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Nathan and Jenna Strong are a young married couple known in Christian music circles as After the Chase. With musical influences including Rich Mullins, Sara Groves, and Caedmon's Call, After The Chase makes inspirational folk-pop-rock music with a unique blend of husband-and-wife harmony.
 After The Chase recently released their sophomore release on iTunes. It's called “Make Me New,” and features production by Nate Sabin (Sara Groves, Jason Gray, Brian Bates). The couple from California have come a long way from their humble beginnings as church worship leaders.
Nathan and Jenna Strong met a few years ago at their local church in Northern California. Jenna, a music major in college, had never played any instruments, while Nathan, a pastor's kid, had been playing piano and guitar since he was a little boy. The pair married, and now Jenna has become a multi-tasking musician, tackling everything from the harmonica to the mandolin, as well as electric guitar. Together, she and Nathan, along with several other musicians like Phil Madeira and Jeff Roach, have created an enticing indie acoustic rock inspirational sound on “Make Me New.”
“The songs on 'Make Me New' captured our experiences of 2007,” says Jenna. “From the honest, angst- ridden cry of 'We Wait,' which really resonates with young people questioning their faith, to the happy-go-lucky melodies of 'I'll Be A Fool,' this album really expresses a big part of who we are. We moved in that precarious place between doubt and faith, and sorrow and joy, and the songs we wrote as a young married couple were a reflection of that journey.”
“Make Me New” follows a successful self-titled debut CD, which featured the hit radio single “Run.” In 2007, After The Chase enjoyed radio airplay and gigs in several states including Hawaii, Colorado, and New Jersey, as well as the Eastern European country of Latvia, where the pair gained quite a following after running summer youth camps there.
Nathan and Jenna travel a lot, and enjoy doing missionary work. They're affiliated with Mercy Ships, a ministry that uses hospital ships to deliver free world-class health care and community development services to poor people all over the globe. Nathan spent some time aboard a Mercy Ship traveling from Norway to England and considered it an amazing, life-changing time. He and his wife look forward to future work with Mercy Ships.
As for now, After The Chase is busy promoting the title track from “Make Me New,” which can be heard on Inspirational radio stations, and the duo plans to tour in order to help promote both the single and full-length album.
After The Chase's overall sound works well in churches, coffeehouses, and at outdoor events like summer camps and music festivals.
“Make Me New” is available on iTunes, and for more information, or to book After The Chase, please visit www.afterthechase.com.
UPDATE FALL 2008, from After The Chase via email:
Hello everyone!
We missed you all so much that we wanted to write a quick hello and update on the ministry…and we didn't want you to think we had fallen off the face of the earth:)
If you missed our CD release concert in March, you can still see a little bit of it on video! Check out the new video clip of us playing "I'll be a Fool" from that night at youtube or myspace. As we were editing the video, we found ourselves filled with so much love from the people who helped make that night possible. We want to thank you all from the bottom of our hearts!
In April we headed out to GMA (Gospel Music Association) week in Tennessee where we got to play some tunes for a bunch of radio station programmers in downtown Nashville. Talk about surreal. We had a great time and made a lot of good friends and industry connections. We are currently talking with several distribution companies to get our CDs in stores across the U.S! Please pray with us as we are in the middle of making such big decisions.
We've been doing a lot of "mini-tours" over the last year. As you may have guessed, it is fairly easy to find a venue in need of musicians on a Saturday or Sunday morning/night when we are traveling in various places across the country, but not so easy finding one for a Friday night or any other day during the week. With that said, we have been looking into doing house concerts for our fans. If you are not familiar with house concerts let me fill you in…
Picture a relaxing evening, listening to music, in the comfort of your own home. Only the music isn't coming from your CD player. The music you are listening to is coming from the musician who is sitting in your living room with you and your friends, sharing his or her songs and stories. These stories are ones that are special, personal and seldom told because they are often lost in the context of a large venue. It's just you, your friends, your living room, and great, intimate, acoustic music.
Sound good to you? If so, you should let us know! Check out our website calendar of events and see if we will be in your area this year. Some potentials trips are not on the website yet; we are also looking at possible trips to Minnesota, Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, and Maryland this year. House concerts are a great excuse to get you and your friends and family together for something really special. You should know, if we are in your area for the weekend and can't find a place to play, we might just email you personally and see what you think about hosting a house concert. Just don't want to catch you off guard.
Well, I think that's about it for now. Check out our new video clip at youtube and let us know if you want to host a house concert! Bye for now!
Nathan & Jenna Strong
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