The Waiting

The Waiting was officially born with the release of the indie album Tilbury Town way back in the dark ages of 1991- tho there were proto waiting bands before that with goofy names like Begin Again. But the chemistry clicked when Brad, Clark and I got together to record a full length album and Brandon was the final catalyst when we met him a bit later.

Our initial break came from playing Cornerstone Festival early on- one summer we bought fest tickets and drove up to Illinois as fans because they had what was called an 'impromptu stage' meant for the festival attendees to just sign up and play. We signed up but got bumped to the next day so we stayed up all night in our tents making 1000 flyers by hand with sharpies and passed them out before the show. When we came to the stage to play hundreds of people had gathered! As soon as we stepped off the stage after our set a couple guys in suits were waiting for us that said, "We are from such and such label and we want to sign you". It was quite literally the rock n roll dream.

That began what now seems like a whirlwind of non stop activity- recording with Gene Eugene in California on Blue Belly Sky, becoming the focus of an 11 label bidding war, signing with the biggest Christian record company on the planet, recording with Steve Hindalong on the green album, playing to tens of thousands on the festival circuit every summer, getting 5 national number 1 songs on radio, getting nominated for and winning awards, getting on a ton of magazine covers and other crazy amounts of publicity, touring with and playing with all the biggest acts in Christian music, playing on TV and at NBA and NHL games and photo shoots and video shoots and a thousand interviews and touring touring touring for a decade. Whew!

But with all that commotion and hubbub, all the ups and downs, all the warp and woof, all the struggle and strife and success what made it the most fun, awe inspiring, meaningful, once in a lifetime priceless experience was You. The Fans. We used to always say, "The Waiting has the BEST fans!"- well we were right. And I must say you havent changed a bit. I hope you enjoy the new Waiting website- it was a pleasure building it and thinking about all the stories we could tell..

• Todd Olsen (aka Oats)