aboutffh

Biography (courtesy of Essential Records)

"We don't feel like an overnight success. It just happened to be God's timing to open up the boundaries of our ministry. We've been recording and performing for several years, and this was just the next step. Granted, it was a pretty big one."
--Jeromy Deibler, FFH

For a group that's been around the block a few times, recorded nine albums, played over two hundred dates a year, and had the highest charting "indie" single in the history of Christian radio, FFH is about as close to an overnight success story as you can get. Their major label debut, I Want To Be Like You, released late November 1998 on Essential Records, has shipped over 250,000 unites, garnered multiple #1 radio singles, and generated a flurry of national attention that has irrefutably established FFH as the breakthrough new artist of 1999. As FFH readies for the March 21st release of their sophmore project, Found A Place, they do so as a band poised to move to the next level of their career and ministry. "The early success of the first record really took us by surprise," admits Jeromy, the groups co-founder and principal writer. "I don't think you ever expect to have so much attention all at once. FFH spent six and a half years playing to small audiences of fifty, or thirty, or a hundred. All of a sudden, lots of people are coming to our concerts already having bought our record and knowing our music. It's very humbling to realize how God has expanded what we're doing."

I Want To Be Like You's first single, the soaring, acoustic rock track "One of These Days," quickly became a #1 multi-formal hit. The intense, melody infused follow-up single, "I Want to be Like You," followed suit and reached #1 in a matter of weeks. In the midst of all that, FFH wrote and recorded a song used in a Coca-Cola national radio advertising campaign that aired on over 4000 stations, and were selected to perform as the special musical guest at the annual press conference announcing the 1999 Gospel Music Association Dove Award nominees. Heave press attention, including a Release magazine August/September '99 cover feature, introduced them to a whole new audience, while the increasing demand for their live performances sent them zigzagging around the country to play 200 dates in 1999. At a radio-sponsored mall appearance in Dallas, FFH pulled in over 3000 fans, outdrawing even the group *Nsync!

The whirlwind of activity has caused the members of FFH, Jeromy and Jennifer Deibler, Brian Smith and Michael Boggs, to place extra emphasis on remembering the calling they believe has been entrusted to them. "We've always been blatant about FFH's goal as a group," says Jeromy. "Our goal is to reach as many people as we can for Jesus as quickly as possible. But we always have to be careful that that goal doesn't get lost in the details and pressures of writing, recording, and touring."

FFH's focus is woven throughout the lyrics of Found A Place, which features the return production talents of Scott Williamson. According to Jeromy, the title track, written out of a makeshift living situation that placed Michael in Jeromy and Jennifer's spare bedroom, "is about finding yourself in God's will and experiencing all the blessings that come with it. The rest, the love, the assurance, the sold out abandon to the Father; all are things we experience when we surrender to the will of God and allow Him to have his way in our lives."

Other songs on the project such as "Lord Move, or Move Me," "Why Do I," and "Your Love is Life to Me" also illustrate the group's earnest desire to find their place only through God's direction. "We used to sit and worry over how our bills were going to be paid," recalls.Brian, FFH's other founding member, "but over the past few years God has given us faith to know that he'll provide for those needs. Now we're trying to learn to deal with the pressure of having so many people watching us and tugging at us from different directions. Our main concerns now are making sure we all stay grounded, making sure we're in the Word of God, making sure we're spending time in prayer and making sure that the family integrity we have on the road stays intact."

Describing their touring entourage in terms of "family" isn't just a metaphor for FFH. Not only is Jeromy's wife, Jennifer, an integral part of the groups vocal chemistry, but her father and mother travel everywhere with the band in the roles of "road pastor" and merchandising supervisor. Brian's wife Allyson also works for the group and travels with them, as do three additional friends. "What's amazing to me is that ten people can go on the road and be together all the time and still get along," says Jennifer. "There's no way that can happen unless God puts it together. You just have to learn to be with each other constantly and to give and take a lot."