Remedy Drive, a high-energy rock band from Nashville, has David Zach on lead vocals, guitar, and electric piano; Timmy Jones on drums and backing vocals; Corey Horn on bass and backing vocals; and Dave Mohr on guitars and backing vocals. One of the hardest working bands touring today, Remedy Drive consistently plays between 150-200 shows per year. 

 

The original band began in 1998 with Zach and his three brothers. They released six independent projects before their first major label release, 2008's Daylight is Coming. This put Remedy Drive into the national spotlight when their single "All Along" went to No. 1 on CHR radio for seven weeks and into the top 10 of the AC charts as well. 

 

In late 2010, after his brothers decided to leave the road and gave him their blessing to continue on, frontman Zach re-invented and re-energized the band by adding Jones, Horn, and Mohr to the line-up. The new foursome's die-hard community has shouted their approval from coast to coast. 

 

"We're four guys making music together from four different parts of the country--and we don't have a plan B," says Zach. "We just want to keep making music and writing songs that shoot holes in the night sky, so that the light can break through the darkness. This new chapter of the band is an awesome adventure, and we're excited to see where the road leads us, because music can go places where nothing else can. It can break down barriers, rebuild bridges, soften the hardest of hearts, and remind us to never lose hope."

 

Remedy Drive is poised to release its debut project on Centricity Music Sept. 18, 2012. Resuscitate features the new lineup. Produced by Pete Kipley (Matthew West, Kutless, MercyMe), the project offers 10 brand-new songs co-written by the band. 

 

I had the opportunity to interview lead singer David Zach about the single "Better Than Life." 

 

 

Sometimes you need something to kick-start the creative process. I had all these lines that I had written down as ideas for songs, and I had just watched The Lion King. I was really moved by that scene at the beginning when they hold up Simba. I was inspired right then, and built some music similar to how I felt watching that scene. 

 

Ecclesiastes says that eternity has been set in our hearts and C.S. Lewis wrote about "the weight of glory that thought itself can't sustain." It's difficult to put such things into words but hopefully a song can remind us of the age-old ache, the mystery that somehow we've had and lost some infinite thing. The more I experience what I thought would fill me up the more empty spaces I discover in my heart. Like David says in the Psalms--and I feel the same way--God's love is better than life. 

 

There is an overwhelming feeling that sometimes I feel more lost than found most days. The song title is something I knew in my head from reading Psalms, but I have finally understood in my heart that love can be better than life and that love can be life itself. Being moved is the point of art. It's supposed to move us and I want to be moved when I'm writing songs. It was an exhausting time for me, and a good melody--even before the words--can remind our hearts of something our head only knows.

 

Psalm 63:2-4: "I have seen You in the sanctuary and beheld Your power and Your glory. Because Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You. I will praise You as long as I live, and in Your name I will lift up my hands."

 

 

Oftentimes, I come to this place where I'm looking for the fire and butterflies in my stomach and first love in my life, and I want it back. That desperation and more so the realization that I need to be sustained--regained--when I'm lost. I need to be repaired. 

 

Growth in my life has come the most from becoming a parent. There's an absolute dependence that they have on me. When my kids give me that helpless look, I know I need to be there for them. Entering the Kingdom like a child represents that desperation that children have when they need their parents. We need to have that same desperation for Jesus. 

 

For me, I don't think I really know exactly in my heart that love is better than life. It is a hard reality to grasp. It comes in small amounts and it makes me love the way I want to be loved. It makes me pay attention to people in my life. I want to sustain someone the way God is my Sustainer. I want to seek to regain someone who is lost.

 

 

Matthew Henry's commentary: "God's loving-kindness is in itself, and in the account of all the saints, better than life. It is our spiritual life, and that is better than temporal life, It is better, a thousand times, to die in God's favor than to live under His wrath. David in the wilderness finds, by comfortable experience, that God's loving-kindness is better than life. A great deal of reason we have to bless God that we have better provisions and better possessions than the wealth of this world can afford us, and that in the service of God, and in communion with Him, we have better employments and better enjoyments than we can have in the business and converse of this world."

 

"Better Than Life" is one of my favorite songs of the year. We should all be living for Heaven, our true home. Everything in this broken world will ultimately disappoint you. Earthly things aren't going to fill us up. The rock of Christ Jesus is what gives us ultimate hope and satisfaction. 

 

We've lost our way as a country, as individuals, as a corporate church body, as God's people. Even the best things in life, as great as they are, can't compare to the King of the Universe. Although I have a relationship with my Savior, there is still something to press on towards. There is something else, something more.

 

There's something more than this world which is not really paradise. Rather than striving for money, success, the world and its dreams, we have what we are looking for, right in front of us. I love how this song challenges me to have my priorities in the right place. When it seems like hope is lost, and all that's left is despair, there's still hope in God as His Word tells us that His love is better than life. Amen.

 

(You can watch the lyrics video here.)