BY KADIE TAYLOR
THE OBSERVER
OPELIKA — An Opelika-based worship band, Trace Co., is holding An Evening With Trace Co., a fundraiser concert on May 1 at the Railyard. Tickets are $10 at the door, and the event includes food tricks, ice cream and coffee starting at 5 p.m., and the concert begins at 6:30 p.m.
This summer, from June 7 through July 4, Trace Co. is embarking on a cross-country worship tour to share the Gospel. This fundraiser concert is organized to help the band fund the 4,500-mile journey with five band members.
“This concert is kind of the first time in a while that we’ve done just our music,” said Trace Pridgen. “It’s an opportunity for us to say to the community, ‘Hey, I’ve been here a long time. We haven’t done much here in a while. Come out and come support.’ We would love to be able to share our music with people that we see every single day, and then at the same time, the fundraiser part is to be able to raise money to buy a van, to be able to cover some travel costs. We used personal vehicles last year, and that’s just not an option. We’ve got more people with us this year, and so we’re trying to buy a van, to cover some of the cost [of traveling], and if there’s extra, to be able to [fund the] release of more music. So that’s the goal, and the whole event is [created with the intention] to bring the community in.”
Along with enjoying the food truck and treat options at An Evening With Trace Co., Pridgen said locals can purchase a unique item of merchandise from the band.
“The coolest piece of merch that we have, we call them Trace Co. Picks, and we go thrift shopping across the country, we buy really cool shirts and then we’ll just print our logo somewhere on the shirt,” he said. “We’ve probably had a good laugh over [the different shirts we buy], and we’ve got shirts from all across the country.”
With two decades of growth as a musician, Pridgen said music started as an unexpected distraction from the stresses of school and has taken him thousands of miles to share his talents with others.
“I thought baseball was taking me places,” he said. “I got to Auburn my freshman semester, and all of a sudden I didn’t have this team sport that I had been holding on to for 18 years in my life, and John Mayer’s live album ‘Where the Light Is’ had just come out. So as I’m studying for my first round of college finals, I’m like, ‘Okay, what do I do with my life? What can I distract myself with from these finals?’ So, I picked up a guitar, and I had taken a couple of lessons in high school, enough to know four chords, and I literally started playing. Four weeks later, I sang at an open mic night at Toomer’s Coffee in Auburn, and it was a disaster. I almost quit… Now I’ve been at this for almost 20 years. I’ve been really blessed to be able to do a lot of really, really cool things. We were the first band ever to play at the new Braves stadium, we’ve gotten to tour and my Sundays are completely booked through forever. It’s pretty wild to see how far we’ve gone, [and that I’ve] been able to make a career out of leading worship for the past 10 years.”
With a decade of leading worship and the salvation stories he witnesses at conferences and student Bible camps, Pridgen said he is thankful for the opportunity to be a part of leading others to Christ and looks forward to continuing to do so during the Trace Co. tour this summer — through the support of locals at the concert fundraiser.
“Seeing the growth is not just the reward, the reward is [knowing I’ll] see those people one day in heaven,” he said. “It’s a tightrope of Kingdom-minded and business-minded, because both coexist together. We have to market ourselves, but at the same time, our vision, our goal and our calling is to point people to Jesus. When we’re in those environments, and we see people responding to God, that’s a real perspective shift back to, this is why we do what we do.”
For more information, visit tracecomusic.com, search Trace Co. Music on social media and Trace Co. on music streaming platforms.
