Tenth Avenue North is an American contemporary Christian music band from West Palm Beach, Florida.
During its period of prominence, the band comprised Mike Donehey as the lead singer, Jason Jamison as the drummer, Jeff Owen as the guitarist, Ruben Juarez as the bassist, and Brendon Shirley as the keyboardist.
In February 2020, they announced an amicable end to the band and that their upcoming tour would be their last, as the members wanted to spend more time with their families and pursue other career paths.
The band decided to play a final farewell show with the five main members in Florida in April 2021 and disbanded amicably thereafter.
[3][4] According to Donehey, the name Tenth Avenue North was meant to be temporary because they were scheduled to play at a conference and could not agree on a name; they chose the name of the street they lived on in West Palm Beach and never changed it.
[5] The band released several independent albums and an EP before catching the attention of producers Jason Ingram and Phillip LaRue.
Jeff Owen joined the band as guitarist before its first major label album, of which Scott Sanders was also part.
"Healing Begins", the first single from their next album, was released on March 2, 2010, and spent 29 weeks on the Billboard Christian Songs chart.
[20] On November 10, 2014, the band released their fourth studio album, Cathedrals, which also contained all the songs from the Islands EP.
[21] In a 2014 interview about Cathedrals, Jamison described the band's songwriting process thusly: "Mike, our singer, is always going to be the main lyricist: he's the driving force, and he's the best at it.
[27] Lead singer Mike Donehey said it was the band's first collection of songs of lament covering topics like "casual sex, pornography, political outrage, hatred, shame, secrets, fear and sexual abuse".
After the amicable departures of Jamison and Shirley, the band decided to scale back the number of shows they were playing in order to spend more time at home with their families.
[31] In early 2020, Donehey proposed to Juarez and Owen taking a break to spend time with his family and not touring in the fall.
Juarez said he was getting ready to depart the band to pursue a full-time career in real estate, and Owen mentioned a desire to move to Florida and produce and write music full time.
[33][34] [35] The band released their final album, Unplugged for the People, a collection of acoustic versions of 10 of their greatest hits, in October 2020.
[36] The band later announced that Donehey, Owen, Juarez, Shirley, and Jamison would reunite for two final farewell shows in Orlando, Florida, in April 2021.
[37] Tenth Avenue North partnered with Compassion International and encouraged other people to sponsor impoverished children through the organization, especially at their live shows.