J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.
In retrospect, 2025 was a year of highs and lows. Vocally. Mostly highs. There were two reasons for that: First, I wanted to do two hard-rocking albums, and most of those had high vocals. Second, I wanted to sing as many high ones as I could while I still have the ability to reach those notes.
The highs: “Run Unafraid,” “You Call a Man (Long Knives),” “Know How to Love,” “Your Number’s Up, O Beast,” “Moses,” “Sin Should Be Gone,” “Heaven’s Metal,” “Love Removed All My Shame,” “Climb Down," “For Those About to Talk,” “Still Isn’t Right,” “Take It From the One,” “Why Do Coelacanth Exist?,” and “I Believe in the Kingdom Come.”
The lows: “Hmm …,” “This Very Hill,” “In the Garden of Eden, ”Saul’s Shook Up,” and certain parts of “Tempers” and “At the Cross.” I like the way those songs turned out; I’m just saying that they were on bottom end of the vocal spectrum.
The rest of the stuff was mainly in the middle. In addition, we had three songs with female lead vocals: “I Ain’t Myself, Lord, I’m Something New,” “Titus Highlights,” and “I Saw Messiah.” Now that our daughters are grown up with full-time jobs, it’s a little trickier to schedule them for studio sessions.
BACK ON STAGE
We played what was only our second concert since 2017, a repeat engagement at the big Immortal II festival in Versailles OH, near Dayton.
Other artists who played that weekend included: Bride, Les Carlsen of Bloodgood, The Daniel Band, Ignescent, Images of Eden, The Glenn Kaiser Band, King James, Neon Cross, The Protest, Sacred Warrior, Randy Stonehill, Stryken, Trytan, and Weapons of God.
As in 2024, the emcee was the legendary Pastor Bob Beeman of Sanctuary International, who said the following in his introduction: “I’m so excited to have ApologetiX back. And I have to tell you, I turn into a geeky fan when I’m around these guys, ‘cause I am a fan, and I have been for a long time. And I’m so happy they’re here with us.”
We brought the same six-man line-up as in 2024: Tom Tincha, Tom Milnes, Keith Haynie, Jimmy “Vegas” Tanner, Rich Mannion, and me. My two oldest daughters, Janna and Heather, also joined us on stage for two songs.
We are not currently scheduled to be at Immortal in 2026. The event has traditionally taken place over two weekends every year — one in mid-summer with modern bands and one on Labor Day weekend with the legacy bands. This year, they have consolidated everything into one weekend, in mid-September, so there are only half as many slots available.
That’s OK with me. Frankly, it’s a lot of extra work getting ready for an event like that when you’re primarily a studio band and not touring regularly, so I’m a bit relieved. However, I’m very glad we did the ones in 2024 and 2025. We were honored to be a part of them, and it was wonderful to see and chat with so many of our fans in person.
MEANWHILE, IN THE STUDIO
Even with all the prep and practice required for doing another big show, God still enabled us to release 48 parodies in 2025 — tied for the fifth-most parodies we’ve ever put out in a calendar year. Moreover, it was the most non-remake parodies we’ve ever produced in a year. All 48.
In other words, there were no remakes of parodies we’d released previously in our career. In 2016, we released 51 parodies, but three were remakes, and two others were the same song done two different ways — “God’s Zealot” and “Bob Dylan."
In 2025, we spoofed songs by 47 different artists. And the only artist we covered twice was … guess who? No, seriously, it was The Guess Who. Twenty-one of those were artists we’d never attempted before:
Ace of Base, Blondie, Christopher Cross, Crash Test Dummies, The Cult, Bobby Darin, The Darkness, Fats Domino, Danny & the Juniors, Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, Foghat, The Bobby Fuller Four, Gnarls Barkley, Iron Butterfly, Iron Maiden, Tom Jones, Living Colour, Saga, Slade, Sniff ’n’ the Tears, and Squeeze.
The others were:
AC/DC, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Boston, Cheap Trick, Deep Purple, ELO, Genesis, The Guess Who (twice), Sammy Hagar, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Greg Kihn Band, Led Zeppelin, The Moody Blues, The Police, Elvis Presley, Rainbow, REO Speedwagon, Bob Seger, Styx, Sweet, 38 Special, Van Halen, Whitesnake, The Who, and Steve Winwood.
We also released four CDs in 2025: ApologetiX ‘77, Quite Ironic, Louder Than Plaid, and You’re in the Eighties Now, tying our record for most non-compilation CDs in a calendar year. Not only that, we recorded and released all the parodies necessary for our first CD of 2026, Everything But. You should be hearing more about that and other things we have planned for the new year very soon.
Praise the Lord for giving us such a productive year! We’re happy and thankful to still be here … and we’re grateful that you’re still here with us! God bless (and blessed) us all, everyone!
