No Doubt

No Doubt is the fifteenth studio album of the Christian rock band, Petra. It was released on August 26, 1995.
The tone of the album is more pop-oriented than any previous release featuring Schlitt. Most of the rock songs lack the driving edge of their previous albums, and the sonic field is no longer flooded with distorted guitars, leaning more toward a calculated, radio-friendly sound.
All the guitars in the album were played by founder Bob Hartman. However, since he had quit touring with the band before the release of the album, new guitarist David Lichens was enlisted to travel with the band and appeared in the album art and promotional pictures.
The album also featured another new member, keyboardist Jim Cooper. Cooper was a keyboard technician for former keyboardist John Lawry for several years. When Lawry retired, Cooper replaced him.
Once again, rumors swirled about the band's imminent demise. Lawry, who had been Petra's keyboardist for more than a decade, left the band, and Hartman, citing a desire to be closer to his family and focus on songwriting, retired from touring. Meanwhile, Schlitt had just released a solo album. The band rejected the rumors, however; Hartman said he would continue writing and doing studio work with the band, and he turned over nearly all of Petra's administrative duties to Schlitt.
Schlitt brought in Jim Cooper to replace Lawry and David Lichens (LITCH-ens) to replace Hartman on tour. Weaver was now the only band member with a connection to the Volz era of Petra, and he was hired when Petra was 10 years old. It was the first wholesale lineup change since 1980, but it was far from the last. No Doubt (1995)
The new lineup set to recording No Doubt, a concerted effort to reach a younger audience no longer interested in the driving hard rock that had made the band the biggest in Christian music. Back to using producers John and Dino Elefante, Schlitt called the album "the best record we've ever done."[87] The critics disagreed, citing in particular the electronic, scaled-back nature of the drums, which sapped the life out of the disc's rockers, and the prevalence of "fair to middlin'" tracks that failed to "break any new ground."
The album opened at No. 2 on Billboard's Top Christian Albums chart but fell out of the Top 10 two months later. It peaked at No. 91 on the Billboard Top 200, lasting eight weeks, and Schlitt acknowledged sales had dropped from the band's previous chart-toppers. Its key radio single, the title track, barely cracked the 40 most-played songs for 1995. For the first time since the creation of the Rock Gospel Album category in the Grammies, Petra was nominated but failed to win, though it did pick up a Dove award for Rock Album of the Year, and CCM Magazine's annual Reader Awards placed Petra once again at the top as the fans' favorite rock band, with No Doubt their favorite rock album.
The lackluster sales and tepid reviews, combined with the lineup changes, painted a picture of a band in decline. The quick departure of Cooper and Lichens, joined by longtime bassist Cates, did not help. Schlitt said Cates cited fatigue with the touring lifestyle, but that he fired Lichens and Cooper over differences about the band's musical direction and unhappiness with the possibility of recording a second praise album. Lonnie Chapin replaced Cates on bass, while two members of Schlitt's solo band, Kevin Brandow (guitar and keyboards) and Pete Orta (guitars), filled the remaining slots.

Lineup

John Schlitt (Head East) - Lead Lead Vocals
David Lichens - Guitar/Vocals
Ronny Cates - Bass
Louie Weaver (Randy Matthews, Fireworks, Classic Petra, CPR) - Drums
Jim Cooper - Keyboards

Guests

Bob Hartman - All Guitars
Chris Rodriguez (The Players, Music City Unites For Haiti) - Background Vocals
Micah Wilshire - Background Vocals
John Elefante (Kansas, Mastedon) - Keyboards/String Arrangement
The Nashville String Machine - Strings
Tom Howard - String Arrangement