Talk to us about “Cathedrals” what was the inspiration behind the new album?
The idea behind the album is simply that we are the dueling place of the holy spirit.
As believers in relationship with Jesus Christ, the Bible states that the same power
that rose Christ from the dead now lives in us. What we are saying when we say
“Cathedrals,” is that we are Cathedrals and therefore the dueling place of the spirit
of God. One of the things we’ve been communicating that affects our day to day
lives, is that we no longer have this vision of what is secular and what is sacred be-
cause if the holy spirit duels in us, wherever we go, whether a coffee shop a church
or Walmart, we are bringing the spirit of God with us and therefore that place be-
comes a sacred place. Is terribly encouraging for believers to understand that we
are not alone because we have the spirit of God with us. And wherever we go
he comes with us.
The lead single “No man is an Island” – what is the story behind the song?
For this project we got together and wrote 20 or 25 songs. Another theme that kept
coming up was the idea of community. The idea behind the first single ’No Man is an
Island,’ is that we are not meant to do life alone and just as the very essence of who
God is as the trinity is a community [three in one, each, glorifying each other in that
community] we are also made for community. One of the things that we want people
to walk away with is that you are not alone, and you don’t have to do this by yourself.
God has gifted us brother and sisters in Christ, He has given us a family that we be-
long to so that we can walk through life together.
You have talked about self worth and how society today puts so much
emphasis on validation from others. I know as a band you get fans asking
to follow them back or tweet at them almost serving as a sense of validation.
Can you talk about that and what do you want those people to understand
and grasp from *Cathedrals? *
We actually have 2 songs on the record, one called ‘Just getting by,’ and another
called ‘ We won’t numb the pain,’ which actually talks about how oftentimes be-
cause of a painful situation we run to other things to try to numb the pain. Whether
it be Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, these things give us a ‘type’ of validation
and oftentimes a false sense of community. Oftentimes, we think we have a ton of
friends because on the Facebook page we have a thousand friends [or whatever
it is that we have], but honestly you don’t know a single one of those people and
the reality is that you can contribute as much to that community as you want or
you can detract from it as much as you want but there’s no real type of honest
commitment to one another in those so called false communities. And that’s what
[the song] ‘Just Getting by’ is about… It’s about just kind of looking up from your
cell phone and getting away from those. So our hope and our thought is to en-
courage people to find true community.
There’s such a fine line to walk today with the emphasis that we all put on social
media… When we get acknowledge all of a sudden we feel validated, when what
we really need is to be validated by what Christ says about us. Our identity should
be rapped in what Christ, and not necessarily on what others say about us on a
social media platform.
What’s different about this record?
In this record, the quality of the songs increased simply because we’ve been
writing together a lot longer. From the musical and production side, we worked
with L.A based producer John Fields (Jonas Brothers, Switchfoot, Demi Lovato
and Pink). He came at the idea of recording the album very differently from what
we had done in the past and was able to see the [big] idea and what had to be
done in order to polish the sound. So I think that definitely set things apart.
Which is your favorite cut in the album?
Oh boy [laughing] it’s so hard to pick one! Mac Powell [one of my pals] from Third
Day always says: “ My songs are like my kids and even if you have an ugly one,
you still love it the same” [Laughing]… It is hard to pick one… But one that sticks
out to me that we haven’t played yet is a song called ‘Stay.’ It was a lot of fun to
record it and to write it. It was just kind of a little different.
What made it different?
The song is about staying married. We wrote the whole record on a tour called
‘Winter Jam,’ and at that time someone in my life was going through a really diffi-
cult time with their marriage… There was an affair and a lot of hurt and pain. Jeff
also had a friend going through a similar situation, so we said to ourselves: “We
need to write a song about how even in times when you don’t feel it, there’s still
the commitment of staying with the person, and how God is honored in your com-
mitment to that person just as He is committed to us.” And so we wrote this song
and every time I hear it it’s a reminder of where we wrote it from and who we wrote
for and we hope it encourages others as well.
What’s Next?
Well, we’ll finish the CD release tour and then have a little time off for Christmas
to be with family and friends which is good, but we are also looking forward to the
New Year. In February we have the “Love Ran Red” tour coming up with Chris
Tomlin which is going to be a fun tour – and we are looking forward to it.
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