Martin Cash of We The Kingdom admits it might seem odd the Christian group chose to make their second album self-titled. That’s usually a title bands reserve for their debuts.

“I think it’s ironic that it ended up being self-titled because to be honest, in the beginning that option was thrown out because we couldn’t agree on any other name,” he said. “Someone at some point was like, ‘Hey, why don’t we just call it We The Kingdom and call it like a day?’ ”

As We The Kingdom draw in on the one-year anniversary of that album, they’ll stop by Sweetwater Performance Pavilion on Sunday, Aug. 27.

Family Affair

It makes sense the five members of We The Kingdom would grow more collaborative. After all, this is essentially a family band. The band includes Ed Cash; his brother, Scott Cash; his son and daughter, Martin Cash and Franni Rae Cash-Cain; and longtime friend Andrew Bergthold.

The story behind how We The Kingdom happened and have reached a place as one of Christian music’s leading acts is one of the more unusual ones in music.

Brothers Ed and Scott Cash played in touring bands, but when they started families, they left to be parents. Ed built a successful career as a songwriter and producer, working with such Christian acts as Chris Tomlin and Crowder. 

His children, Martin and Franni, meanwhile, took to music growing up, writing songs and singing together. The Cash family also became very involved in Young Life camps and played music at those gatherings. 

Bergthold, meanwhile, was pursuing his musical ambitions in Kansas City, Missouri.

It was at one of the Young Life camps in Georgia in 2008 that the musical pursuits merged. Scott Cash had asked the others to help lead worship at the camp. One night, they convened in a hot tub at the camp and started bouncing around ideas for a song about the beauty of God’s love. A song, “Dancing on the Waves,” emerged, and the five musicians went on to write several songs over the next couple of weeks at the camp.

A band was being formed, and over the next year, more music was written. A sound formed that drew from four decades of musical influences and came to encompass worship music, rock, pop, country, folk, and soul. 

Hitting the studio

Ed Cash’s connections in the music industry helped get We The Kingdom showcases in front of labels, booking agents, and other industry professionals, which furthered the early development of the band.

They got signed by Capitol Records’ Christian Music Group and debuted in 2019 with a six-song concert EP, Live at the Wheelhouse. That release contained a version of the song “Holy Water,” which went to the top of the Christian Airplay singles chart.

The studio version of that song became the title track for the Holy Water studio album, and in April 2020 the song landed atop three different Christian music charts. Two more top-5 singles, “God So Loved” and “Child of Love,” followed, as We The Kingdom became one of the fastest rising acts in Christian music.

In making We The Kingdom, the band grew more collaborative as songwriters. But they also drew on some different influences and experimented with new tones and sonics. In the end, they emerged with an album full of strong songs that are a bit more energetic than Holy Water.

Rockers like “Deep End,” “Left It in the Water,” and “Life Is Good” give it an edge, and the soft ballads that were peppered across Holy Water aren’t as prevalent. Instead, most of the slower songs (“Jesus Does,” “Mine,” and “God Is on the Throne”) come with some heft. 

Martin Cash said doing a second album presented We The Kingdom with questions about the next musical step the band should take.

“With our first album, you’re starting from zero. You have no reference for what people like from you, the sound,” he said. “If, say, they gravitate toward Holy Water, you struggle with should we write more records like Holy Water, that same sound? But then the creative in you is going, ‘No, we’ve already done that. How do we continue reinventing ourselves and pushing the envelope, but still offering the same sound people fell in love with?’ So that was a struggle with the self-titled album. I’m personally super-pleased with how it turned out.”

Hitting The road

We The Kingdom are back out playing headlining shows after starting the year co-headlining the multi-band Winter Jam, one of the year’s biggest Christian music tours that stopped at Memorial Coliseum on Feb. 2.

That outing initially caused the band some concerns, because when We The Kingdom took the stage, it was later in the evening and they were seeing a significant number of people who were either leaving during their set or before they even took the stage. 

After a number of discussions, Martin Cash said, they came to feel people were leaving for logistical reasons — perhaps they needed to get home to meet up with babysitters, or the younger fans had curfews. He feels that experience will only help the band, even with headlining shows.

“There was talk of like, ‘Are we playing the right songs? Should we play more songs that are hooky, kind of cheap tricks you can get into to get people to stay?’ ” Martin Cash said. “But at the end of the day, the point is not to force them to stay. It’s to play to the ones that are there. It’s a lesson, but it’s a good one.”