In The Kingdom

Released March 30, 1991 on Star Song Records, In the Kingdom was the fourth album by Christian metal band Whitecross. It reached #12 on Billboard's Top Contemporary Christian Albums chart. The album won a Dove Award for Hard Music Album of the Year for 1991.
"The video for the song "No Second Chances" was the band's first video ever seen on MTV's Headbangers Ball.
In 1990 Star Song Records wanted to get a hit song for Whitecross; in their eyes that meant "softening" the sound of the band to make it more palatable to CCM radio. So my friend and our A&R man Dez Dickerson calls me up and says he's got a song we need to look at. As many of you may know, I'm hyper-protective of our songs, they are all like my children or something and my first impulse is usually somewhere along the line of, "I'm not going to be interested in YOUR song for MY band" haha. I think Dez knew this, so he actually came over to my house to play it for me. I live north of Chicago; Dez lives in Nashville. That's about 8 hours by car. The ultimate sales job...but everybody including myself, Dez, and the record label, knew that's what it was going to take. I think they had a secret meeting at Starsong headquarters in Nashville.... "who's going to confront that evil villain Darth Rex? Dez, this mission has been appointed to you- here's an extra light saber, and may the force be with you... oh and don't worry, we'll bill the entire cost of your trip to their recoupment account".
Needless to say, Darth Rex was NOT HAPPY about the sales call err, excuse me, ahem the "A & R meeting" that took place in my kitchen. Hahaha I think I was looking for the launch codes to the death star when Dez rolled into my driveway. So I had to get out the boombox so he could play the cassette tape (ask your grandparents) of this new song he had written called "In The Kingdom". I was actually trying to be open-minded about it, but seriously, I just couldn't hear it. Finally in the very last minute of the song it went to a key change up and with the higher pitch, I was able to actually comprehend the song, although it still felt like a HUGE stretch for Whitecross. In fact, Scotty couldn't even sing it where it was written, so we agreed to move the entire song up one whole step from the original key.
In the studio, I went to start tracking the acoustic guitar part. After 15 minutes, it wasn't working. At that point our producer Simon Hanhart suggested I try a thin pick, and sure enough that did the trick. See? I learned something there so in fact, you CAN teach an old dog new tricks.
On previous albums, we had some keyboards here and there, but for this album, we received a recommendation on a Chicago keyboardist named Chris Cameron that none of us knew anything about. To this day I've never seen anything like Chris...we scheduled him for a 4 pm start, which meant that his cartage company rolled up at 2 pm, in a 20-foot truck! The guy in the truck rolls out a full sized Hammond B-3 organ, and a rack to go with it full of Marshall amps, analog equalizers, and guitar pedals. Then there's the 6' ginormous full-sized leslie speaker. Then he sets up 2 banks of analog synthesizers and various keyboards, with racks of outboard gear that Keith Emerson would have been proud of. (again, ask your grandad) Finally at 4 pm Chris waltzes in the door with a casual "hey guys, whassup?" And then he proceeds to blow the roof off with glorious gospel B-3 licks and amazing synthesizer tracks, Fender Rhodes electric pianos, and all kinds of keyboards. I do believe that Chris became our "5th Beatle" and heavily influenced the sound of the entire record.
Eventually it was time to add the "Gospel Choir" to the chorus. Once again, nobody knew anybody so we made a blind call to the musician's union. They gave us two names. The first girl says on the phone, "I'll do it but I want union scale!" This threw us all into a panic because nobody knew the going rate for "union scale" wages, including the girl! It was late in the day, nobody was answering the phone at the musician's union, so we just agreed to it. The second girl answers her phone and says "How much is the first girl getting? Oh, well if she's getting union scale, then I want the same thing!" Haha so we've all agreed to a price but nobody knows what it is.... They came in around 7 pm the next day and our producer Simon starts working them. Layer after layer after layer of vocals...After about 4 or 5 hours it was sounding HUGE and PHAT so I left. Later on we added some male vocals. Besides Scotty, there was Dez Dickerson, Glen Kaiser, Steve Watkins and Ray Perra from Sacred Warrior, and possibly Michael Feighan who had just joined the band. I don't remember if there was anybody else. So now we're doing very un-Whitecross type things, with vocals and keyboards and acoustic guitars, very very different, on a song nobody in the band wrote!
Ron Luce from Teen Mania youth missions got an advance copy of it, and he flipped for the song. In fact, he decided to use it for the next year and a half to promote Teen Mania. Also, he brought us down to Nicaragua to make a promo video for it; the video was 50% music video, and 100% Teen Mania promotion. Slightly odd, but nevertheless it worked big time and thus "In The Kingdom" became our most well-known song. One time a guy called long distance from Australia...I pick up my phone at about 11 pm, and the voice on the other end is actually shocked because somehow, he got through to my house. So then he says "what's the chords to In The Kingdom, mate?" and I"m like, you called all the way from fricking Australia to ask me about a song that has only FOUR CHORDS?
Therefore, "In The Kingdom" actually PROVES the following joke which goes:
Q: What's the difference between a rock guitar player and a jazz guitar player?
A: The jazz guitar player plays 10,000 chords, to 4 people..."
~Rex Carroll

Lineup

Scott Wenzel - Lead Vocals
Rex Carroll (King James, The Rex Carroll Band) - Guitars/Backing Vocals
Butch Dillon - Bass/Backing Vocals
Michael Feighan (King James) - Drums/Backing Vocals

Guests

Alton Hood (Disciples Of Christ) - Vocals (Rap)
Dez Dickerson - Backing Vocals
Glenn Kaiser (Rez Band, Glenn Kaiser Band) - Backing Vocals
Linda Clifford - Backing Vocals
Rey Parra (Sacred Warrior, Worldview, Deny The Fallen) - Backing Vocals
Steve Watkins (Sacred Warrior) - Backing Vocals
Vicky Hubly - Backing Vocals
Rick Cua - Bass
Mike Mead (Chagall Guevara, Compassion All Star Band) - Drums
Rich Trelease - Percussion
Chris Cameron (Sonia Dada) - Keyboards