My sister, Sarah, and her husband felt that God was leading them to adopt a child from China. They couldn’t afford it. Plus, they felt strongly that they wanted to adopt a special needs child. I watched their obedience to God – moving to an unfamiliar city to take a job that would allow them to afford the adoption process. I saw God move in their circumstances and their lives in powerful ways to confirm their every step. They had so much joy in the process. God brought them a little girl. Our whole family celebrated with them. I was so impacted – watching them actually live out their faith. There is legitimacy to that. It’s genuine. I want our band to be like that. This little girl, the gift that she is, how her story touched so many people – that’s what we want our band to be. Her name is Esterlyn.

My name is Luke Caldwell. I’m a singer. With our drummer Nick, guitar player John, and bass player Tony – we are Esterlyn. We love what we do, but living on the road and expecting to squeeze enough satisfaction to keep going from that hour we have on stage just doesn’t work. It’s the moments that fuel us – when a high school girl hears a song that gives her a glimpse of a God who values her, or experiences the presence of God in such a way where she doesn’t have to cut herself anymore just to feel something. When that stuff happens it makes the all night drives a whole lot easier.

We worked on the songs for our debut album, Lamps, for over a year, so we had a lot of time to think about our sound and the themes we wanted to address in the lyrics. In the end, though, we discovered that we are a pretty simple band. We want to be earnest and sincere in our music, and we hope our own form of melody reflects that. As for the lyrics – I sing about things that are inside of my heart. The fear and unbelief that burrows its way into my mind. I sing about Christ’s persistent work in my life and the experiences that make me the person I am today. I have a deep desire to write about hope, and wanting life to be more. That’s ultimately where we got the title “Lamps”. I was reading that verse in Matthew 5 about letting our light shine, and the idea of a lamp as a representation of that light came to mind. In the end, I think that’s what we want to be about. Whether it’s in who we are, how we tour, or what’s in our songs – we want to be a light – just like little Esterlyn was for us.