After 6 Years of Waiting, Big Daddy Weave Says: Let It Begin
For more than two decades, Big Daddy Weave has been a constant presence in Christian music. But for all the hits, the tours, and the ministry moments, the last several years tested the band in ways none of them could have anticipated. Sitting down with them now, as they prepare to launch the second leg of the Let It Begin tour with Megan Woods, I could feel both the weight of what they’ve endured and the hope of what lies ahead. This wasn’t just another record cycle. This was survival, grief, healing, and the start of something brand new.
Mike Weaver was candid right away about how close he’d come to walking away. “I think you’ve been doing this for 26 years now. And there’s been multiple times, especially for me over the last handful of years, where it just felt like, I don’t know if I could do this anymore… I feel like just a few months ago Jesus gave me a brand-new heart. I’m so excited to still be here and so thankful that these guys have walked with me through this whole thing.”
That sense of loss defined the years between Big Daddy Weave albums. Six years, to be exact, an eternity in an industry where most bands cycle through new records every two or three. Mike admitted, “Six years between records usually means you don’t [get to] make another record. So, to get this chance is amazing. [Curb Records] gave us space to process the things that we had been through like losing family members and the loss of a bandmate.”
That bandmate was Jay Weaver, Mike’s younger brother. His passing in 2022 left not only a hole in the music but in their hearts. Mike told me they had to hold back, wait, and let something new emerge before they could make the kind of record Big Daddy Weave needed to release. “As we’re walking through the season of grief and writing the songs that are coming out of life, we’ve got this whole record full of grief songs. It was like, dude, we’re going to kill somebody with just grief songs! So, we had to wait a minute for the Lord to just bring new life as well, and then you can tell when the new life kind of arrived. There are these songs that hurt, but I still think in a hopeful way. But then there’s a new season that is beginning and emerged out of the latter part of the record making progress.”
That sense of renewal also comes with Raul ‘Rowdy’ Alfonso, now an official member of the band. While this is his first record with Big Daddy Weave, his connection began years earlier when he stepped in during Jay’s illness.
Mike shared, “If you had told me that I could look back where my little brother Jay had stood and played for more than 20 years and feel good in my heart, I don’t know if I could ever have expected that to be true. Rowdy is just such an instant, brother. We’ve known him for many years. He and Jay had a great friendship. It was almost kind of like Jay picked him in a way.”
Rowdy’s story with Big Daddy Weave stretches back to 2010, when he first crossed paths with the band. “I met the guys back in 2010… and we hit it off. Jay Dog had such a huge impact on my life. Spiritually. We just became great friends. Through the course of a whole decade. Every time they come in town, I’d hit him up and we’d hang, and he would just always be speaking life into me, cracking jokes at the same time, praying and just being such an encouragement for things I was going through with my family.”
Rowdy first filled in for Jay on July 4, 2021, at Jay’s own request. With a hint of sorrow, he remembered, “He never came back on the road after that.” In time, Jay asked him to take over. “He said, ‘There’s a thousand bass players in Nashville who can run circles around me, but I need somebody who understands the ministry. I’m passing the mantle to you.’”
This was never about whether to keep the band going, it was only about keeping the ministry alive. And that sense of ministry has carried Big Daddy Weave through seasons where many other bands from their era have faded away. Brian Beihl, who joined the band in 2013, summed it up: “I feel like that’s a whole mission. We want to do what Jesus wants us to do, and night after night, that’s our prayer… There are people that I run into that are really looking for an encounter with Jesus. We can get up and play a bunch of songs and do all this, but are they meeting with Jesus there? Are there other lives being changed? I think that’s what we just continue to pray for.”
That sense of renewal comes through on the band’s latest record, Let It Begin, a project shaped by years of waiting, pain, and community. The title track came as a gift from Matt Maher. Mike remembered, “He reached out to me…and was just like, man, I’ve had this song that has been on my heart for you guys… I read the lyrics, and it’s what I couldn’t say.” It felt as if the song had been set aside for Big Daddy Weave all along. Mike Weaver reflected, “The Lord is about community. The Lord is about a body. The Lord is about this family that he’s put together. And the way the whole record really came about was through the Christian songwriting community coming together and standing with us in a time when we were learning how to stand back up again, learning how to walk again. This song became the anthem of that.”
But the record is more than one song. It’s full of stories that took shape over years. Jeremy Redmon, who has become the band’s anchor on the production side, said, “This is so spread out this. There’s 4 or 5 years worth of songs and there are things when it’s like, does this still even fit where we are right now? It’s like trying to weed through that a little bit. But man, I feel, I think the songs that ended up being on the record, I think they tell a story of where this season has been and then some, and I think there’s several songs that kind of lend itself towards just a more hopeful place and almost like a launching pad.”
One of those songs is “I’ve Just Seen Too Much.” Joe Shirk, the “Swiss Army knife” of the band, told me a story about a family in North Carolina who had lived through a tragic accident with their son. “There was something about how that one specific theme meant so much to them… They felt like they were all alone and that was a big deal to them.” That kind of testimony has met the band again and again with these new songs, a difficult reminder that what begins in personal pain can become someone else’s lifeline.
Of course, any Big Daddy Weave show is still anchored by “Redeemed.” More than a decade after its release, it remains their defining song. Mike’s voice softened when he recalled, “It’s the faces that I see in the room as they’re literally just crying, just singing the song. To thinking of all of the stories that we literally heard from around the world, from retired army generals to women who Jesus delivered from the adult film industry.” He remembered one woman on her way to end her life who kept flipping stations only to hear “Redeemed” on every one until God broke through. “That’s not the way I see you,” he said, repeating the words he first heard God whisper to him when the song was written. “What I see is what Jesus did for you. That’s why I sent him.”
That’s the spirit of Big Daddy Weave right now: grateful for what God has done, expectant for what He’s about to do. Six years after their last release, the band stands renewed, carrying both the memory of Jay Weaver and the promise of new songs, new tours, and new encounters with God night after night. With Let It Begin, Big Daddy Weave has found its anthem for this moment — and maybe, for the rest of their journey.
