Casting Crowns Interview

Who Is Casting Crowns?
Casting Crowns burst on to the Christian music scene just a couple of years ago and are already the industry’s best selling act.  The group has seen every studio recording certified Platinum by the RIAA due to the success of singles like “If We Are the Body”, “Who Am I”, “Praise You In the Storm”, “Lifesong”, and “East to West”.  Casting Crowns has won Group of the Year the last four years at the GMA Dove Awards and have been nominated for a Grammy Award and American Music Award.  The group’s latest release - The Altar & The Door is still a major seller - now over 9 months after its release..

KEY:
L> Leah
J>Juan DeVevo (Guitar/Vocals)
M> Mark Hall (Lead Vocalist)
MD> Melodee DeVevo (Violin)

L> How long has Casting Crowns been together?

M> Five years now.

L> And Mark, you are still a full time youth pastor right?

M> Yes, and these guys work in the church as well.

L> I was just about to ask that.

J> Yes, I’m a lay person.

L> So how does touring and being on the road effect what you do at the church?

M> Well, we have to say no to a lot things. We get a lot of calls that we have to turn down. We try to be home Sunday through Wednesday. We actually lead worship at our church on Sundays now, and then we always have student things going on or us doing FCA at 4:30 in the morning at the schools. Then we lead worship on Wednesday night and get on the bus afterwards and are gone Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

L> Wow! That’s a pretty hectic schedule, but it’s really cool that you kind of get to be a part of both worlds. I know a lot of youth pastors that see youth ministry as a stepping stone to something else. You feel very strongly that youth ministry is your calling, and that it’s not just a means to an end. How do you balance that commitment to youth with the artist side of what you do. I know there are some aspects of being an artist that are so different from what you do as a youth pastor.

M>Well, the songs and the ministry of “Crowns” sort of bloom out of the ministry at the church. So, I think they are very connected. What we see and what we’re a part of bloom into these songs, and I guess we see ourselves as just another arm of Eagles Landing, where we serve back in Atlanta. So we look at it as just little weekly missions trips from our church.

L> That’s a great way to look at it! Did you expect that your music would be reaching such a broad audience. It reaches so much more than just youth.

M> We didn’t expect to ever even get to make records, so it all really surprised us.

L> I don’t know if everyone knows the story of how you sort of got discovered, but it’s an amazing story. Could you talk about that a little bit?

M> Yeah, we were making CDs for our kids to give out to their friends at school. The art work on the inside would talk a little bit about what it means to be a believer, and it would say “Come be a part of youth group,” and it would tell what we do and when. A college student from our church went to basketball camp, and had one of our CDs with him. Mark Miller, of Sawyer Brown, happened to be visiting an old coach at the school where this camp was, and sometime in the week, they met and started talking. Chase found out that Mark was a believer and told him that he had to hear his youth pastor, and that’s where it all started. There’s not really a moment or a person that we could point to and say “This is where it happened,” it’s just totally been a God thing.

L> It wasn’t a formula with you. It was totally a God thing. I really admire that y’all were after ministering to people and a music career happened rather than the other way of thinking, that you pursue a music career and hopefully ministry happens.

J> Yeah, we may have to redefine success. It’s not about how many people we’re singing to. One of the first things we did was sing to a room of 50 teenagers in Louisiana, and we still look back on that night as a good night. That was success.

L> So what is the future like for Casting Crowns? Do you see incorportating more people from the church? Hillsong, as an example uses writers, singers, and musicians from their church, but that changes and grows as the church does.

M> We do that now with our crews. We’ve got three guys with us now that were in the youth group, and were on Melodee and Juan’s worship teams, and now they’re writing. You have to give people a place to grow.

L> Let’s talk about The Altar and the Door. Do you have a favorite song on the record.

MD> “East to West”. I don’t know why it’s my favorite. As a violinist I never really listen to the words. The first thing I usually hear is the music, and the music on “East to West” is just really awesome and fun to play. I think it’s one of my favorites that we’ve ever done. I remember when Mark started talking about it maybe 8 years ago. I know he even started writing it before we met him, and it wasn’t finished when we met him, and just the whole story behind how that was written and how that question was finally answered.

L> I do want to come back to how that song was written, but, Mark do you have a favorite song?

M> Well, it’s sort of whatever I’m singing is my favorite, but “Somewhere in the Middle” is one of my favorites. It’s very exposed and transparent and I like that. I like “The Word is Alive,” because it’s sort of epic and big and cool. I wrote that with Steven Curtis Chapman. Anytime I get to write with Steven it’s going to be one of my favorites.

J> I’m not trying to push the singles, but “East to West,” and “Every Man.” “East to West” is just for everybody. That is for each and every person on the planet. Mark has a different story for “Every Man,” but when I first heard it, I was thinking this a good picture to help you become aware of who you bump shoulders with everyday. All the people that you don’t know what they’re going through, and this gives them the hope. It makes you think of them as real people instead of ya know...road cones or something.

L> [laughs] Our readers are very interested in the writing process, so tell us about how you write and about “East to West.”

M> For me, it starts with a message. Music for music’s sake in the age that we live in is a waste of time. So the music is the plate that the meat is served on, and the minute you get those two mixed up is the moment you start wasting the romance of people’s lives. So for me the music and lyrics happen right around the same time. When I write the music first, the melodies seem to chase whatever the guitar is doing, so I prefer to do it together. The theme for the song, “East to West”, was something I was struggling with in my own life. If you don’t truly know what God says in His Word about something you’ll kind of pop in what seems to make sense there. Squirt in a little logic, and kind of fill in the holes, and one area I think we do that in is God’s forgiveness. We kind of jump. The difference between religion and relationship is that religion looks around. It never looks up. Nicodemous thought that being “born again” meant physically being re-born. The woman at the well thought that the water must be super water. It’s the same thing, so when we don’t understand forgiveness we think, “how did my Dad forgive, or how did my Mom forgive?” Well, everyone forgives you to a point. I mean it just makes sense, how long are you going let someone trample on you. Logic will destroy you when you’re talking about matters of faith, because God will not allow Himself to be figured out. You’re going to have to rely on faith. So years ago I’m struggling a lot with how far is the east from the west. The first line was the chorus and it gets missed a lot of times, “I’m drowning in your sea of forgetfulness,” the irony there. I really just set the song down, because I didn’t really know where to go from there. I just went on to other things and rediscovered the song in the past few years. One day I was writing with Bernie Hermes, and I was showing him some music, and musically you really can’t see where one of us ends and the other one begins. I’m singing what I think would be the chorus and he’s still playing, and I run out of words. I didn’t have the next line, and then out of no where I said “From one scared hand to the other.” And we have this on tape.  Bernie just says, “Oh, what was that?!” I was just like, “I don’t know.” I had never heard that before, I mean I didn’t hear a preacher say it one day. Preacher’s are the greatest songwriters in America they just don’t get any credit for it. It was like God was reaching down and giving me a little something and saying, “you’ve grown since you started this song, and now you understand it.” It’s not because you’re good, it’s because Jesus paid the price.

L> Wow, that’s a great story. Okay, now for a fun question. What is your guilty pleasure?

MD> I really try not eat sugar, but any dessert thing is a guilty pleasure.

M> I’m a Star Wars collector and Super Hero’s collector. If you Google “Han Solo Desk”, you will see a desk that I just had made that is pretty famous right now. It’s had over 4 million hits, and it’s been on G4 TV. It’s Han Solo in carbonite. I had a prop company make it. It’s pretty cool. Right now we’re working on the Emporer Chair. Youth Pastor’s have to have crazy offices, and when you have a budget for your office, then you can really do crazy things.

J> I like chocolate to the neglect of any other desserts. If I see a double decker fudge round..it’s all over. I like Captain America and Spiderman is my #2, but that’s not guilty, I’m not embarrased about that.

L> I guess that depends on who you’re talking to. LOL Well, it’s been great talking to you guys! Thanks for you’re time.

You can find out more about Casting Crowns by visiting their website or checking out their MySpace.

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