by David Dodd
September, 2008
What a glorious time it was when the world’s greatest worship leaders
gathered together for a week to write and fellowship with the results of
their prayers and talents going to help the world’s poorest of the
poor.
Delirious lead singer Martin Smith, who co-founded CompassionArt
with his wife Anna, sat down with Apostles That Rock to
give us a sneak peak on what we can expect from Christian Music’s newest
Super Group, CompassionArt.
I
can’t even imagine how it all came together. Let’s sum it up: many of
the greatest US and UK worship leaders in the world got together to
write music in January and then went to Abbey Road Studios 3 months
later to record it.
I
love the photo of four of you walking Abbey Road like The Beatles. It’s
just beautiful because you’re walking Abbey Road for Jesus and I don’t
think John, Paul, George and Ringo did that.
George, Paul, Ringo and John cross Abbey Road for an album cover
Michael W. Smith, Paul Baloche, Martin Smith and Mike Weaver cross
Abbey
Road for Jesus
Paul makes it very
clear in his writings that we take captive every thought to be obedient
to Christ, and I can just imagine you and Anna talking about this
project, so take me back to when the two of you initially discussed this
idea.
I’ve had the privilege of writing with a lot of these amazing people
over the years. Songs like Healing Rain were written by Michael
W. and myself, and there have been other songs over the years. My wife
Anna and I, we just decided, why not try to get everyone together, in
the same room, for a whole week and let’s see what songs we can write.
What an incredible experiment that would be.
When we sent the invitations out, I couldn’t believe that everyone got
back to me and was able to be there. So we booked a friend’s hotel in
Scotland for the week and we gathered everyone. Chris Tomlin,
unfortunately was ill that week but he joined us a bit later at my
house.
So everybody came, we wrote 21 songs, 15 of which have now been recorded
and almost mastered and mixed. This year has been a blur. We’ve had
some incredible people there and Anna and I are honored to have hosted
that. It’s been a small miracle.
The great thing is, is that, all the money - the copywrites from the
songs are owned by CompassionArt - which I believe is the first time
that’s ever happened, and all of those proceeds from those songs are
going to incredible projects around the world to relieve suffering and
oppression. It’s fantastic.
It’s beautiful to see these pictures like Matt
Redman sitting in the living room with Michael W. Smith on the piano
bench and you’re sitting leaning up against the wall with a notepad,
just writing songs.
Doesn’t that take you
back to the early days being a teenager and early twenties, writing
songs in the back of the bus, and similar situations like that?
Yeah I mean it was just a very, very quick process. Things were
happening very fast. I split everyone into teams for each session, and
songs were just coming out of the woodwork. I mean it was incredible.
Each team had to write a song in two hours and bring it to the group and
play it to everyone, and then we would all vote on it and give all of
our opinions. I mean it was just amazing, these beautiful songs coming
out, I think we just couldn’t quite believe it.
How did you pick the
teams, Martin? It reminds me when I was a kid and played kickball and
baseball and we would pick teams - actually it sounds like an awesome
reality television show for Jesus! - but you had Steven Curtis Chapman,
Paul Baloche, Mike Weaver, Michael W. Smith, Tim Hughes, Matt Redman,
Israel Houston, you were there, so many people, how did you pick the
teams?
Well the first night we got together, we gathered everyone and we picked
all the names out of a hat, so no one had a chance to know who they were
going to be with. And so it was a very funny moment seeing all these
people being paired up with each other, it was fantastic.
It’s been an amazing experience, and here we are in early fall, 7
months on, 8 months on, we’ve recorded the record, and it’s about to be
finalized in New York, and that will be out January 27th next
year. It’s extraordinary; there’s book that’s coming along with it and
all sorts of other projects that’s coming out of the ground.
I’m hoping that once
this comes out to maybe get a few of you guys on the phone, especially
yourself, and Matt, and maybe one or two of the other guys and do a few
hours and talk about this and take some phone calls, I think it would be
a beautiful time to do that, to raise money for CompassionArt.
We are planning to do a CompassionArt radio day and do some interviews
and press and play the record all day long. We’d love for you to be a
part of that, David.
Count me in, Martin.
I’d love to check back with you for monthly updates so I can let the Apostles
That Rock readers and listeners know the progress of
CompassionArt.
Absolutely. You can touch base with me anytime. Cheers, mate.
|
