An Interview with BlushUK
The Christian Girl Group Discuss Music and Evangelism in Schools
Oct 15, 2009
BlushUK's Lucy, Nic and Jess are much more than ‘trendy’ pop princesses, the girl group are modern day missionaries to teenagers across Britain.
Alongside the usual band activities like performing at music festivals and releasing a debut album Sunshine, an integral part of the group's activities is their outreach placements in secondary schools as part of The Message youth charity organisation.
The History and Music of BlushUK
Fifteen years since The Message’s CEO Andy Hawthorn’s dream of taking the gospel to young people in Manchester, BlushUK have taken over from where premier Christian dance group The Tribe left off to become the charity’s flagship schools band that go around the Greater Manchester area introducing God to media-savvy but gospel-poor teenagers.
“As an all-girl group, we target secondary school-aged teen girls” explains Lucy, the longest-standing member of the band after two line-up changes. “Young girls look up to artistes like Britney Spears or Beyonce, so in the Christian scene it’s really good to have a similar level of role model to look up to for them.”
BlushUK specialise in edgy pop and RnB and keep their ear to the ground musically in order to keep sounding fresh to their young audiences.
Jess explains “the newest girl band out there are the Pussy Cat Dolls, and they are more harder edged- so we’ve made our latest EP with a more edgier sound because of what we enjoy listening to and mainly because of what our target audience are listening to as well- our inspiration is what is going on in the charts.”
Nic agrees stating “If we came out doing what is similar to Steps now, it wouldn’t work because that is not what the kids are listening to. If you want to reach a certain audience, you’ve got to know what they like and produce something that sounds similar to get them interested, but when they realise what’s in the content [of our music,] that’s when they find out how different we are.”
Negative Media Images
BlushUK's music, image and message is making an impact as they are inundated with requests and currently minister to over 20 high schools every year, reaching thousands of young people annually with a message of hope, dignity and self-respect to teenagers inundated with sexually explicit material daily.
“In the secular scene at the moment, it’s the less you wear the more attractive you seem, whereas with BlushUK and even with our dance moves, there’s no provocative element within that or with our dressing- no belly no legs kind of thing” Nic explained. “
We dress in a really respectful way to tell people that you can look gorgeous as a female whatever your age but you don’t have to show yourself off in order to do that. You can be classy and gorgeous at the same time.”
BlushUK Spread the Gospel
However, behind every successful pop concert they perform, there are always a team of Christian counsellors who teal the ground, so to speak, for BlushUK to come in and sow seeds, and afterwards the workers, who are part of the Christians in Schools Trust (CIST), continue their weekly meetings with the kids as part of the ongoing Christian presence in the schools.
“After the gigs we go around chatting to the kids that have decided that they want to get to know this God-person we’ve been talking about, so a lot of them are absolutely buzzing and afterwards the atmosphere is amazing,” says Jess.
“But we have to make sure that when we leave there is a follow up. We can’t do this because afterwards we pop along to another school - we do the whole week then we move on - but the CIST workers are in the schools every Tuesday lunchtime and they pray for the kids and they have churches around the area praying for that school.
“So we make sure that we work closely with them so that the kids associate BlushUK with God and with the workers of CIST. Our job would be far less fruitful if the CIST workers weren’t in there already.”
Role Models to Teenage Girls
BlushUK take their responsibilities as role models seriously, and many of the songs on Ear Candy serves as musical advice to their army of young fans. “The songs that we’ve written are really in response to a lot of the issues that we come into contact with” says Nic. “Songs like Slow Down is mainly telling young girls that it’s not necessary to sleep with a guy.
So is about kids going out and doing things they shouldn’t but they feel they have to because they’re mates are doing it or to look cool, but they will end up doing things they’ll regret. What we’d like them to get out of this EP is a challenge- to think about what they’re doing with their lives and discover who they are in God, not who they are from other people.”
When asked which they’d choose: ministering to one child in need or performing at the Grammy Awards, after much thoughtful laughter, Jess replies “We would go to the Grammys because we would be reaching so many people, but we would make a way for that girl to be treated like a princess and come to the Grammys with us.
“We’re not going to say that we don’t enjoy doing the big concerts, but we also love the grounding that the schools give us - we get to see hands on what happens [with our message] rather than from afar.”
And Lucy chips in: “to be fair though, if we’ve been invited to the Grammys then we’re probably doing that sort of thing all the time, so we can ditch it that one time and take the girl out to McDonald’s!”
Visit bluskuk.com for the latest information on the group, and learn more about UK Christian band Four Kornerz in Interview with Four Kornerz
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