One week from today I’ll be sitting in Roy Salmond’s studio digging into my third studio album. I have to confess, I never believed I’d be doing a third album. When I did “Broomtree” in 2007, I was happily pastoring and thought an album might be the way to get this whole “music thing” out of my system. When I did “Rumours of Light” in 2010, I thought it was going to be a bookend on this little hiatus. But now, gearing up to do this third album, things have changed. I have resigned to the fact that I’m not a pastor taking a break from church ministry to take an extended sabbatical as an itinerant music minister. I am a singer/songwriter with a small but very loyal and supportive fan base who is embarking on the next stage of what promises to be a long exciting journey. God’s grace and your support have made this possible.
In the past few weeks since announcing the studio dates, there’s been a great outpouring of excitement, enthusiasm and generosity. What a blessing! Despite my attempts to deny it, I am an affirmation junkie and the support and encouragement I’ve received in the last few weeks has had me over the moon with joy and courage. Thank-you!
Roy and I haven’t talked about album titles or anything like that yet. It’s a bit premature. But I’m thinking of calling the new album “The House With the Sunflowers”. It’s the title of one of my new songs. A lot of the songs so far have to deal with my uneasy sense that there’s a growing gap between what we in the West in this moment in history call “Christian” and the life of Christ. It all started with a quote I read in a book by Miroslav Volf, a Theology professor at Yale University Divinity School.
A native Croatian, Volf returned to the former Yugoslavia in the early 90’s. There he was confronted with the dilemma of how to look a Serbian in the face, in the wake of the war and genocide that had been waged between his people and theirs, and offer genuine forgiveness and reconciliation. His book, “Exclusion and Embrace” is a rigorous theological exploration of the resources which exist in the gospel that make reconciliation possible.
We’re taking a different approach to the recording of this album. Rather than building the songs from the ground up (drums & bass before guitars, vocals, overdubs,etc.). Roy’s intent is to make a songwriter’s album. Recording me first, and then building in the other musicians around my performance. I’ll likely live at the studio while we do this one, and we plan to work night and day for two weeks straight to get it done. This is a more immersive process than my previous recordings, and I’m intrigued by the “vibe” it’ll give the whole thing.
My friend, Derek Selinger, is going to tag along for the first few days to do some interviews and to help document the whole recording process. Derek will also be producing a music video for me later this summer. You can check out some of his other work here. (Click Here)
All of this takes money. Total budget for the album and video content is around $17,000, and friends and fans have been quick to pitch in and help us out. As of today we’ve raised around 40% of the necessary budget with new funds coming in every day. You can help with the funding by pre-ordering CD’s here on the website (Click Here), by making a tax deductible donation in my name to Incarnation Ministries (Click Here), or by taking advantage of the many incentives on my crowd-funding page (Click Here).
Sincerely,