For King & Country took a year off. They wrote songs, filmed videos and even a movie or two

A year off for Joel and Luke Smallbone, the brothers of musical duo For King & Country, doesn’t look like you think it might.

There was no month in the Bahamas. No lounging at their summer homes and not even much sleeping in.

The Smallbones took a year off from touring so they could get busy. In other words, the last year has been packed, despite the fact fans haven’t seen much of them.

The brothers did premiere their new single, “World on Fire,” with a firey opening performance at the Dove Awards in October 2025 and now they are preparing for their only live shows this year.  “A Drummer Boy Christmas: The Live Experience,” will consist of only 15 shows, five of which are at Nashville’s Opry House on Dec. 15-19.

We sat down with the Smallbone siblings at their downtown Franklin offices to talk through what they’ve been up to, when new music is coming and what fans can expect at this year’s “Drummer Boy” experience.

Taking a year off was a bit of an adjustment at first

A year off from touring for the last decade included stepping back and supporting their wives’ careers a bit. Luke’s wife, Courtney, has been stepping up her public speaking and wrote a book. Joel’s wife, Moriah, is a Latin country artist. Luke and Joel enjoyed having weekends at home since normally they are touring during that precious family time.

The time off also allowed them to work on new music in a way they haven’t in years.

“It’s been really creatively invigorating,” Joel Smallbone said. “The last twelve years, every time we’ve created, it is been in motion. We’ve been in the tour bus in the back lounge, or in the dressing room, and in this case, we’ve just gotten to show up at the studio each day and order really good food for lunch and break bread together.”

For both brothers, the adjustment of being at home took a minute. Joel Smallbone has realized “Saturday is the greatest day ever,” while Luke adds that he “treasures Sunday mornings.”

“It took me three months to not feel the anxious thing of, I’m about to go out of town,” Luke Smallbone added. “I kept thinking I had to prepare to gear up and leave. I kept thinking we were about to go somewhere. I programmed my body this way. For the last 15, 16 years, I mean, you get close to 30 years of this feeling that in the next couple weeks you’re going to be going somewhere.”

Smallbone realized if you don’t take time to care for your soul, you won’t have anything to write a song about.

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For King & Country sets the ‘World on Fire’

Joel Smallbone says the duo’s new song, “World on Fire,” is just a sample of the entire forthcoming album. When asked what he thinks will musically come out of a year off with time to focus, he ponders a moment before saying, “Newness, vibrance, color, color, clarity.”

“Someone said to me the other day, ‘I’d rather be ashes than dust,'” Joel Smallbone added. “Let’s burn for something, you know? With ‘World On Fire,’ to be able to speak not about the chaos of a world on fire, but to speak about what does it mean for me to live the type of life that is on fire is exciting and colorful.”

The brothers debuted the song along with Taylor Hill on the Dove Awards stage in Bridgestone Arena in October and followed that performance with the song’s video they filmed over the summer in the Dominican Republic using locals for their cast.

As for the rest of the album, the brothers aren’t rushing into things.

” We’re not in a hurry to get past it to the next thing,” Joel Smallbone said. “I think everyone’s always pushing towards the the next thing. We kind of want to sit a bit in the song. This music video, which we’re really excited about, is so vibrant and so meaningful. And then we will start having conversations about the really exciting next chapters of the greater musical picture.”

Sequel to ‘Unsung Hero?’ Check.

On the heels of the release of “Unsung Hero,” the movie which shares the true story of the Smallbones’ migration to America and their sister Rebecca St. James’ rise to stardom, the brothers will release a documentary they’ve been working on for the last five years about their own musical journey.

The guys get asked a lot about a sequel to ‘Unsung Hero” and their answer is a documentary called “No Turning Back,” which will be available to stream on the Wonder Project App on Amazon beginning Nov. 23.

“It just so happens we’ve been working on this documentary that highlights some of our journey over here, but mostly dives into us being a band for 12 years and working together for the last 20. We met our wives during that time. I had broken relationships during that time. We wrote a hundred songs that no one will ever hear during that time. There was illness during that time and extreme failure,” Joel Smallbone said.

He adds that this documentary will be a reintroduction to the band. It’s an honest look at how Joel and Luke Smallbone became For King & Country.

And because Luke and Joel think visually as well as musically — and because their creativity doesn’t ever seem to dry up — there’s another film project in the works.

“One of the other kind-of parallel projects we’ve been developing for seven years, but really seems like it’s taken flight this year is a Revolutionary War musical about two brothers who end up on opposite sides of the battlefield,” Joel Smallbone said. “It’s called ‘Drama Boy,’ and we’ve written all the music for it. It’s a Christmas family film, so think ‘Greatest Showman’ meets ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ meets ‘Hamilton.'”

The brothers expect this film to be released sometime in 2026.

‘Drummer Boy’ 2025 historic residency at the Opry House

Among the duo’s only live concert performances this year will be a five-night residency of their wildly popular “A Drummer Boy Christmas.”

“This will be the longest amount of time we’ve ever done at a residency in the Grand Ole Opry and I think it’s the longest in their history,” Luke Smallbone said. “When you think of the Grand Ole Opry, you think of their history and to be granted the privilege of them believing in us enough to give us five consecutive nights is amazing.”

In 2024, the brothers released the Christmas show as a movie, winning a Dove Award in 2025 for Long Form Music Video of the Year.

“As Christians, you don’t get the opportunity to believe in anything without Christmas,” he added. “And so, you know, at the end of the day to get to celebrate some of the greatest songs that have ever been written in a very special place like the Grand Ole Opry with family and friends every night in the audience is pretty special.”

If you go

What: For King & Country’s ‘A Drummer Boy Live”

When: Dec. 15-19, 2025

Where: Opry House

Tickets: https://www.axs.com/events/789969/for-king-country-tickets?skin=opryhouse

Tickets

Melonee Hurt covers music and music business at The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK — Tennessee. Reach Melonee at [email protected] or on Instagram at @MelHurtWrites.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Joel and Luke Smallbone stayed home this summer for the first time in a decade