“Progressive, powerful and passionate.” That’s the tagline of Sweet Crystal. A a christian, gospel/devotional/spiritual, band from Detroit Looking as they key into the core values of their five decades of musical journeying. With a new take on a classic tune just out, Sweet Crystal singer and keyboard player, MarQ Andrew Speck tweaks the WIL format and speaks to us about why he’s loved being in Sweet Crystal some 50 years strong.

It might be hard for any musician to imagine being in the same band for some 5 decades… but that accomplishment (and a personal dream of mine as a young man) has indeed come to pass with no signs of stopping any time soon. As the band gets ready to release its next single This Way Forever (Pearl Sound Mix), I look back fondly on where we started and where we are planning to go next.

IMMEDIATE BOND

I (MarQ Andrew Speck – lead vocals, keyboards) met Bill Blatter (guitars) and Steve Wieser (drums) right out of high school in 1974 and the musical influences we shared was an immediate bond. We started out totally influenced by the progressive rock English music scene of the 60’s and 70’s: bands like Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis, Atomic Rooster, Uriah Heep all left their musical marks on our writing and playing. We also listened to a lot of American bands like Kansas, Journey, Rush and Spock’s Beard to keep our creative juices flowing. These were defining influences in our formative years and remain so to this day.

The three of us – the core-founding members – have never stopped playing together since then (although live touring did stop for a time). In the beginning, we opened up for such classic rock acts as Bob Seger, Foghat, Nazareth, Steppenwolf and many more before finding our true path into the Christian music field.

BETTER WITH AGE

So here we are, 5 decades into this journey, having just celebrated our Golden Jubilee Celebration Year in 2024 and the music, message, mission and ministry are stronger today than ever. With our latest bass player Martin Kuchar now firmly entrenched into the line-up (we went through some 13 bass players over the years…a la Spinal Tap?), to this day we get together every week to rehearse, record and just enjoy each other’s company. Does it get old after 5 decades together? Absolutely not! We just get better with age.

I guess one of the greatest blessings for me is how the rest of Sweet Crystal allows me to lead the direction of the music and just let me be me. I have musical and melodic ideas that I present to the guys at every rehearsal (and we still rehearse after all these decades pretty much every week at our private studio) and then they all add their input and expertise to make every song a real band production.

We constantly record every rehearsal and jam session because you never know when a new riff will open up the creative juices. The final song arrangements are usually dictated by the lyrics (verses, choruses, etc.), which I pretty much exclusively write. We also play a lot of freeform jams at our rehearsals and out of those jams, we pick melodies, chord patterns and themes that just seem to be…sweeter to our ears. It really is a full band thing on each song.

TRADEMARK

In conclusion, I’d just like to point out that our trademarked slogan – Reaching The World, One Song At A Time ™ – pretty much says it all about Sweet Crystal. We are here to reach out to a world with songs of hope and inspiration; a musical light at the end of every dark tunnel you might be going through because chances are good – we’ve gone through those very same tunnels ourselves and definitely have found a way out.

Our thanks to MarQ for the insight as to what contributes to the longevity of a band.

Here’s the latest single:

Sweet Crystal online: Website / Facebook / Youtube / Soundcloud

You can read more from our extensive archive of Why I Love pieces from a wide array of artists on an even wider array of subjects, here.

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