Pilgrim Man - What’s It All For?

I'm sitting at the mixing console with my good friend Tim Brown at the reigns. We're working on the mix of my tune "Pilgrim Man" and I couldn't be more blown away. It is sounding so amazing -- I can't wait for you to hear it. My friend and producer extraordinaire, Chris Davis (Veggie Tales, Ruth McGuinness), created an amazing track. We got fellow Minnesotan Paul Eckberg (Eager) to throw some awesome drums on it, and Mike Payne (Matthew West) did killer guitar parts. Then we had a small soiree at my house, with members of Nashville Soul Choir over to sing the big chorus parts and the blessing at the end—they blew me away. Then Matt Huesmann let us use his studio to record my lead vocals. To top it all off, JR and Jonathan Davis (Winco Productions) caught the whole thing on HD video. I'm struck by a couple of things about this whole process:

#1 - I'm blown away by the amazing talent of my friends, and their willingness to step up and help me, even when there doesn't appear to be anything for them to gain from it all. I hope I can repay them somehow. For now, love will have to do.

Read more »

Singing For My Life...er, My Vacation

You know that feeling when you pull away from your house, drive down your street, and then you suddenly remember something you’re going to need real bad? So you turn around and pull back in the garage, dog wondering why you’re back so quickly because she barely had a chance to close her eyes, and then try the whole leaving thing again.

Well, this recently happened to me. But instead of being down the street, I was 30,000 feet in the air, and somewhere over New Mexico. I was on my way to Whistler, British Columbia. A beautiful mountain village about 1½ hour north of Vancouver—in metric that’s about 90 minutes.

But I wasn’t sure if I was even going to be let into the country, because it’s not like I forgot my contact case, or a hairbrush. I had forgotten my passport. Not usually one to panic, I waited until we landed in Las Vegas for a brief layover and then hit the internet to see if I could find out exact details about border crossing. The best information I could find was from the Canadian Border Patrol—sounded credible enough. They said, officially, you don’t need a passport to get into the country, but you do need one to get out. The catch is, you need to prove your U.S. citizenship. All I had was my driver’s license and my Starbucks card. Not quite enough.

We decided to give it a try—surely they’d have some kind of computer system that can look up citizenship, credit score, horoscope sign—it is 2010, for Pete’s sake. Not so fast, Yankee.

Read more »

Listening to the Right Voice

“Don’t forget this one…” The muffled sound of music plays in the background.

“Which one?” I ask, not able to discern a melody. She can’t remember the title, but she will.

My sister, Jody, sings along with the music in the car, “Call me from this boat, I wanna walk on the water.” It’s my song about wanting to escape from the doldrums of life, into something more fantastic. There’s got to be something more, kind of thing.

“Oh yeah, I love that one,” I reply.

Jody and I try to talk on the phone every Friday morning on her way to work, me on my way to a weekly meeting with some guys. It’s our regular time together. And it’s usually therapy for one of us.

“But my favorite is still ‘hold onto me forever, and I’ll hold onto you,’” more singing. That someone would actually like my music enough to consider one a favorite is mind-boggling to me. But I don’t have the average sister.

Throughout most of the Nashville years, she has been a steady source of encouragement to me about my music. She keeps old cassettes I’ve sent to her over the years, and plays them in her car. Or jams along to the tunes in her basement music room. She makes me think there’s actually value to some of my songs, when it seems like no one else in the world cares. I have always believed what my sister said because she was older, which meant wiser.

Read more »

I Surrender My Desire To Be Popular

I packed a sandwich for the trip, but had to stop and get some fries and a diet Coke for accompaniment. It’s better that way. It’s only a three-hour tour from Nashvegas to Louisville, just long enough to make a couple phone calls and get through three CDs. Haven’t heard Breathe’s “Hands To Heaven” for a while, so I enjoyed that. Would love to cover that, as well as “Somewhere Out There,” perhaps with Natalie Grant playing the Linda Ronstadt part, for the forthcoming Pilgrim Man CD.

Last time I pulled into Dover Chapel, the town was covered with ice. This is the church used in “The Perfect Gift,” you know, the one that put up the Nativity scene that I had ordered taken down? I was wondering if the real-life church would have an actual Nativity scene set-up, with maybe a sign declaring, “As seen in the feature film THE PERFECT GIFT” for those who drove by. No such luck.

I’ll be doing a concert in their morning service tomorrow, and then singing “Emmanuel” prior to a screening of the film in the evening. I couldn’t be more thrilled to be here, and get to share some of my tunes with these amazingly kind people.

I’m listening to a station that just might play my Christmas song, "Emmanuel (You Are With Me)". Honestly, it’s a weird feeling thinking your song might come on, and then realizing it probably won’t. And trying not to be resentful of the others who do get their songs played on the radio. The more effort that is made to get my song played on Christian radio, or to get some press coverage for the movie – and the more walls we hit – people saying no, or just not saying anything at all - the more challenging it is for me not to get frustrated. It’s easier to not go after something, and simply live in the fantasy of what might happen. But putting yourself out there for people to say “this is of value to us” or not…is a crazy way to live.

Read more »

Movies, Music, Radio... To the Moon, Alice!!!

I thought it was time for an update. There's been so much going on lately, it's hard enough for me to keep track of it all. More than anything, I want to say a giant THANKS for the support and encouragement from you all!

CLANCY - this awesome faith-based family movie is being released around the country via DVD on Oct. 20. It's a great adventure-driven relationship story with powerful themes of forgiveness, faith, sacrifice, and redemption. Oh, and it features my song "Precious Memories" - available now on iTunes, or watch the music video on YouTube. You can also hear the whole soundtrack for Clancy on iTunes, as well.

THE PERFECT GIFT - my motion picture acting debut! Releases on DVD Nov. 3rd, with a limited (teeny-tiny) handful of theaters showing it, as well. A few TV networks will be showing it, too (details TBA). A heartwarming Christmas film that will be around for many years to come, The Perfect Gift explores the Culture vs. Christmas war that always seems to strike up around the holidays. I play the leader of a local ACLU-type group who tells a local church they have to tear down the Nativity scene they've put up in their front yard. Yes, I'm the bad guy. But I play him with such charm and passion, I'm certain you'll love hating me. The Perfect Gift also features my tune, "Emmanuel (You Are With Me)" - more below on this one. Again, this is a Kelly's Filmworks production - my friends Jefferson and Kelly up in Louisville are amazing and really appear to want to help the people around them succeed more than themselves. I'm thankful to be around them and the beneficiary of much of their generosity and love.

Read more »