for this generation. The lyrics set the tone for the whole record  as we explore the theme of mission and what it means to be a true follower of God."
And at the end of the recording journey that began last February for The Mission Bell, we  find a Delirious? that has received an RIAA Certified Gold album, seen plenty of spotlights  and looked out over vast crowds. Now, more than ever, things are personal. A little more  broken, a little more fragile, a little more determined. Now is the time all right.
 
Official Artist Site: http://www.delirious.co.uk/