By Katie Scarvey
kscarvey@salisburypost.com
Submission Red, a Christian rock band from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., will be performing tonight at Benchwarmers and Saturday night at The Inn.
If you aren’t familiar with this band, search out some of their songs online, and you’ll discover just how impressive they are. The music is driving, compelling, passionate, well-produced.
This band rocks, and they are worth seeking out.
Their music isn’t preachy, and easily crosses over to mainstream rock, in the manner of a band like Switchfoot.
What takes this band decidedly out of the mainstream, however, is its dedication to helping children.
They’ve worked closely with government, private, and religious foster care programs all over the country and are actively involved with 4Kids of South Florida.
Yvonne Winfrey, the group’s lead singer, and her husband, David Winfrey (lead guitar), have fostered more than 90 children since 2003, Yvonne says.
At that time, she and David had been working at a large church and were all too aware of the many children out there with sad stories. When they saw a video produced by their church about foster parenting, they realized that they were both ready to get involved.
They began by opening a shelter (which, Yvonne points out, was a home with a pool and an XBox and a mom and dad), but they quickly realized the major drawback to that: by law, a child could be with them for no more than 90 days. In order to keep children longer, they transitioned out of shelter mode. They would usually care for five or six children at a time, Yvonne says.
They were focused on keeping sibling groups together, she says. They formally adopted two of the boys they fostered, who now travel with them.
Yvonne says adoption wasn’t necessarily part of their plan but happened naturally. “I guess we were open to it,” she says.
When people learn about their fostering, the first thing out of their mouths, Yvonne says, is “I could never do that.”
Yvonne and David like to offer encouragement and share their wealth of experience with foster parents — or potential foster parents — and they look forward to those opportunities.
Their experiences show up in their music, including the song “Nobody,” which is about one of the children they took in.
Another song, “Drive On,” is about persevering, about getting through a storm — like the difficulties they often faced dealing with troubled youth.
In the middle of the fostering experience, Yvonne says, it’s sometimes hard to see that you’re making a difference. But feedback from the children they’ve fostered lets them know that they’ve touched many of their lives in important ways.
A month ago, Submission Red finished The eXtreme Tour, where they were one of 50 bands chosen from more than 650 who applied to tour the country. Over a period of 9 weeks they toured from Arizona through 19 cities up the coast of California, into Oregon and ending in Washington.
The goal of that tour was to play for and connect with troubled youth in each of the areas they visited — which is what they continue to do as the tour continues.
Their new CD “Vision Tour” (including songs that are written about some of their foster children), produced by Ben Kasica of Skillet, has received local Grammy chapter acknowledgement, and their new release “Good Enough” was No. 1 (five weeks in a row) on ChristianRock.net’s Top 30, going to #28 on Billboard’s Christian Rock chart.
Their songs continue to be played on over 33 radio stations in the U.S. and six in Canada.
Yvonne notes that Submission Red has recorded a single called “The Ticking Clock” that is coming out soon, a “hard-rocking” song, she says, that will be released to both mainstream rock stations and Christian music stations.
Yvonne wants people to know that they are eager to share their music and speak to groups, individuals or agencies about fostering. They love to play for foster homes free when it works with their schedule.
To contact Submission Red about booking performances or speaking engagements, go to www.submissionred.com.