Artist Spotlight: MercyMe
This band probably doesn't need an introduction... We had a chat with Nate Cochran from MercyMe, and found out a few cool things we thought you'd like to know!
STAR: Tell us something about MercyMe we don't already know?
NATE: We're extremely dynamic and versatile sand volleyball players!
STAR: Do you ever get tired of playing 'I Can Only Imagine'?
NATE: No, we really don't get tired of playing it. Some times it's honestly on auto pilot because we've done it so many times, but sharing that song in an arena, looking out to the crowd, we're reminded that we have a song that's so much bigger than 'we' are... People have really taken personal ownership of that song. For a lot of people, the song is helping them through a tough time that's really fresh for them... We're keenly aware of that, and because of it, the song never gets old to us.
STAR: When you're laying a song like that down in the studio, do you have a kind of sense of 'Wow, this is going to be something special'?
NATE: Wow. You know, as an artist, usually the songs that you feel that way about, ha - usually they never see the light of day... But when Imagine was written, we knew it was something very special to us, obviously... I think we took for granted what God was going to do about that song, though... We had no clue it was going to go to places that it's gone.
STAR: What's your favorite song to play live?
NATE: Well, that seems to change with every album... Right now I'd have to say "You Reign".
STAR: How did your latest song, "Finally Home" come about?
NATE: We were in the studio making the last record and we had a conversation about how Imagine was written, reflecting on Bart losing his dad at 19. Bart was sharing that he doesn't think of his dad as much now when Imagine is performed, because we do it so often... Bart realized that he hadn't really gone back to that feeling of 'missing' his dad. So, while there in the studio, he wrote down that first line: "I'm gonna wrap my arms around my daddy's neck, and tell him that I've missed him." That was a springboard for the rest of the song... And the rest of it came about really fast.
***This song also has special meaning to many of our soldiers overseas. In fact, MercyMe's music video focuses on this side of the song. Check the video out online!
STAR: Okay - We LOVE your 'Covertune Grab Bags' that you post on YouTube! (Currently, our favorite is 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' - see the video below! Other staff favorites are 'Jump' and 'Crazy'!) Who came up with that idea?
NATE: It came about because we saw a friend of ours, Phil Wickham, who had covered a song and posted it on his blog... And we thought, hey we should try to do something like that! But every time we tried, it would turn into a three ring circus! So we invited people to make requests of songs for us to cover, and we said we'd record it and post it the first time through, whether we knew it or not, and it kind of morphed into what it is now. We've covered everything from 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun', 'Eye of the Tiger', 'I Will Survive'... We even had one that we recorded in the Dominican Republic where we asked people off the street to come sing 'LaBamba' with us. You know, it's just an opportunity for us to be silly and laugh a little.
STAR: We agree - it's good to see a fun, happy, silly side of the Christian artist!
STAR: Tell us something special about your latest album.
NATE: The song 'Sanctified' is really special to us. It's one of our favorite but it often gets looked over...
STAR: If you could cast yourself as a character in any movie, who would it be?
NATE: In the original Star Wars movie, when they're walking into the cantina scene, there's that one alien with the bald head playing the sax - that's me.
MERCYME - CoverTune Grab Bag- Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Special Thanks to Nate Cochran and MercyMe for the phone interview with Rob Lewis and STAR 93.3 fm. More information about MercyMe can be found on their website: www.mercyme.com.