Found a Place

“It’s been a wild ride!” That’s how Jeremy Deibler of FFH describes the past eight years, during which a group that began by traveling “anywhere and everywhere” in a Subaru wagon, without instruments or sound equipment, developed into an entity that sells three to four thousand albums a week and consistently climbs the radio charts. Much has changed along the way.

FFH started in 1991 when Jeremy and friend Brian Smith started a four-man vocal group during their senior year in high school. “He played the trumpet and I played the drums,” Jeremy says. “That didn’t make much of a band so we decided we’d just sing. For the first three or four years that’s all we did—we sang a cappella.”

A church dubbed the nameless quartet “Four for Harmony,” a moniker that the guys quickly shortened to the acronym FFH. The initials were later expanded to the more meaningful name Far From Home. “We like the name Far From Home because it carries two meanings,” Jeremy explains. “We’re far from our eternal home, plus, in touring 220 days a year we’re constantly away from our [earthly] homes. Unfortunately, when FFH started to take off nationally we learned that there was another group called Far From Home. They had the name before we did and they had a lawyer, so we’re just FFH.”

Today FFH consists of Jeremy (lead vocals, guitar) and Brian (bass, vocals), Jeremy’s wife Jennifer (vocals, guitar), and newest member Michael Boggs (guitar, vocals), who joined the group in January when the previous guitarist left to start a church. And, like their a cappella-only sound, the group’s days of selling CDs out of the garage are gone. FFH’s current album, I Want to Be Like You, sold 130,000 copies within the first five months, fueled by the radio success of songs like “One of These Days,” “Big Fish,” “Take Me as I Am” and the album’s title track. The group made an impact on radio even before being signed to a record label: FFH was one of the highest-charting independent acts in Christian radio history.

Multiple record companies courted the group, which chose to sign with Essential. “We got a copy of the group’s independent CD from one of our road reps,” says Essential A&R Director Bob Wohler. “We’d started hearing a buzz on the band before that. There is something genuine about what they do that just blew us away.”

“I knew they were going to connect with people because of their heart and because the music is very palatable to a mainstream audience,” says FFH producer Scott Williamson (Point of Grace, Michael O’Brien). “I’m not all that surprised that the record is selling as well as it is. I think FFH is pleasantly surprised, because they’ve been independent for so long.”

The success has indeed been encouraging. “It’s had a great deal of effect on what we do,” Jeremy relates. “I mean, we’ve been doing this for eight years, traveling church to church and city to city and, up until the past year or so, sometimes we’d have 50 people, sometimes 250, sometimes we’d have only five! But it was a blessing to be able to sing in front of those people; God was using those times to shape and mold our music and our ministry. But now you can tell that there are CDs in a lot of people’s hands because they come to the shows knowing our music, singing along. They enjoy the shows more because they know the songs.”

During the lean years, a more significant change had come about. “When we started, our goal wasn’t to minister, it was to sing,” Brian says, as Jeremy nods agreement. “Over the years our heart has turned to the ministry rather than the singing. We love to perform, but the ministry is now the most important part.”

“Our goal when we started out was to sing for a living, in all honesty,” Jeremy confirms. “Now, it’s almost like we’re evangelists that sing.”

Based on the time he spent working with the group, Williamson agrees. “The greatest thing about FFH in my view is the fact that if someone tomorrow were to tell them that they’d have to completely omit the ministry aspect of what they do, they would quit—they’d stop what they’re doing. Because ministry’s at the core of everything they do and every decision they make.”

It’s a focus they want to keep, regardless of success. “Over the past year or two with everything happening so fast,” Jeremy says, “God’s been teaching me, Look, you’re not in control of this thing, I am. Just be still, rest in Me. Focus right on Me and everything will be fine. We just want to share with people in any way we can the straightforward, bold hope we have in Jesus Christ, whether it’s onstage, off the bus or at home with our families. We’re trying to follow God’s will and do that.”

“I think God has really been shaping our ministry over the last year as far as what our goals are,” Brian notes. “Our number one goal is to reach as many people for Jesus as we can as quickly as possible; that’s actually our mission statement. But also He’s been teaching us over the last year to lead His people in praise & worship. Then, too, we’ve been finding that we’ve kind of been given the job of uniting youth and adults, seeing that youth and adults can come to the same concert and both can enjoy it. We’ve found ourselves in the place of bringing them together.”

“There are very few artists able to go into a venue and access the crowd and adapt accordingly,” says Tony Johnsen, executive vice president of The Greg Oliver Agency. “[FFH is] very adaptable; they encompass the youth as well as the parents. I’ve never before seen a group able to cover all of those spectrums and not lose an audience.”

“They really want to appeal to the whole family, and not many people can pull it off the way they do,” Wohler says. “They try to do concerts where the whole family can come and really enjoy it.” The concerts are eclectic. “We do kind of a grab-bag of things, almost everything,” Brian says. “We do some songs with tracks, we do a cappella songs, we do acoustic stuff. Michael and Jeremy play guitar and the bongo and Jennifer plays a little guitar; I play bass. We do stripped-down acoustic stuff off our album and some praise & worship, all kinds of stuff. We try to do whatever suits the situation.”

“People want to see your heart and they want to be entertained at the same time,” Jeremy says. “Doing different things is entertaining, and we know we’re there to entertain. Our first goal is ministry, but we’ve got to do that in an entertaining way, so we try to do as much of the different stuff God has gifted us with as possible.”

Jeremy writes essentially all of the group’s songs. “I think the strength of his writing is he’s got an incredible ear for hooky, melodic things people can really sink their teeth into,” Williamson says. “His tendency is to write lyrics that are fairly pointed, as well.”

Of those songs, Jeremy would point to “Wholly to You” as one of the band’s favorites. “We wanted to have some praise music on our records so when people sing the lyrics in their car or wherever, they can actually own them. It’s one of those vertical songs, not so much a song about the Lord but to the Lord. Just, All I have Lord, everything I am, take it—it’s Yours.”

“FFH is four people who are committed to finding out what God is blessing and doing that,” Williamson says, “rather than doing whatever they want and then asking God to bless it. I think that’s a powerful principle. My suspicion is that God is going to bless their ministry profoundly. I just can’t say enough good about those guys."