Nashville Tribute Band to play Idaho Falls concert this week
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IDAHO FALLS — Music lovers are in for a treat when the Nashville Tribute Band drops in on the Colonial Theater in Idaho Falls this Thursday night.
The Nashville Tribute Band is a Grammy-nominated group composed of Nashville-based musicians who are all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The band writes and plays uplifting music that reflects their shared faith.
Since its formation in 2005, the band has released nine albums, played concerts on stages all across America and as far away as China and Australia and released albums that have hit the Top 10 of the Billboard Gospel Chart.
All this success isn’t something songwriter/guitarist Jason Deere foresaw when he first had the idea to start the band.
“We certainly didn’t think it would turn out to do what it has,” Deere told EastIdahoNews.com. “I was teaching early-morning seminary at the time. For some reason, getting up in the morning and starting the day with twenty-four high school students inspired me to write.”
Together with Dan Truman of the country band Diamond Rio, Deere wrote an album inspired by events early in LDS Church history. While they produced the album mostly for themselves, the music touched more and more people. Deere and Truman realized they were providing something people wanted and weren’t getting anywhere else.
“We thought ‘Why in the world would we stop this,’ and so that led to another album, then another album and now we’ve put out nine albums in the past eighteen years and traveled all over the world,” Deere said. “Did we have visions of that? No, we’re not smart enough to think that far down the road. We just kept doing what felt right.”
Joining Deere and Truman in Nashville Tribute Band are Brad Hull, Tim Gates and Ben and Chad Truman. Together, they make music that uplifts and inspires.
“When you talk about truth and you do it with a melody that speaks to that truth, it can be powerful,” Deere said. “(Our music) gets to the real parts of my heart and what I’m really passionate about. We only do projects about things we think are valuable enough as a band to pay tribute to.”
“It’s been an awesome experience being able to mix the two things that I’m most passionate about: being a follower of Jesus Christ and country, faith-based music,” added guitarist Brad Hull. “It’s actually been a tremendous blessing to marry those two things together in a profession.”
Hull and Deere see faith-based music as something that is both especially valuable and much-needed in times like we are currently living.
“I don’t know that we ever necessarily set out to change the world or anything like that, but just maybe to help somebody along the way with our music and in our individual lives,” said Hull. “We are surrounded by, frankly, scary times but there is hope. There is hope for a better world. There’s hope in Jesus Christ. That’s where we try to place our focus and hopefully that shows through in the music we create and perform.”
Deere and his bandmates are excited to return to Idaho Falls and play for an east Idaho crowd.
“(The Idaho Falls audience) is always awesome,” Deere said. “We love that area of the country. Last time we were in Idaho Falls, I can’t tell you. It probably was about 2016-ish. Then COVID shut things down for a while so we’re super excited to get back up there. We’re gonna raise the roof, I promise.”
The Nashville Tribute Band will play the Colonial Theater in Idaho Falls this Thursday, May 5 at 7:30 p.m. Click here to get tickets and click here to visit the band’s website.
