We drove our motorbikes out into the jungle mountains to a hidden safe house for formerly trafficked girls run by Rapha House.  We sell elephants that they create at our concerts.   

My daughters joined survivors of sex trafficking creating elephant pillows.  The craft of creating the elephant pillows is part of a intensive program where these precious girls are being rehabilitated as they recover their lives and their youth. The trauma treatment includes art therapy, music therapy, school and life skill training. The girls we met were in their early teens. They hung necklaces made of jasmine flowers around all of our necks. Stella was so proud that she was given six and I only got two - she was the favorite. We ate lunch with Tasanee, the director of the safe house. She introduced us all by name and was so hospitable. 

The work that Tasanee and her team are doing is long term. They hold the hands of these children as they walk through the long road of recovery and restoration. It was such an honor for me to have my children eat lunch and spend a day with Tasanee. It was like sharing a meal with Harriet Tubman or Amy Carmichael. 

Elephants are symbolic of the fight for freedom for me. Many elephants are abused around the world. Child soldiers are forced to poach them for their ivory to help fund warlords that kidnap children for front line conflict. Some elephants in Southeast Asia are chained and abused in exploitive tourism and treated poorly. Others are abused in circuses or for hard labor in the mountains carrying heavy weights and tree trunks that injure them. They are separated from their family units and exploited.  

We spent a day at an elephant sanctuary where they are rehabilitated lovingly and respectfully. We bathed them, used a bristle brush all over their bodies, fed them and took them out for exercise. The staff pays close attention to their emotional and physical well being and recently rescued elephants are treated on an individual basis depending. They paired my 12 year old son Jack with an 11 year old adolescent boy. Ava and Anna were paired with a mother and son and Stella and I were paired with a mother and son. It was such a thrill to spend a day with these majestic creatures. 

Follow @davidmzach and @remedydrive on IG for more updates!  

The intricate and delicate process of creating the album cover The North Star.  Set to the sound track of Polaris.  

We finished up festival season this last weekend in PA.  Thanks to everyone that came out and sang with us!  

Photos by Bethany Messner at Ignite Festival.  

Thanks for singing with us at these summer festivals so far.  To everyone we've met for the first time this summer - it's great to have you on board.  Click a photo to see some highlights so far.  Fish Fest in Omaha next week!  
 

This is a collection of songs that we re-imagined in 2016 - my favorite songs that I wrote between 2004 and 2012.  These melodies remind my soul of hope and hope reminds me of sights yet unseen.  We felt like it was time to give these songs a new life.   

Hope is a melody - a beautiful sight for the worn and weary eye.  Brighter than the fires on the West Coast,  louder than the bombs in Syria, more vibrant than a virus, stronger that the winds of the tornado or the shackles of oppression.  She stands in the wreckage of lost accomplishment, she walks in the rubble of broken dreams, when castles in the sand are washed away, when the moon goes blood red and the stars fall, when the flood waters rise, when the bottom drops out - there’s Hope sweet Hope like a star burning bright - when the sun goes down and the fears begin to fly.   

I want the new recordings of these songs to amplify the melody of hope above the noise of fear and despair. 

 

This is from a few years back.  Our song Hope was used in this olympic commercial.  We have recently re-recorded Hope and nine other songs - brand new versions.  And it's being released on 9.2.16  #hopesnotgivingup

 

Check out Remedy Drive in Hyundai's #musicthatdrives program.  

 

Go to www.musicthatdrives.com to sign up to win lunch with the band on August 6 and backstage passes to the concert that night at The Basement in Nashville.  

Kind Words from Ed Cardinal - Crosswalk.com Contributing Writer:
 

Remedy Drive—born independent, shuffled to different labels when acclaim didn’t equal sales, and now taking the Kickstarter route—deserves respect for beating the industry blues and not giving up on its sophisticated rock music dream. Better yet, the Nebraska band’s determination has led to new purpose on Commodity, a conceptual set inspired by lead singer David Zach’s recent undercover mission work in Southeast Asia against human trafficking. This album raises awareness and the bar on creativity; it would’ve fit right in with the socio-spiritual best of Peter Gabriel, U2, and Simple Minds in the 1980s.

Thematically, Commodity fits Zach’s vision; he hopes it “will sound like a captive’s dream of liberty—a defiant reminder that in the King’s kingdom the oppressed can find refuge, a child soldier can find safety, the trafficked daughter in the red light district can return to her innocence.” Thus we hear the truth in the title track’s declaration: I’m a soul inside a body / I’m not a commodity, the disgust in “The Wings of the Dawn”: They’re taking beautiful and making it cheap / squeeze the soul, break the heart, steal the beat, and the hope in “Under the Starlight”: Maybe we can tear a little corner off the darkness.

Indeed, Commodity brings light while sonically matching the heavy air of its subject. The rising melody of “Commodity” is a heart’s cry poured over a muddy rhythm—something Switchfoot might attempt. The cleverly worded “Dear Life”—about the emptiness felt on this crowded earth—couples twinkling keyboards with a fuzzy bass guitar. The rapped verses of “Under the Starlight” spit stark opposites (Kalashnikovs, eight year olds . . .) before a lilting ‘70s pop chorus arrives. “The Wings of the Dawn” adds an angelic children’s choir to an industrial account of child sex slavery. It’s hopeful and harrowing.

Despite the focused theme, Remedy Drive diversifies on occasion with good results. The worshipful “King of Kings” features the honeyed harmonies of special guest All Sons & Daughters. Two instrumental pieces—“June” and “The Sides of the North”—give listeners well-timed opportunities to decompress from the tough issues at hand. “Take Cover” reads like a needed lullaby, and “The Cool of the Day” imagines how peaceful the world used to be.

Albums like Commodity used to be easier to find than they are today. Don’t miss this noble effort that ultimately achieves pop without pretentiousness.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.— Acclaimed Dove Award-nominated rockers Remedy Drive are set to bow Commodity, their 10th studio recording and most important project to date, on iTunes September 23. Featuring 12 selections written or co-penned by group founder and frontman David Zach—all singularly showcasing the band’s commitment to combat international human trafficking—the project was produced by Zach's brother, Philip Zach.  
 
The title-cut and debut single, a stirring anti-slavery anthem, recently spent seven weeks atop the BDS Christian Rock chart, marking the longest charting #1 rock hit in Remedy Drive’s career.
 
Inspired by David Zach’s trips to Southeast Asia working alongside a nonprofit coalition fighting sex slavery through covert investigation and rescue—additional highlights of Commodity include “Dear Life,” “Take Cover,” “Love Is Our Weapon,” and “When A Soul’s Set Free,” among others. 
 
 

“This album is dedicated to the children being taken against their will and forced to fight as child soldiers or to sell their bodies in the red light districts around the world,” says David Zach. “It’s also dedicated to the undercover operatives and the growing number of ordinary people who are joining forces to combat the sale of human beings. We hope these songs of freedom will add to the soundtrack of the resistance.”
 
Comprised of founder and lead vocalist David Zach, along with guitarist Dave Mohr, bassist Corey Horn, and drummer Tim Buell, Remedy Drive has garnered 10 Top 20 singles and released nine critically-acclaimed recordings since its inception in 1998. “Resuscitate Me,” from the band’s 2012 release, Resuscitate, spent five weeks atop the Christian Rock chart and was nominated for a 2013 GMA Dove Award for Rock Song of the Year. In addition, “Daylight” was featured in the recent motion picture “The Perfect Summer,” while music from Remedy Drive has been utilized on NBC, SpeedTV and VH1. The band has toured with such artists as MercyMe, David Crowder Band, Family Force 5 and The Digital Age, among others. 
 
For further information, visit remedydrive.com or turningpointpr.com. Follow the band on Twitter @RemedyDrive.