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The Afters topped the Australian Christian radio charts in 2025 with their record-breaking “You Never Gave Up On Me” staying at #1 for 14 weeks, and 25 weeks in the top 10. Lesa Scholl chatted with frontman Josh Havens about the band’s strong connection to Australia and what it means to them to have made such an impact on the Aussie soundtrack.

“Just let me find a spot to pull over.”

Josh was running a bit late from a band meeting, so our chat happened with him sitting in his car in a parking lot. The Afters had just decided on the name of their new album.

“You’re the first person to know – I don’t even think I’ve told my family, yet!” he said.

The new album New Day, New Life is named after the opening track, a clip of which has just been released on the band’s socials in recent days.

“We’ve gone all over the world and met people from so many different cultures,” Josh said.“When we hear people’s experiences of finding Jesus, we’ve heard so many people say, ‘It was like a new day in my life’.”

They couldn’t find a drop bear!

Australia’s Warm Welcome

The band was grateful to hear of the support they received from Australian radio, with ‘You Never Gave Up On Me’ named #1 in the top 100 for 2025.

“We were blown away,” Josh said. “We’ve always had so much love for Australia. We’ve got to do some touring there, and it was exciting to see that the Australians had love for us, too.”

Our conversation digressed into Australian snack foods and drop bears.

“My son came with me last time, and he was excited to learn about drop bears,” Josh said. “Of course, he loved doing the Tim Tam Slam, and so we had someone come up from the audience and do a Tim Tam Slam in the middle of a concert.”

Faith Behind Bars

The Afters don’t just go to major cities when they tour Australia. Josh said he’ll never forget the multiple families kneeling and praying together in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. He also spoke of visiting a prison in Tasmania on the band’s last tour. They spent some time with the inmates and heard about their faith.

“I’ll never forget having these conversations with people who live behind bars,” he said.

“They expressed how they had a new life now because they found Jesus, and they wanted to live for that now.”

He recalled one inmate talking about the hope he found. Even though he wasn’t getting out for years, he wanted to work on himself and his relationship with God so he could come out a changed person and see his daughter.

‘You Never Gave Up On Me’ was inspired by these kinds of encounters.

“I think we’ve all faced feelings of doing something that makes us feel like we’re not lovable or forgivable, like we don’t deserve another chance,” Josh said. “We have a God who always loves us, is always forgiving, who always gives us another chance,” he said. “There’s a lot of comfort in that.”

“We humans, we’re not the same. We give up on people. I think I’ve learned through life to give people another chance, learning to love other people the way God loves me and to forgive the way God has forgiven me.”

A Missional Heart for the Nations

The band recently returned from Cambodia, where they were a part of an evangelical outreach with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Josh said about 27,000 Cambodians came to the events there.

“We love going around the world,” he said. “We’re a really missional band because we do go to every corner of the earth.”

He said it was inspiring to go to places where Christians are persecuted and see their passion for God, even though it wasn’t easy to go to church or read a Bible, freedoms that can be taken for granted. Those experiences encouraged the band to go to more places.

“Life is too short not to stay and sing as much as we can about God because people are hungry for it. No matter where we go, when the Gospel is shared, people respond to it.”

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Interview Date: 3 February 2026. This interview transcript has been edited for the sake of clarity and readability.

Republished with thanks to Australian Christian Records. Images courtesy of The Afters.