Crowder brings ‘folktronica’ sound to Rock and Worship Roadshow

David Crowder’s music is difficult to describe in tidy terms. It’s part synthetic and part organic. It explores religion and faith. It’s as informed by the digital sounds of EDM as the down and dirty grit of bluegrass. If you were to search for one of his albums at a record store, you’re as likely to find it with the contemporary Christian artists as with the Americana musicians.

He’s usually labeled by critics as a “folktronica” artist, which sounds at first like an ungainly Frankenstein of a genre but is actually a perfect description: Crowder came about his unusual style by fusing together his musical influences from growing up in the South in the 1980s.

“Growing up in East Texas, I had Willie and Waylon playing in the Thunderbird while my dad was driving around,” Crowder said. “That was very formative, and probably pretty stereotypical given the section of the country I was coming from. At the same time, I came of age in the ’80s, spending too much time in front of the TV with Atari and Nintendo games, with those 8-bit bleeps and blips.

“And I thought, ‘Man, these two things should exist in the same place at the same time.’ ”

The singer-songwriter, billed only as Crowder, emerged as a solo artist after his previous band (simply called the David Crowder Band) dissolved in 2012. His first solo album, “Neon Steeple,” was released last year and went to the top of the Christian music charts, and it applies an electro-pop sheen to rootsy rock and country-inflected tunes. Crowder describes the process of putting the album together as a deliberate and carefully considered one.

“I took my time getting the right people, and it’s sort of a dream come true on a lot of levels,” he said. “There’s nothing like feeling that you’re right where you’re supposed to be.”

Crowder worked with a lot of musicians he admired while recording “Neon Steeple” – most impressively, legendary country vocalist Emmylou Harris shows up on his song “My Sweet Lord” – and now that he’s got his live band in place, he says the pieces of the puzzle have finally fit together.

“Going into this whole solo endeavor, I had no expectations to ever have that communal feel that you have with a band,” he said. “The previous band was together for 12 years, and there were a lot of relationships there. But the people I have are some of the best people, and it wound up feeling exactly like a band again.”

Crowder says his current backing band contains eight people, but then he pauses to count through everyone in his head. There are actually nine. At least he thinks so, and he jokingly explains that he has to do a lot of head counting: “It’s like Earth, Wind and Fire blew up,” he said with a laugh.

“But this is genuinely what the next step was supposed to be,” he added. “The songs just keep coming. I’m most satisfied and excited about life when I’m writing about the church and articulating our experiences.”