Anthem Lights Release "Best of 2015 Mashup" Video

By Timothy Yap Jan 03, 2016 03:26 AM EST

Christian group Anthem Lights are the masters of mashups; they have been known across social media for their mash-ups of songs by Taylor Swift and One Direction. Just in time for the new year, they have released a new mashup of the best pop songs of 2015. The song weaves together pop hits like "Style" by Taylor Swift, "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars and "What Do You Mean" by Justin Bieber, among others. You can watch the video below.

Though Anthem Lights have been known for their pop covers, they are committed Christians with deeplove to enhance the kingdom of God. Band member Alan Powell in an interview with beliefnet spells out the group's purposes: "We've kind of settled in to two missions, if you will. The whole thing in general started by us wanting to impact the Kingdom and bringing as much glory to God as possible. That's still our overall purpose, but God's given us to passions. That's to impact the non-believer and let them know through our actions and through our music and through our shows that there is hope, there is meaning, there is purpose in this life. We've really been struck, as of late, how people can wake up in the morning and chase a career or money or a relationship or coolness or whatever-fill in the blank. They can go to sleep at night and wake up the next morning and continue to do that day after day. Days turn into weeks, weeks to months, months to years. Before you know it, you've literally wasted your life when there was so much waiting for you in Christ. We have a passion to share that with the non-believer.

Secondly, we all grew up in the church. We were all saved at a young age. We all knew all the answers in Sunday School. But it wasn't until later on when I was 17 when it all clicked and I understood that Christ was supposed to be everything to me. So our passion for the believers is that they understand that this relationship with have in Christ is supposed to impact every aspect of our lives and it's supposed to affect every decision we make. Those are the kinds of passions that God has placed in our hearts right now. We love having the opportunity to spread that message through the songs and through the relationships and through meeting people."

Anthem Lights began as a solo project for vocalist Chad Graham in the fall of 2007.Both he and singer-songwriter Alan Powell were living in Los Angeles, writing music for Graham's solo project. As the final vocal work was being installed, Powell and Graham came to a realization that the songs being written would be more appropriate performed as a group.

It was then that Powell and Graham decided to alert their contacts at Liberty University in an effort to recruit members for what is now a singing group. Powell and Graham's contacts came to a consensus that Kyle Kupecky and Caleb Grimm would be the best candidates for the project. After receiving notifications by e-mail, Graham flew from Los Angeles to meet with Kupecky and Grimm, who gladly accepted membership. Powell joined the group at the last minute.

The original name of the group was Yellow Cavalier. The group recorded one self-titled EP under this name in 2009. The EP was released independently on May 26, 2009. The group changed their name to Anthem Lights before any other projects were released