The Christian music band Cain has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry, and they put what they’ve learned into practice as they headline their “Live and In Color Tour” with Katy Nichole and David Leonard.
“Honestly, it’s been a dream come true to spend time with people that I know all of their songs,” said Madison Cain Johnson, one of the three members of Cain. “I feel like it started just like, ‘I’m a huge fan. Don’t point at them when they walk in the room.’ That’s how it started, and then it was really cool to develop a friendship and learn from some of these people.”
One value they learned was how to support each other when on the road. When Cain toured with Casting Crowns, Johnson’s baby was only 7 weeks old. Johnson was given extra hotel and dressing room space, and everyone was very accommodating to her needs.
“[Because of that] we wanted to make sure that as headliners, the culture that we’ve made in our tour is that we want to be so accommodating to the people who are with us — David Leonard, Katy Nichole, our crew. We just want to make sure that they feel so valued for what they bring to the table,” Johnson said.
However, simply because they’ve learned from these veterans doesn’t mean they are copying everything they do. Typical tours have an opening act, a middle, an intermission and then the headliner. Cain is going to mix it up and add a different kind of fun.
Music and comedy
“As far as what the audience is gonna receive, we do kind of a lot of comedy in our show. We have woven all of us throughout the night. We come out in the beginning. Midway through, David and Katy come back out,” Johnson said.
“We tried to make something different altogether,” she continued.
Another unique aspect of this tour relates to its name — “Live and In Color.” Cain has asked those attending to wear a certain color for that city. While other colors used have been blue, green, yellow and orange, the tour’s final show in Birmingham on May 6 was bathed in red.
Asking the audience to coordinate colors isn’t simply a fun way to tie the concerts to the tour’s name; it comes from Cain’s history.
The members of Cain are siblings from Hartselle. Their father, Charley Cain, was a traveling singer and local pastor.
The Cain children began singing at a very young age and became the worship band for their father’s ministry. They ended up going to the same college, Troy University, where they continued perfecting their craft. But they had an issue.
“When we first started doing music, we came across a problem because we didn’t realize how differently the three of us dressed until we started to make choices. So Taylor and I were trying to do bell bottoms and different stuff, and Logan was wearing athletic wear,” Johnson said.
‘Just pick’
“We were trying to put him in clothes that he didn’t feel comfortable in and vice versa,” she said. “So we decided, okay, let’s just pick a color. It’s so much easier for everyone to wear what they’re comfortable wearing, and then we’ll just look coordinated because it’s the same color.”
Fans quickly noticed and started trying to find out which color the group would wear so they could match.
“I feel like we’re all the body of Christ. No one is better than the other, and no one is less. We’re all doing this together. We’re all in here worshipping together, so it’s kind of fun that we’re all wearing the same uniform, doing the same thing, worshipping Jesus,” Johnson said.
“It started as solving a problem, and now it’s turned into something pretty cool,” she added.
Cain might be a family name, but it has caused some problems. As they became more popular with Christian audiences, some became concerned about the name’s biblical reference.
Johnson admitted that if they could go back in time and change it, they would’ve made the name more positive. However, keeping the name had an unexpected benefit.
“It’s actually pretty cool that if you Google ‘Cain,’ it used to be only about murder or the story of Cain in the Bible. But now we’ve covered the first Google page, so maybe we’re redeeming that name,” she said, laughing.
Pointing to truth
Though Cain doesn’t take life too seriously and has a lot of fun, there is a serious side to what they do.
“I’m hoping that when you listen to our music, it points you back to truth. We’re seeing that there are people at our shows who are 5 years old and who are 60 years old, and the common denominator is that Scripture is for everybody.”
It may have taken Cain a long time to get to this point, but Johnson says, “It’s God. When you surrender to Him, you can’t control what it looks like, but you know it’s going to be good.”
To find out more about Cain, go to caintheband.com. To see which cities “Live and In Color” will be visiting and which color each city will use, go to caintour.com.
