Ahead of 2023 Iowa State Fair show, For King + Country focuses on the magic of music

It might not be Christmas in Des Moines, but For King + Country will give audiences a taste of that holiday spirit when the Australian-born act kicks off day one of the Iowa State Fair on Thursday.

The Grammy Award-winning duo composed of brothers Joel and Luke Smallbone will perform at the Grandstand at 8 p.m., bringing all of For King + Country's hits and one undisclosed Christmas song with them — though it's no secret the band has covered “Little Drummer Boy” and previously released an album covering holiday classics.

For King + Country will be joined by the multi-generational family band We The Kingdom.

Ahead of Thursday night’s show, Luke Smallbone spoke to the Des Moines Register in a phone call from New Mexico about living out one’s dreams, state fairs and taking his personal story of family to the big screen.

Note: Answers edited for clarity and length.

Des Moines Register: For King + Country has performed at the Iowa State Fair previously, including in 2017. Do you have any memories from those shows, or is there anything you are hoping to experience this time around?

Luke Smallbone: One thing I love about fairs — because we get into this time of year, we're here in New Mexico, we're playing a fair as well here — is when you go do your own shows, you rent out an arena, people promote the shows, you got radio stations involved and then you come and do your thing and you move on to your next city. The state fair and the fairs, it’s communal. People aren't just there just for a music night, but they're there for the livestock. They're there to have their own version of a theme park. They're there for the food. They're there for music, and it's just so communal. That's something that having played Iowa State Fair in the past is just a beautiful thing. You guys are, I think, probably world-renowned being the Iowa State Fair and it's always an honor to come and be a part of it.

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Des Moines Register: The movie “Unsung Hero,” which will be released in April 2024, follows your family leaving Australia to come to America. What it’s been like translating something personal onto the big screen?

Luke Smallbone: We arrived in America. We struggled significantly as a family, but we just pulled up our bootstraps and bonded as a family, and we got to see some incredible miracles and it was an incredible journey that we were on and so recognizing that it was a unique story, I actually went to a producer friend of mine… and said, “Hey, what do you think about developing a script for this story?” Because I think right now family needs encouragement. Family is messy. Family is hard. We don't have a lot of stories that actually demonstrate what it means to be family and I think people think, even with this movie, that we're going to demonstrate what a perfect family looks like. Man, my family is messy, but it’s in the messiness of family that that's part of the reason why you can call it family because you stick together no matter what. You go through thick and thin, and you come out the other side.

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Des Moines Register: Can you talk a little bit more about the messages of For King + Country’s most recent album, “What Are We Waiting For?” and the meaning behind the title of the album itself?

Luke Smallbone: We wrote the album during the latter stages (of) the pandemic… one of the things that I stumbled upon just thinking through life during that period was life had become very fragile for all of us. And we got to see that around the world. We had so many people saying, “Hey, I had tickets bought for my family to come to this event with you and that person didn't end up making it through the COVID-era of sickness.” Life became very, very fragile but I also realized that there are a lot of people that had stored up hopes and dreams that they actually weren't living out in their life. Because of the fragility of life that was demonstrated through that period of time, I think people started asking themselves, “Well, what am I waiting for? What are we actually as a world waiting for?” I often think of dreams that are almost exclusive to each individual person and if that person doesn't actually live out their dreams, then they're actually not doing, in some cases, what they were designed to do because dreams don't always transfer to individuals, they're yours. They’re something that you were designed to do. Our hope was that we could write an album that was reflecting some of the things that we were going through as not just the nation — which is very unique, this was something that we're going through as a world — and one of those questions that I think that we all should be asking ourselves, and a lot of times when we write these songs, Joel and I are asking ourselves these questions of, “What are we waiting for?” What are the things that we feel like God has laid on our heart, that we have dreams to do, that we say, “I'll get to that in my 40s or I'll get to that my in 60s.” What if we start asking ourselves what are we waiting for and we actually just got to it.

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Des Moines Register: After over a decade of performing and releasing music, how has For King + Country evolved, in terms of music, sound or influences?

Luke Smallbone: I don't think that Joel and I have ever felt like our work here is done and that if that song does this, then at that point that you will feel satisfied. If that makes sense. What I’ve realized is music is a gift and that it's a journey… I believe that music is inherently a spiritual thing that it brings people together. I've literally seen people before a song and you can see their hearts are maybe a little hardened. And then that song can play for three minutes and 30 seconds, and in that three minutes and 30 seconds, something transpires in their life to when, after that song is finished, they're no longer the same person. I'm not sure how much we've changed or evolved… but my hope is in some cases that I still remember the beauty and the magic of — that's part of the reason why I think it's inherently spiritual is because I don't know anything else in the world that can do that to someone's heart, with three minutes and 30 seconds, that much change can take place. For however long we decide to keep doing this for, my hope is that we keep that at the forefront of our minds.

More: Tyler Hubbard of Florida Georgia Line talks discovering his solo voice ahead of State Fair

Paris Barraza covers entertainment, lifestyle and arts at the Des Moines Register. Reach her at PBarraza@registermedia.com or follow her on Twitter @ParisBarraza.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: For King + Country to kick off Iowa State Fair Grandstand concerts