TobyMac

      What a treat for TobyMac to call as he was finishing up his new record.  We didn’t have a lot of time when the phone rang, but we’re really grateful for a few minutes with the Mac Attack who talked about his new single, Made to Love, his work with Rebecca St. James, and his upcoming Winter WonderSlam tour which includes two new artists from his record label – Gotee Records – that he formed with partner Joey Ellwood.   Here’s most of the conversation…

      I can’t get Made to Love out of my mind.  When did it come into your mind?

      I originally had the idea for the Diverse City record but it just didn’t work, it just wasn’t right, and I said I’m not gonna let this song go, I’m going to be a good steward with this song and I’m not gonna release it until I know it’s real and it’s something that actually has a shot at touching people’s lives if God chooses to do that with the song. 

      I wouldn’t quite tell this story on the air but it’s kinda funny, but Tait heard a bit of it and knew I didn’t put it on Diverse City and he wanted to put it on his record and I said I’m sorry, that one is too dear to me.

      But as for the song, I just get caught up in what I need to do with everything that’s going on around me.  And a lot of times I forget why I’m here, why we’re all here, and what we’re made for.  When I wake up, I usually spend some quiet time lying down and praying, just quiet time with God, and He made it very clear to me that not only are we made to love Him, but He is there to love us.

      The new album’s going to be called Portable Sounds?

You know, I’m a freak when it comes to processing and stuff.  I called the label yesterday with a new title and they told me I couldn’t change it now (laughs).

     It’s gotta be tough because Diverse City was such a powerful theme and

     title.

      Yeah, and the thing I was going to call it does too; it was going to be called Hope Road.  Several times I talk about this place called Hope Road on my record and I thought that’s a little more in the scene than Portable Sounds. 

      The whole Portable Sounds theory comes down to the same message as Made to Love; it’s almost like my life.  So many people live so caught up in the Lord in day to day life.  But for me, in between recording and being on the road and having a family of five kids, you know.  I just tend to need something to remind me, so the whole Portable Sounds came as I was thinking about how music can go with you anywhere nowadays with Nano’s and iPods and shuffles, and I was thinking I have these portable sounds to lift me up, portable sounds to take me higher.  And I was thinking the music that I’m making, if you can take it with you, if it’s a reminder of God’s love no matter what storm you’re in, no matter what the world’s serving up at you, music can’t save anybody, of course, only God can, but you can be reminded of His love.  So it’s like in a world of craziness, music can be a refuge - ultimately God is the refuge - but this music can remind you of His love.

      One of the things I love about your first single is it’s a reminder of what we need to be reminded of.

      Exactly.  I love that.  It’s like one time Peter Furler told me something I thought was quite interesting, I enjoyed it.  He said that he was in a really raw place in his life and he didn’t pray for a desire to be with God, he prayed for the desire to desire to be with God, which I thought was a different look altogether. I mean you’re even one step further than you think you are which sometimes we need to be reminded of. 

      It’s like one step closer, or a deeper step.  Last time we talked you had mentioned that people need to be fed.  And I think we need, I know I need these reminders.  When I listened to the song I thought what do I need to do to get closer because you’re right, with everything that’s going on out there, it’s so easy to be pulled away, even when our intentions are pure.

       Yeah, or just caught up, caught up in something that might be a very good thing but it sort of begins to replace that living and walking in constant prayer with the Holy Spirit and looking at which is supposed to come next and which door opens up and you know, we might be doing a very good thing.  I might be out there taking care of something for my kid’s school or something like that, but the fact is I might even be so caught up in that, that I might be replacing what God should be doing in my life.

       Let’s talk about your part of Thank You with Rebecca.

      I enjoyed doing it. I thought it was just really cool, sort of a minimalistic track with a nice groove.  I listened to the chorus and I thought it was great to be a part of it.

     How did that work, did she send you the chorus and she was open for you doing your part?

      Yeah, she sent me an mp3 of the track with the chorus and asked if there was anything I felt that I could do.  I’ve always respected Rebecca.  We’ve never toured together, we’ve never done really much of anything together specifically but she’s someone who I’ve always respected her principles and her family and the way she runs her camp.  They seem like people who are really passionate about Christ and aren’t doing it the way the industry typically does it because they’ve chosen to go a different route as far as how they tour.  Everything they do, I believe, reflects Christ.  For me, I love the song, but more importantly, I desire to do something with someone I respect and I thought that she is all about the right thing.

     The last time she was in town, I sat in on a pre-show meeting with several members of the church hosting the concert.  As you know she does an alter call and her father wanted to speak to the members of the church staff who would be talking to the people who had just accepted Christ in their life.  Her father spoke on how this was the most important part of the night and as he looked everyone in the eye and asked for their commitment, his eyes were watering.  And I‘m thinking, he does this every night and he’s still so emotional and passionate and real about this.  He’s truly on fire for this moment in the night.

      There’s definitely something special about what they do and that’s the main reason why I wanted to be on this.  I was writing for my record then so it wasn’t the appropriate time, but I definitely thought that God opened this door with someone I’ve always watched and felt was really pursuing Him and I said I’m going to make time for this.

      I love how the lyrics came right from Psalm 138:1 in the Message, ‘Thank you! Everything in me says, “Thank you!”’  And especially poignant are your lyrics:

‘Cause You’re the mystery that put a fix on me

I am just some dude with a checkered little history

Deep in the eye of my hurricane

But You’re the blood pumping through my veins.

      That came pretty quickly.  I spent some time listening to the track several times and listening to the heart of the song and just put my little extent on it. 

      Let’s go back to the chorus of Made to Love, because it’s just so beautiful and I might be wrong about this but it seems like the most passionate worship song you’ve ever written.

      I think so, I think so.  I think Burn For You definitely probably wasn’t a worship song exactly, I feel revived again, I am alive again, burning for you, you got me lifted up, yeah.  Stepping away form dctalk for a second, the burn for you, revived again thing is definitely one of our more passionate songs, but I think this is truly a worship song especially when it gets to the chorus.  Without a doubt it’s probably my most passionate sort of crying out. 

      I didn’t come up in worship music; I grew up in a fundamental Baptist church.  We sang hymns every Sunday so people beginning to sing a chorus together and worship when people have their arms in the air, their hands in the air, it can be real passionate.  For lack of a better term – Holy, Holy - you’re there, it’s you and God and you’re worshipping Him and He’s before you.  It’s not something I came up in but it’s something that I sure have learned about in the last ten years and my heart has gone from thinking that’s kind of strange to that’s a place I’d like to be.

      When you sit down and write a chorus like that, because I know your mind just races with the passion of so many things you’re involved in, but when you have a moment like that Toby, when you can really focus on how we were made to love Him and to find Him and we were made just for Him, does that take you to a place or a moment when you feel you’re so in tune with the Holy Spirit that you know the connection is as close as you can be?  

      Yeah, I feel like, when I’m in the studio singing that my eyes are definitely closed and I feel like I’m locking into what my life is all about.  You just don’t live that way normally, you want to, but you’re not privileged enough to live that way all the time.  I know there are people that do, probably, but it’s not that easy for me and I’ll be vulnerable enough to tell you that, but in that moment when those words are coming from your lips and you know you finally are locked in, I can’t say it any better than you’re truly locked into, you know, you’re locked into your heart, everything, you’re sure that you’re locked into what you know your life is supposed to be about.  It’s one of those rare moments that you recognize the authority of Christ in your life and you recognize the need that you have for that.

      Let’s talk about Winter WonderSlam, great lineup.  Ayiesha Woods is terrific as well.  Is it true you discovered her when you heard her on the radio in Jamaica? 

      Yeah, I was in Jamaica doing an interview at a radio station and I heard her and said, ‘who is that, is she from here?’ and they said, ‘no, but she comes here often, she’s from Orlando.’  So when I got home after Christmas, our family goes to Jamaica for Christmas, and immediately I called the numbers on the back of her CD to try to get a hold of her because I thought she was a great writer. 

      It ends up that she left Orlando with her family, her father’s a pastor and they went to Dallas, so Joey Ellwood and I ended up at her house with her parents and her and her brother in a room above their garage, she’s sitting at this little keyboard and what started out as ‘play a couple songs for us,’ ended up being a two-hour time of worship.  So it felt right to me, everything about it, her heart, the sound that she has being different from the typical Christian music sound, her being African American, and my calling to bring diversity into our industry, it all worked out and I’m hoping it takes off.  Her first single is shooting up the charts fairly quickly right now.

      And she’s one of the few Gotee artists where you actually make an appearance on the record.

       Yeah, I don’t get to do that quite often but I did on that one.  Again, that was something where I came in, we were listening to the song and she said it would be great to hear TobyMac on this one and I’m like hey, I’d be honored to be on that song, that song moves me already. 

      And the other guys on the tour, how cool it must be that you get to pick out four acts to play with you for a month when you tour the country.

      There’s something that connects me with every act on the tour, it’s not just haphazard.  Those four acts are acts that cross my path in different ways and for different reasons but they’re acts that flex a diversity of Christian music and they’re serious about what they do.  They’re passionate, they love the Lord, but also, there’s something that ties us together.  Obviously it’s music and God and Christ, but all those bands have very pop accessible melodies and in their own way they deliver something that anybody out there can sing.  All these bands sort of fit into that hit radio kind of format. 

      I think Hawk Nelson and The Afters are great pop bands.

       Yeah, absolutely, and Family Force 5 are definitely edgier without a doubt, and get a little crazy on stage, but the melodies are there.

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