The Promise

Through two electronic security gates, up a curving road that spoons a palm-tree-studded expanse of green, past an enormous stairway straight off a Ziegfield Follies set, one finally arrives at Chartmaker Studios.

"David and the guys are at Pizza Hut," a pretty young assistant says, and the utter normalcy of the remark comes as something of a relief. This Fantasyland, tucked in a corner of Ÿber-producer David Foster's Malibu estate, is where the five members of Plus One have been holed up, polishing harmonies and test-driving songs in their bid to become Christian music's Next Big Thing. That something as pedestrian as a pepperoni pizza could infiltrate the rarefied air here is a good sign.

Indeed, the buzz that has preceded the launch of Plus One has raised expectations and eyebrows from the get-go. Alternately hyped as Christian music's first "boy band" or the genre's new model for multi-platinum success, the truth is considerably simpler: these are five church guys whose lives have been transformed virtually overnight into the California Dream. How on earth did they get here?

Interestingly, Nate Cole (age 18), Gabe Combs (20), Jeremy Mhire (19), Jason Perry (17) and Nathan Walters (21) have come together through an odd mix of coincidences, near misses, and could-have-beens that has them all in agreement: This band is definitely "a God thing." Little wonder their heads are spinning.

"We always say," Cole says, "there's going to come a point where someone is going to sit down with us and go, This has all been a really big joke!"

"There are so many moments that are really surreal," adds Mhire, who hails from Springfield, Mo. Sure, like singing "America The Beautiful"which has oddly become their signature song--before a crowd of 18,000 at a Los Angeles Kings hockey game, or for Vice President Al Gore at a fundraiser. Or performing at Carole Bayer Sager's Christmas party and seeing Jack Nicholson, Goldie Hawn and Dustin Hoffman in the crowd. "You just sit there going, Wait a second! Wait a second!" Mhire marvels.

While all five are seasoned performers--they've been singing, playing instruments and leading worship in their respective home churches for years--most were, until recently, ordinary high school and college kids just beginning to wonder what they were going to do with their lives.

Walters, at 21 the group's eldest, is the lone exception. With the chiseled good looks of a TV soap star, Walters had already decided to leave his home of Lakeland, Fla.--where he'd been leading worship at the humongous Carpenter's Home Church--and pursue a music dream in Nashville. Once in town he got a day job at a shoe store, toured briefly with Janet Paschal, and basically tried to meet as many people as he could before trying out for Plus One.

It was with some initial misgivings that he auditioned for the group. Having moved to Nashville to make it as a solo singer, songwriter and producer, the idea of a pre-fabricated "boy group" initially turned him off.

"I thought maybe it was going to be cheesy or something, so I put this wall up," Walters says. "I prayed about it and then Mitchell, our manager, called again. He told me more details about it and I thought, Wow! This isn't what I thought it was! This could be a cool deal."

It's easy to see why Walters was initially wary. Pre-fab pop groups--that is, put together through the audition process by a manager or producer--have usually received a bum rap, viewed as more image than substance. All of that started to change when pre-fab groups like Backstreet Boys and ÔN Sync started racking up Grammy and American Music Award nominations, along with multi-platinum sales and No. 1 singles.

Mitchell Solarek, who owns a San Francisco modeling agency and manages such acts as Natalie Grant, Selah and Greg Long, put Plus One together with music executive Barry Landis. Solarek had a very selfish reason for wanting a Christian "boy band"--as a father of two young children, and a Christian, he was concerned about the lyrics his kids were hearing.

"Backstreet Boys--they're considered wholesome, but the lyrics of one song is 'am I sexual'--and my 6-year-old daughter is singing that! I don't want my daughter singing, 'am I sexual!' So I said, I'm going to get Christian CDs for her. Her taste in music is Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync and Britney Spears--and the reality was, there weren't any [Christian acts like that]."

Meanwhile, halfway across the country in Nashville, Landis heard a similar call. As head of Atlantic Records' Christian music division, he wanted not only to produce successful pop bands--and in this day and age, that means "boy" groups and "girl" groups--he also wanted to create a new model for sending this music out into the world. Partnering with general market labels, like David Foster's 143 Records, has opened many doors for the Plus One guys, even before their album was recorded.

"Promoting to the whole [Christian] subculture and preaching to the choir is one idea, but my personal view is that Christ commanded us to go--He commanded us to be light and salt," Landis says. "For us to do that I really believe that we have to penetrate the darkness, and that's a really difficult thing to do. But I think that means we have to be involved in partnerships that give us opportunities we've never had before."

Working with David Foster--the hitmaking producer behind Whitney Houston, Boyz II Men and Celine Dion, to name a few--has handed these guys a platform that usually takes years, and many hit albums, to create. Who else could get a Christian band singing "America The Beautiful" aired on influential L.A. pop station, KIIS-FM? Most Christian artists, no matter how established, will never reach Plus One's starting point.

"They are one of the few Christian bands to be asked to be involved in things that Christian artists aren't typically involved in," Solarek notes. "To be singing in front of the CEO of Time Warner and Kevin Costner--what an amazing opportunity to share the faith in action! I'm so proud of that more than anything else."