Scene · 1995–2010
Pillar
Pillar began with two roommates in Hays, Kansas, in 1998. The rap-rock band's Fireproof sold more than 300,000 copies and took home a Dove Award.
Pillar got its start as a Christian rock band in Hays, Kansas, in 1998. Fort Hays State University roommates Brad Noone and Rob Beckley got together with some friends, and the band later moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, looking for a bigger audience. The best-known lineup is Beckley, guitarist Noah Henson, bassist Michael "Kalel" Wittig and drummer Lester Estelle. Rapping was a big part of their early records, and it faded as they went on.
Flicker and Fireproof
After two albums on their own, Pillar signed to Flicker Records in mid-2000. They re-recorded many of those early songs for Above, which took the 2001 Dove Award for Hard Music Album. Its song "Live for Him" won Hard Music Recorded Song the next year.
Henson took over guitar in 2002, and Fireproof was the breakthrough. It sold more than 300,000 copies, won the Dove for Hard Music Album, and sent the band out on national tours. Where Do We Go from Here (2004) spent weeks at No. 1 on the Christian sales charts. Secular stations got heavy requests for its song "Bring Me Down," and "Frontline" went gold with the RIAA in 2020.
The Reckoning and a reunion
Travis Wyrick had produced every Pillar album up to then, and he made The Reckoning (2006) too. It got the band its first Grammy nomination, for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album. ESPN used the title song from For the Love of the Game (2008) on Baseball Tonight during the 2007 World Series.
Estelle and Wittig left in 2008. Rob Graves produced Confessions (2009), with Red's Joe Rickard on drums, and it drew a Dove nomination for Rock/Contemporary Album. The 2001–2008 lineup got back together in 2012 and crowdfunded One Love Revolution (2015). In June 2024 they played their first show in over a decade, in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
Cornerstone to the pulpit
Pillar have played both Cornerstone and Creation, and toured with Christian rock bands like Day of Fire and Decyfer Down. Beckley later became a pastor.
From rap to rock
Pillar belonged to the turn-of-the-century rap-rock crowd alongside P.O.D. and Thousand Foot Krutch, then leaned into hard rock as the rapping dropped away. They supported Red on the Nothing and Everything tour and joined Thousand Foot Krutch on Creation Festival: The Tour in 2008.
