Executive Meddling: The band's long-running relationship with Essential Records was fraught with this until they completed their contract in 2007 and went indie. Some examples:
The band wanted to record a Christmas album in 2002. The label wanted a worship album instead. The compromise was The Eleventh Hour, neither a seasonal album nor a worship album, but the song I Need You was added at the last minute when the label demanded a "worship" song to use as a single.
The band's first approaching to entering the "worship album" fray was to re-record a number of old hymns, some of them very obscure, with a bit of a folk/country bent on 2005's Redemption Songs. The label was not terribly interested in the idea, and implied that marketing support for the album would be withheld unless the band recorded a more recognizable hymn in an upbeat style, to release as a single. The result: A strangely happy-sounding take on "It Is Well with My Soul", complete with Beatlesque harmonies.
While they've been releasing music independently since 2007, Essential got back into the game with a distribution deal for 2009's The Long Fall Back to Earth. This may or may not have had an effect on the guest star roster for The Shelter.
Hey, It's That Voice!: Leigh Nash, lead singer of Sixpence None the Richer, keeps cropping up to sing duets with Dan Haseltine, which so far include "With Every Breath", "Mirrors & Smoke" and "Out of My Hands".
The Pete Best: Matt Bronleewe, who left the band after they got signed in order to finish his college degree. Matt Odmark replaced him.
Word of GodGod: According to Jars of Clay, "Goodbye, Goodnight" is from the perspective of the musicians who played aboard the Titanic as it went down. Really.