LILLIAN, Ala. – Running in Flip Flops, an acoustic-driven, two-man band hailing from Lillian and Gulf Breeze, Fla., just finished cutting radio tracks in Pensacola and will hit the road soon for Nashville where they will compete for a single-release from Fervent Records.  

Josh Brown, 28, of Lillian and Justin Britt, 22, of Gulf Breeze, the duo who makes up the group, decided this spring to put together their interests, Christianity and music, into a band that could help convey their shared message and sentiments about the world at-large.

“We’re not in it to make money or be famous or take over the world,” said Brown, lead vocalist and a Baton Route, La. native, in a recent interview, who is also a full-time youth minister at First Baptist Church in Lillian.  “But there’s another way to life and God brought us here to have a good time.”

Years ago, Brown and a group he previously performed with, what he described as a typical boy-band, were signed to a contract with a Columbia Records outfit, but the offer, according to Brown, ended up being more of a far-fetched dream than the deal of a life-time.    

“The producer heard us and promised us the world…We were just country boys from Alabama,” Brown recalled.  “But one day they are working with you and the next day you are axed.”

And the time while traveling and performing with that group took its toll on the young-singer - the partying, the typical life of a fast-lane musician on the promised road to success with a “crazy contract” from Columbia in their pockets.  

Columbia eventually dropped the group, and Brown was out of the music business, for the moment.  

He found out also who his true friends were as those who were riding along his ride to musical riches dropped from the scene and stopped returning phone calls during a time when he reached a point of failure.

With all failures, a change in direction was needed: he married, moved to Tallahassee and soon met Justin Britt, a versatile musician who plays acoustic guitar, piano and ukulele.

The two collaborated on singing and songwriting with a different emphasis, this time the word of Jesus Christ rather than the gods of pop music, but they never recorded or set much down on paper.  

Brown eventually returned to Lillian, his home since he was 18, and Britt, by fortunate chance, moved to Gulf Breeze, taking a position as a full-time firefighter and EMT.  

“We joke that Justin saves people from fires and I do the same thing,” Brown said.  

Now, Running in Flip Flops is literally on a roll and a mission, spreading a music of good vibes and vibrations, similar in style to one of their influences - light and free-flowing rhythm and rifts - the Beach Boys, but not as decadent as Brian Wilson, the visionary who founded the group and later succumbed to drug-addiction problems.  

“Our generation, we got to see the people that messed up with drug addiction,” Brown said.  “Our mission is different.  Our mission is to get the word out and if we can make a difference in people’s lives.  It’s worth it.”

“A Simple Life,” which they recently recorded in Pensacola, starts off smooth with Britt’s guitar providing steady rhythm to Brown’s baritone that is rightly comparable to the talking blues style of yesteryear.  

But, the down and out, hard-trodden blues isn’t to be found in the lyric, instead a message of simplicity with the love of purely living not for material but for oneself: “A brand new car, or a diamond ring / Won’t make you happy, ain’t nothing but a thing / The best things in life are free, that’s what you hear / But they’re hard to see sometimes, when you’re looking in that mirror.”

Soon, they will be heading to Nashville in the coming weeks to compete against other Christian-based bands for the opportunity to get a single-release from Fervent Records.  

“Band with a Mission,” a music city-based organization, searches for bands and solo artists to work with and helps them “harness their gifts to develop effective ministry tools,” according to its website.  The organization selects the top-five acts from each audition, held throughout this year and into next spring, for a final showcase in Nashville to be judged by Fervent Records.  

Brown is optimist that they will do well during the competition, but he stresses that they are playing music today for the good times.  Money, fame, fortune, esteem, recognition, all the wants of making it in the music business, other musicians can take it if they believe that’s what they desire, Brown said.  

“There’s another way to life,” he said.  “You always have that choice.”

Running in Flip Flops can be heard on their website at www.myspace.com/runninginflipflopsmusic and they will also perform during the Frank Brown International Songwriter Festival.