Andrew: Now, you guys have come a long way in five or six years.  From traveling the country on your own steam, playing camps and youth conferences, you're now in the big time.  How is that life different for you now?

Nathan: Let's see.  I really kind of feel like we're the same bunch of knuckleheads we were back then but things are definitely a little busier now, for sure.  Back in those days it was us driving our own buses through the night, getting in in the middle of the night, loading in all our stuff by ourselves.  And so the big differences really are that we actually have some guys to help us out now and we actually don't have to drive our buses through the night anymore, worrying about falling asleep at the wheel.  I feel like we're doing the same things we were back then but maybe it's just in front of a bigger audience now maybe?  And we probably have a few more gadgets to look at while we're playing now too but other than that we still have the same kind of formula.  We're just trying to lead people in worship. 

So with the success that you've had, which has afforded both welcome luxuries like the extra help, and bonus work like more dates and I'm assuming more traveling, what's the toughest thing you guys have found to balance?

You know, that's definitely the balance between our time spent doing our job, being on the road, and time spent with our family.  I know if you asked any one of us, we'd say that we'd always rather be with our families than be out on the road every day of the week.  But we do enjoy what we're doing so we try to balance that out with family.  We at least try to give what we take, if that's possible.  If we're gone for a week, we try to be home at least for a week.  But there's no perfect formula for it and our wives are definitely very special ladies who have to kind of be single moms for part of the year.  Yeah, our families are called into this just as much as we are; they have to be.  And like I said, there's no perfect way of doing it but we're trying to figure that out. 

Now, ever since you guys hit the airwaves with "I Can Only Imagine," you've pretty much held a solid spot of acclaim.  Each album has garnered hit after hit and sold great.  But has the mainstream success surprised you guys the most?

Yeah, surprise is a good word for it.  (Laughs) You know for us, it really did come out of the blue.  It wasn't like something we tried to make happen or even intended on happening.  You know, we had this joke.  We said, "If there's a list of five or ten Christian songs that were never meant to be on mainstream radio, ‘Imagine' would be on that list."  Just because it's so blatant in what it's speaking about.  We were actually home here in Dallas one day and we actually got a call that said, "Hey! Wild FM, mainstream shock-jock station here in Dallas is playing ‘Imagine'!"  And we thought, "Nah, there's no way."  Somebody's playing a joke on us or something.  But sure enough, they had started playing it and it's been kind of a roller coaster ever since.

It's been really cool.  People have asked us before, with sort of mainstream success, have we had any pressure to change what we do?  And I don't think we would have anyway but fortunately for us, we didn't have a reason to change.  The song that got us on mainstream radio was already so blatant in what it was speaking about that we actually had this kind of strange accountability from mainstream DJs saying, "Please, please don't back away."

Wow.

"Because, whoever, Eminem or Marilyn Manson are pushing the envelope one way, you guys are the only one's talking about what you're talking about on mainstream radio."  Which is something the DJ's love because they've kind of got the new hot thing, y'know?  It's been really cool.  We've been very fortunate that we haven't had to change anything, not that we wanted to to begin with. 

Well, let's shift gears a bit and talk about the new album, All That is Within Me, that streets next week.  I'm really curious to hear about the three week writing and recording process that went into creating this record.  Now you guys went into the studio with virtually nothing right? 

Yes, that's actually absolutely correct.  We had absolutely nothing.  Which I don't know if we should really admit that but it's true! (Laughs)

(Laughs)  So what was that like then?  That's a serious pressure cooker...

Yeah, it is.  I mean, it would have been one thing if...We got off our spring tour and we had about two weeks before we were supposed to fly to Idaho and start working on this record in the studio out there and we didn't have one note, one lyric.  So we kind of locked ourselves away in a room here in Dallas for a week, really just kind of started playing whatever came to mind.  Yeah, there were definitely a few moments where we were sweating it a little bit, trying to figure out what was going to happen.  But it's one of those things that for us, we just kind of threw it up and said, "God, you're going to have to show up here for us because this isn't happening on our own."  He really did that in a big way for us.  It's just like anything.  Those times when we're at our lowest and have nothing to offer is usually when God shows up the biggest.  So that was definitely this record for us. 

It's a little different thematically, I guess.  Our last few records, especially Undone, really kind of dealt with the season of life that we were all having.  We were having some real kind of tragic times to go through so songs like "Homesick," "Undone," "Bring the Rain," all those songs are kind of speaking about the tragedies that we were going through at the time.  This time around we didn't really have anything like that to write about.  No new tragic news to record... 

Yeah, how bad can that be, right?

That's right.  We were very glad we didn't have anything bad to talk about. (Laughs)

So as far as the songwriting process went in this short process, how did you guys handle that?  I would wonder that as the clock ticked near and nearer to D-Day, couldn't there be the temptation to maybe settle for a clichéd line here or there, simply to get it done?

I don't know.  I don't know if it's one of those things where we tend to do some of our best work under pressure.  I don't know if that's the case or not.  Doing it this way definitely made sure we were focusing on the task at hand.  We knew that we had to get this done and we knew that we had to make it the best it could possibly be in such a short amount of time.  It created a real urgency in us, for sure, to make sure that we had our heads in this and realized what we were doing.  We did it backwards, kind of from a different perspective.  We recorded most of the music first and then for the majority of the songs Bart would kind of steal them away and just sit with them and try to write over the music we'd created.  Which was a little frustrating for him because the music was already down on tape, I guess you could say, and couldn't be changed.  So he had to stay in the lines, so to speak.  He had to work with what was given.  Well that challenged him a little bit.  Yeah, I think if we ever have the choice, we probably won't ever do it this way again.  (Laughs)  But it thankfully turned out okay this time. 

That's cool.  It's just seems like a surreal experience, to come together and try to create something meaningful with the clock hovering over you...

Yeah, there's definitely a few points of recording something and then not being at all sure exactly what you've got.  Until it comes back and we've all put our vocals on it and there's actually words and the song has a beat instead of just kind of a melody.  It can be a little scary. 

So when it comes to writing, do you guys sit down and write for a specific audience or, and I suppose this is the right answer to some degree, is it just you or just what comes out of you?

I think we just try to be as honest as we possibly can and most of the time for us that means that we're writing about who we are as people, life experiences, or what we're consumed with.  And obviously we hope that we're consumed with Christ so that's what we write about.  You know, like I was talking about the last three records, it would have been very dishonest of us to have been going through what we were going through, losing all these loved ones, and then writing these happy-go-lucky songs.  It just would have been a little two-faced on our part.  But I think that in writing the songs that we're writing, if we're writing about hard times that we're going through, I know that we hope that it can help people and bring people through some tough times, maybe.  I don't think we've ever sat down and said, "We're going to write this song to change the world!" (Laughs)

(Laughs)

I think that's a little high-handed for anybody to say.  Most of the time, the songwriting process for us really changes every song.  It's either something the six of us come up with collectively or all of us individually are bringing stuff to the table that we've worked on on our own so, it really changes. 

So what did Brown Bannister bring to the table for you guys?  How did he help shape this record?

Yeah, Brown Bannister is a legend, in and of himself.  (Laughs)  He probably fretted and was more nervous about this whole process than we were.  Because he would call us a few weeks before we were going into the studio and he said, "Hey, do you guys have any little demos of what you're working on?"  And we're like, "Ah, we'll get you something," which, we didn't have anything.  So we get into the studio and he's going, "Okay, we're about to fly to Idaho, spend a bunch of money in the studio, and you don't have any songs ready to go?"  We said, "No, it's gonna be great!" (Laughs)  He just kind of laughed, shook his head and said, "All right!" 

Yeah, Brown is one of those guys that, and I haven't completely figured out how, but somehow, without telling you exactly what to do is wonderful at bringing the best out, without being pushy or telling you exactly what to do.  He made sure we didn't go off the deep end a couple times.  A good example is our record Coming Up to Breathe, we kind of threw caution to the wind on that record and did whatever we wanted musically, and he kind of pulled the reins back a couple times on that one, so that we didn't stretch into Metallica or something.  (Laughs)

That would have been interesting though...

We toyed around with everything on that record.  (Laughs)

Now, the one criticism that seems to pop up against you guys as a band sometimes is that your music hasn't grown or matured or something along those lines much.  Can you speak to that? 

Sure, we have heard that criticism.  That has not gotten by us but I don't really know what, exactly, to say to that.  When people criticize us for that, I'm not sure exactly what they mean.  Is it that we sound too much like ourselves or is it that they want us to turn into something else?  I'm not really sure exactly what they're looking for.  Maybe they're looking for a kind of new jump kind of thing.  Like to me, the band U2, they've kind of put some bleeps and blurbs and stuff over the years but they still sound like the same band they always did.  So maybe the guitars are louder on one song over another but to me they're still the same band.  For us, maybe we're just trying to focus on our strong point.  Like I was saying, if we all of a sudden turned into Metallica, I don't think people would be into that.  (Laughs)  We're just trying to be who we are, trying to do the best job we can with what we're doing.  We're not going to please everybody all the time.  That is really kind of a strange criticism or question with me because I really would like to talk to or ask somebody who has that criticism and ask them, "Do you mean that we sound like we're rehashing the same thing over and over or is it that you actually want us to turn into something else?" 

I think that they're pointing to a bit of both.  And I think they might argue that while U2 is still the same band, The Joshua Tree is still markedly different from, say, Pop or Vertigo...

Well, I don't know.  It's a little bit unfair to compare us to U2 also but unfortunately, and I don't always like to say this but we're bound a little bit by the industry we're in.  Most of the people in the Christian music buying public aren't going to be fans of the fact that we change our sound.  Which is a good thing because that's why we have so many people in the Christian industry that have such long careers and that have fans for years and years and years.  Guys like Michael W. Smith or Steven Curtis Chapman just keep rolling and rolling because Christian fans are fans for life.  And it's great.  I don't know.  Maybe we'll get there one day where we can change up our sound a lot.  This new record, it may have sounded different.  We just didn't have all the time in the world to explore all the different areas we wanted to go into.  We started that a little bit on Coming Up to Breathe and I think it worked in some ways and it obviously didn't work in some other ways.  Maybe it's one of those things where we're still trying to figure out exactly where we excel. 

You bring up an interesting point regarding the industry.  It's obviously had it's up's and down's the past couple of years and things are definitely in flux right now.  Are you content with where you're at there for now?

If the mainstream stuff comes again, so be it.  I guess, basically what we do, how we write, is not trying to get more mainstream success.  We're a band that, all of us grew up in church, so we're writing songs with those themes, I guess you could say, and so that's never going to change.  I mean, we all love the Christian music industry.  We're all products of it.  We grew up listening to Christian music so...I don't know.  We definitely do love where we're at.  As with anything, we're always trying to up the ante and do things better than we did the last time.  It's the same question we were talking about just a second ago, you know, are we going to get complacent?  Just kind of rehash the same thing over and over?  I don't think we are.  It certainly feels different every time.  But who knows?  Maybe the next couple of years will bring some big changes for us, maybe not. 

www.mercyme.org