The lights haven’t dimmed on Saving Abel – not by a long shot. With platinum records behind them and a new fire ahead, the Southern-bred rock band finds itself at the edge of reinvention. At the center of that resurgence is Randy Arthur Webb, the group’s newest lead vocalist, and longtime guitarist Jason Null, who together carry the weight of both legacy and rebirth.

Their stories begin in different households but with familiar echoes. For Jason, music was less a hobby than the fabric of daily life:

“My family were musicians and my brother played guitar a little bit so there’s always a guitar at home and there’s always music going around… We’d have 20 people sitting around with banjos, mandolin guitars, and all kinds of stuff… I got brave and asked for an amp and a real electric guitar… every Sunday, mom and dad were gone to the grocery shop. That was my time to turn that little amp wide open and just bang that guitar to pieces, and that’s what I did for many years.”

Randy’s journey also began with family – one touched by both inspiration and loss: “We have a fairly similar story… my oldest brother was a singer in a band regionally. He passed away when I was a teenager… it just kinda so happened that I had a knack for singing, so I kept going and going… my older brother is a guitarist still… my dad played guitar as well, kind of a musical family – same thing that’s probably the story for most of us.”

At 16, Randy was sneaking into clubs with Sebastian Bach hair and a stubborn drive. “I played my first show when I was about 16 years old, in local venues… we started out playing cover songs, and I played in cover bands… built up a really large following… I used to walk in there when I was too young and I would be like ‘hey, where does the band go?’ and they’d think I was in a band and just point me… [I’d] not order a drink so they wouldn’t ID me and throw me out.”

But for him, it wasn’t just about covers or crowds: “I always wanted to just be a writer. You know I’m a songwriter so that’s what I always wanted to do… but hey it all worked out, right?”

When the call came from Saving Abel, it wasn’t out of the blue.

“Oddly enough, I had quit doing the cover thing and was just kind of doing some acoustic stuff… and the old big cover band got called… it happened to be a Saving Abel show… As time went on, I was in a band called One Day Alive and Jason had come around. We actually sent him a song called ‘Nowhere’ and he really liked it… he offered to produce us… him and I ended up writing some songs together… everybody became friends… and here I am… kind of a long growing relationship.”

Jason puts it more bluntly, with humor masking truth: “I think you guys know that I haven’t been around him long enough to hate him yet… it’s been a good six years.”

Jason traces the band’s very name to late-night internet dives and biblical musings. “I was googling something about Cain and Abel and there was an online Christian magazine… there was a line that said there would be no saving Abel from the wrath of his brother Cain… I kept humming Saving Abel in my head back-and-forth and that just stuck with me… a few weeks later… we needed a name… I put Saving Abel on [our list] last… my producer at the time called me shortly after and he was like that’s the one… we slapped that on the MySpace website, branded the CDs, and we were Saving Abel.”

It wasn’t overnight success; it was years of grit and false starts. “That was over probably a four or five year period with a break in there… but once we got going, everything went pretty fast.”

For Randy, stepping into a established band meant learning a new rhythm. “When the guys have been doing this so long, they are used to doing things at a much quicker pace… you walk in and Jason’s already got a song tracked, and he’s like ‘okay, write a song to it…’ there’s a big difference in being a great singer and great on stage and being a recording artist… I never thought about it… but the studios and writing is a vastly different world than being on the bus with the boys and playing music.”

Yet, the chemistry between him and Jason was already there. “These guys are pros… Jason and I, we’ve written together for a couple years on a different project so that chemistry’s already there.”

Jason sees Webb’s instincts as a natural fit: “I don’t stress what he’s gonna do or anything… If a song is not gelling that don’t mean it can’t be a song at some point and I’ll just move onto something else… Randy knows how it’s to be done and I think… he’s doing an actual really good job at jumping in and steering that part of the rod for us.”

The mission going forward is clear: “I think we want our edge back… I really missed that over the years, being able to write like that… I think with his voice and the way I write, that dynamic is gonna change everything almost immediately,” Jason says.

Randy nods toward both reverence and reinvention: “This band is still gonna sound like Saving Abel, I think it’s just gonna have a little bit more of a punch to it… and that’s great, I love Saving Abel, of course.”

Motivation comes not from charts but from survival. “It’s the ability to keep doing it… the ability to survive the things that we’ve survived and still even want to do it… just appreciate what we had and we’re actually excited about getting back out there, meeting with fans, doing the shows, and sweating it out,” Jason reflects.

Randy frames his role like a quarterback: “I want to be able to steer the ship… keep being able to lead the team and go out there and just play shows… I’m ready to play some shows today.”

And the shows promise unmatched vitality. Jason insists, “We’re not running tracks or any of that stuff. We don’t have computers up there. We don’t have iPads, we don’t have digital amps. Everything you see will be about as old school as it can be… amps out there that go to 11.”

The fans remain at the heart of this rebirth. “We really appreciate everybody’s support… even me being new, super welcoming… I’m really looking forward to getting out and meeting all the fans… forming relationships other than just online,” Randy enhances the sentiment.

Jason closes with the same fire he began with years ago: “There’s about three to four tiers of enjoyment that I get out of it – playing live is just right up there with creating the music and hearing it come to life. I’m absolutely ready to be out doing it and I think we’ve got the perfect lineup. We’re gonna have some new songs hopefully soon, so everybody keep up with us online and we’ll be seeing you at some point.