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It was irony that brought Jacob Veal into the fold as the guitarist for Eden’s Way.

Veal’s old band, Seraphim, was celebrating the release of a new CD — but the night of the release show, the band’s drummer quit. That same night, Eden’s Way lost its guitarist. The members of Eden’s Way asked Veal to fill in so the band could continue with its tour, and what started out as a temporary arrangement gelled into a permanent lineup.

“I had always been a big fan, and Eden’s Way were good friends of ours, so I agreed to fill in for the rest of the year until they found someone permanently,” Veal told The Daily Times this week. “But as time went on, it didn’t look good for Seraphim to keep going, so I decided to stay on permanently.”

It was a marriage forged in Christ. Veal started playing music with his brother Aaron. The two were in the band Big Fish together (a band that would morph over the years into Big Fish Funk Revival to Flipside Runner to Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy and back to Flipside Runner), and when Aaron Veal left to work on a solo project, he asked his brother to contribute guitar parts.

That project grew into Seraphim, which played its first gigs in Blount County at two battle-of-the-band contests (one at First Baptist Church of Maryville and the other at Heritage High School).

Eden’s Way began with singer David Underwood in 2002, and the Christian rock outfit slowly built a reputation on the Southeastern circuit as showmen as well as rock ’n’ roll evangelists. The band has released three studio albums — a self-titled debut, the sophomore follow-up “4-4-1” (Four For One) and “Rock Solid,” released last year. With Veal in the fold, the band has sharpened its sound even further.

“Right now, David and myself are writing the new album, and it’s going toward a more modern ’80s sound,” Veal said. “There’s definitely more in the energy, and the sound has definitely gotten a lot flashier. The energy is just absurd. We’re all over the place, jumping on P.A. speakers; it’s just fun. We’re ready to bring the fun into Christian music.

“Too many people think you have to stand there because if you don’t, you make it more about you. But what’s the point of going to a Christian show if the band is just going to stand there and bore you to death? Why not have fun doing it?”

That’s exactly what the guys in Eden’s Way have planned for tonight. To go along with the band’s ’80s sound, the guys will play host to a ’80s party at The V Café in North Knoxville. It’s a full-out ’80s show, and the band members want fans to feel like they’ve stepped back in time 20 years when they walk through the door.

“The new sound is a by-product of me being a metal-head and everybody else in the band being fans of ’80s rock,” Veal said. “It ends up being an interesting creative structure. When I came in to play, the guys said, ‘Do whatever you want with the music as long as it fits.’ That’s a big plus, because that allows me to do creative, artistic things that I previously couldn’t. I’m still loving it.”

The music might be first, but a close second, he added, is that the guys in Eden’s Way all feel like family. Brothers in Christ, so to speak, and the energetic, occasionally raucous stage show allows them to minister more effectively.

“When you see an energetic show, your mind is taken by the music,” he said. “You’re listening better, you’re enjoying yourself, and when we say a ministry-minded thing, you tend to listen more. If it’s a boring set, you might be talking to a friend or going outside to hang out, and you might miss what we’re really trying to say.”

In addition to the ’80s theme, tonight’s show will feature a film crew on hand to capture live footage for an upcoming Eden’s Way video. The band has been signed to Souljoy Records, and anyone in attendance at tonight’s concert “will probably be in some scene of the video,” Veal added.