At the beating heart of Nashville band Judah & The Lion is a story of a deeply loyal chosen brotherhood, dating back to 2011 when Judah Akers and Brian MacdDonald became bandmates in college. Judah & The Lion’s newest and sixth album, I Am A Prism, came after a period of soul searching, and in the midst of a welcome joyous new life milestone: Brian becoming a father again. The last three albums had documented some personally heavy topics - mental health and depression (2019’s Pep Talks), heartbreak and divorce (2022’s Revival), and charting the stages of grief (2024’s The Process). On the other side of this trilogy of hard times and heartbreak, Judah & The Lion was at a creative crossroads. They took some time off, parted ways with their management, and asked themselves some tough but necessary questions.

Judah explains, “We wanted to get really honest with ourselves about those kinds of deep internal questions. What do we bring that no one else brings? Why do we wanna make another record? Not like we were wanting to quit, but it was just like, let's get back to the “why" of when we first started making music together. We do it because we want to help people. That's the heart behind this.”

“We use our music to propel us through hard things in life and shoot us forward into a more hopeful space, without ignoring the really tough hard parts of being human, and I think that is why our fans relate to it.,” Brian adds. “And I think defining why somebody is connecting relating to the music that we're putting out was a really important thing for us to discover before we went into making I Am a Prism.” Case in point, Judah & The Lion fans will likely recognize two songs on I Am A Prism from the band’s live shows last year - lead single “Maybe The Best Is Now” and the album’s midpoint track “Gravel Roads”.

“Maybe The Best Is Now” is a callback to a song from their last album, 2024’s The Process called “The Best Is Yet To Come”. It was introduced into their set last Spring as an encore, and Judah began teaching the chorus to their audience. While the crowd was singing along to “Maybe The Best Is Now”, the tape was rolling. Judah and Brian knew that when they got to the studio later that summer, they wanted to incorporate the voices of their fans into the studio recording. The work of exploring ways to ground their next album in what mattered most to Judah & The Lion had begun, finding the continuums that would celebrate their growth and evolution.

“A lot of this record is trying to connect the thread between our beginnings and this point,” Judah says. The album opener “I Am A Prism” is a powerful example, with multiple links to the opening track of their 2022 album Revival called, “Open Your Eyes”. “I Am A Prism” not only represents Judah’s personal transformation, but the transformation of the album itself after its title track was written, as well as who it was written for. After so many years writing and recording music that spoke to Judah’s personal battles, family hardships, grief and loss, Judah’s older brother Eli finally revealed that he had struggled to listen to any Judah & The Lion’s albums because the lyrics just made him too sad. After this illuminating conversation, Judah sat alone at his piano and wrote “I Am A Prism”. This revelatory and honest moment between brothers had crystalized what this album wanted to become, who it was for, and how to get there.

For the recording of I Am A Prism, Judah & The Lion teamed up with Grammy-nominated producer, songwriter and composer Jeremy Lutito as their co-producer, who encouraged them to lean all the way in, to embrace everything they are, and not hold back in any way sonically. From folk to rock to big pop anthems, he challenged the band to be unapologetically and fully Judah & The Lion. Jeremy understood that the best path to getting the absolute most from the band and these new songs was simplicity. Every sound, from the quietest moments (like the album’s title track) to the most bombastic (the freewheeling “Can You Relate”) was made by the hands of Judah, Brian, and Jeremy, with the help of an audio engineer. Coming back to themselves allowed them to go deeper and deeper with the music.

Now, after an amazing fifteen years becoming a beloved favorite band to hundreds of thousands of people around the world, and sticking together through some of the most difficult of times, Judah & The Lion are ready to share this victorious moment with their fans. At its thematic core, I Am A Prism is a celebration of the full spectrum of life, dark and light. This affirming message is perhaps best captured in the song “Miracle”:

It all comes back around—was it then or is it now?

And I’m waking up I’m living in the middle of a miracle
I’m seeing stars shooting through the physical
I’m living in the middle of a miracle

Brian shares, “That song really encapsulates the simplicity that we're going for on this album. I think it's just a beautiful representation of the stage of life that both of us are in right now. Especially with me having kids, ‘miraculously is truly one of the only ways you can describe that feeling.”

Judah reflects, “Life doesn't happen to you, it happens for you. If you think about the simplicity of life, we're all here breathing, we're all here for a reason. Some people think that a miracle has to be some big, dramatic event. But it's like, what if a miracle is just waking up in the morning? The miracle is all of it. It's the process. And the process is perpetual. It never really ends. Life itself is a miracle.”

And this is the simplest and most beautiful reminder everyone needs.