Needtobreathe to play their biggest hometown concert … so far

Promoting its most recent and highly successful release of "The Outsiders," Needtobreathe has traveled across the country for the past year with few breaks.

The band played two nights at The Music Farm in April to sold out and enthusiastic crowds. This leg of the continuing tour has the band opening for Train before heading to Europe and then back to the U.S. again for the final tour segment of "Young and Far From Home."

Bo Rinehart says with Charleston being the band members' hometown, they will play a longer than the usual abbreviated opening act set.

Most of the band's time will consist of material from "The Outsiders" with a couple of songs from their first two albums. They also will probably throw in the little-played "The Devil's Been Talking" or possibly a new song that Rinehart wrote last week called "White Fences."

"That is if I finish the song, as I still have to write the bridge section," Rinehart said. "The song is about the classic American dream and how things come in the way that were not expected. It's a great song and I'm 95 percent sure the song will be on our next album."

During the tour breaks, Rinehart says the band loves coming home to Charleston where they almost always head straight to their home studio.

"Being on the road is a job and is work while being home is like a vacation, though we try to make it like a day job and go into the studio from nine to five. It's so much easier given we have our own studio," he said.

Bo Rinehart and his brother, Bear, do all the songwriting for the band.

Bo Rinehart says, "Sometimes everything clicks and the whole band is on board with four 'yes' votes and it's a done deal. Other times there is more butting of heads and we're stubborn."

The band plans to record fewer songs for its next album and focus on those ideas that are the most popular.

Though the album has produced five singles that have been on various Billboard charts and the album itself peaked at No. 20, "The Outsiders" was released only a year ago yesterday.

Rinehart said not to expect a new album any time soon but probably sometime next year.

"We have about 15 songs so far in varying stages of completion. We've been pretty loose and have been playing around with new ideas such as a distorted slide ukulele solo," he said.

This is the last scheduled Charleston date for Needtobreathe's tour, so fans need to see the group now.