for KING + COUNTRY talks ‘The Most Beautiful Colours,’ ‘Drummer Boy’ and Their Surprising Duet With Jessica Simpson
It’s release day for for KING + COUNTRY, and Luke says his young daughter, Evie, woke him up this morning with delight, squealing, “Daddy! Daddy! Your music’s all out now!”
For Evie, her dad and uncle’s new album, “The Most Beautiful Colours,” has taken two-fifths of her life to create — an eternity for a 5-year-old. For Luke, and his brother, Joel, it feels like part of a perpetual cycle they’ve grown accustomed to. Yet, on the way out the door this morning, Luke’s wife, Courtney, reminded him: “Don’t breeze by it. These moments don’t come very often.”
She’s right. Release days are rare. This is only the fifth release day of for KING + COUNTRY’s career — their sixth if you count their Christmas record. And each one has found them in a very different season as artists.
When their debut, “Crave,” released in 2012, the Smallbone brothers found themselves on the cusp of the digital revolution; but in the meantime, CD sales were still the music industry’s primary barometer. “We cut our teeth on that record,” Joel remembers. “We just released it going, ‘Man, I hope we can do another one.’”
Their follow-up, “Run Wild. Live Free. Love Strong.,” arrived two years later. For 2018’s “Burn The Ships,” they dug deep to mine a methodical, thoughtful effort. Meanwhile, their fourth studio endeavor, “What Are We Waiting For?,” was written in response to the pandemic, crafted in isolation.
Now, four years later, the duo brings “The Most Beautiful Colours” to life with 10 brand-new recordings.
“All these release days, and even the projects themselves, have this kind of really specific personality to them,” Joel reflects. “I think what Luke and I both feel this release day, actually, is gratitude. We’re really proud of [this album].”
Related Content: On New Incendiary Single ‘World On Fire,’ for KING + COUNTRY Shines Bright
Perhaps their obvious thankfulness comes from the unlikely place where they made “The Most Beautiful Colours” — at home in Franklin, Tennessee. The road warriors, who spent their childhood touring with their sister, Rebecca St. James, have created most of their previous work in the midst of a rigorous concert itinerary; but this time, an intentional 18-month break — the first time Luke recalls not regularly traveling since he was 9 years old — forced them off the road and into the studio while daily, ordinary life blossomed all around them.
“This album feels very lived,” Luke offers, “and I think the reason why it feels lived is because we were showing up at the studio and — Joel hates this about me — a lot of the days we’d just start talking about life. And sometimes, that can edge to many hours before we actually start working.”
Joel playfully interjects, “And sometimes it edges toward never working.”
Some days, before any lyrics were ever written or any melodies were ever sung, Luke notes that laughter was enjoyed, tears were shed and prayers were voiced as they shared life in writing sessions with some of their “dearest friends in the world.”
“When you write a song immediately after you walk off the stage… I mean, there is a high to the stage. You’re putting your best on; you go out there, it’s energetic. And sometimes, I think you walk offstage, and you still chase the high and the music that you just played,” Luke observes. “But when a song is well lived, it’s not about the highs or the lows.”
As such, “The Most Beautiful Colours” feels like a more mature version of for KING + COUNTRY — a culmination of their musical experience and unique artistic expression thus far. “We never could have written this record at any other time in our life. This record was earned,” Joel remarks, adding that the brothers refer to it as “earned optimism.” “Luke and I have been through ‘in sickness and in health’ — not just with [our wives], Courtney and Moriah — but with each other. And we’ve earned the right, I think, to sing some of these songs and to release them into the world.”
Musically, the project boasts vibrant global rhythms — a deliberate sonic direction from the start, and one that prominently shows up on colorful anthems like “World On Fire (feat. Taylor Hill)” and “Alle.” “I think it was very important for us to create art that represented all people. When you’re making music that is predominantly in America, you just forget about the rest of the world. And rhythm rules the day around the rest of the world,” Luke acknowledges. “I heard someone say that rhythm is as important as the melody, these days, in music. And I think it’s true. It’s the bedrock of the art you’re creating. So if you want music that makes you feel good, the drummer needs to be playing a rhythm that makes you feel good. If you want a song that makes you feel sad, in some cases, you’re going to remove the drums at some level.”
Drums have always been the heartbeat of for KING + COUNTRY’s DNA. So much so, in fact, that their signature version of “Little Drummer Boy” has inspired a film of the same name. In theaters Nov. 6, 2026, “Drummer Boy” is an action-musical, eight years in the making, for which Joel and Luke wrote all of the original music.
Related Content: Christmas on K-LOVE: 7 Classic Carols by Your Favorite Artists
“It’s the most expansive, most expensive, most time-intensive project that Luke and I have ever been a part of,” Joel shares, calling their latest movie a merger of their “passion for Jesus and for brotherhood and for love and for music and for Christmas.”
Earlier this year, the brothers spent three months in Ireland filming “Drummer Boy,” which Joel both stars in and co-directs. Noting that popular series like “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” and “Vikings” have been filmed on the scenic Emerald Isle, the irony wasn’t lost on the brothers that they were filming a movie about the American Revolution on foreign soil. Nevertheless, Ireland’s picturesque landscape provided the perfect backdrop for their latest theatrical release.
“The people there have a real grasp on what’s important in life. They’re not working weekends. They’re really good at their craft,” Joel asserts. “Just like so much about what you present on stage is about what happens behind the stage, so much of what’s in front of the camera is a reflection of what’s happening behind the camera. It was a really great experience with really good people.”
Lest listeners fear the Australia natives are forsaking their music in favor of the Hollywood silver screen, for KING + COUNTRY affirms one art form simply informs the other. If anything, pursuing both projects simultaneously fuels their creativity. “I think our art is getting better working on other art forms that aren’t perfectly correlated to where we find our ‘day job,’ as Joel says it,” Luke notes. “If we’re given the privilege of making movies that are successful enough to where we’re able to make more, I think we will continue to do more.”
“I think we’ve always seen them as married, right? Music and movies, storytelling,” Joel adds. “Because a concert, to us, is storytelling. A music video is storytelling.”
Writing a song also necessitates a great deal of storytelling. Most of the time it involves the 19-time K-LOVE Fan Award winners setting their own stories to melody. But for “The Most Beautiful Colours,” the duo attempted something they’ve never done before: They set out to write someone else’s story. That someone else just happened to be ’90s pop star Jessica Simpson.
In 2023, Simpson had just moved to Nashville when for KING + COUNTRY’s publisher set them up for a blind co-write. Simpson came into the studio with a board filled with pictures and mementoes from her life and career. From there, her personal story poured out, and “My Mosaic” was born.
Related Content: 4 Christian Artists Who Recorded Songs With Dolly Parton
Originally, the thought was that Simpson would solely cut the autobiographical ballad; but as the duo was curating songs for their own album, Joel had the idea of turning her story into a duet. Simpson is featured on the final selection, initially coming in on the victorious chorus and revealing her spiritual rebirth at the song’s conclusion.
“We’re sons of a very courageous immigrant mom, brothers to two really awesome sisters and husbands to two really powerful, talented wives. And so, understanding where we’ve come from helps us see the power of coming around one another and lifting each other up,” Joel says of the core reason they were inspired to support Simpson on the track. “Being able to celebrate [Jessica] and put language to some really hard moments and some really beautiful moments in her life was such an honor. It’s sort of the song that shouldn’t exist in some ways, but here we are.”
It’s taken an international move, four studio records, a handful of film projects, a lifetime of touring and a hiatus to get to this pivotal moment when, as Joel says, “‘The Most Beautiful Colours’ goes from ours to yours.”
As for KING + COUNTRY amps up their touring machine in support of the project this fall, they’re expectant for how these new musical hues will impact listeners.
“One of the things that’s lovely about music is you never know the trajectory it’s going to take,” Luke observes. “We’ve gotten to live with this music, and it takes you on some sort of journey as you confront the good and the bad of what you’re writing about that comforts your own soul. But for other people, this is the beginning, and you just never know what it can do.”
