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Print “Worship is not a formula.” So begins an interview with Third Day’s Tai Anderson. In a hotel room overlooking a hazy Atlanta morning in late February, Third Day has gathered to talk about and promote their upcoming album, Wire. And although the new album is a departure from their past worship albums and explores their rougher rock side, the band members can’t help but talk about worship and worship music. “The worship movement by and large has been fairly narrow-minded,” David Carr, drummer, says. He points to recent trends in the “business” of worship music that want to package the top 30 most anointed worship songs (for an exaggerated example) and exploit the true nature of worship. He counters with the fact Third Day tries to write “songs that make you want to worship God,” but that don’t essentially follow a formula or template of being a worship song. He uses the song “Thief,” written from the perspective of the thief next to Jesus during the crucifixion, as an example:
Who is this man? Although it’s not categorized as a worship song, the lyrics make you stop and realize, “Man, I’m that thief,” David says, and make you want to worship. So although Third Day’s worship concept albums, Offerings and Offerings II, have been widely successful, Tai asserts it was time to take some time off to evaluate themselves musically. “This record (is) a new beginning. [It’s] not us reinventing the wheel,” Tai says, but calls it a “natural extension” to their past work. Worship is about the “heart behind it” and isn’t limited to a style, he continues. “For us, playing our most rocking song might be as worshipful as pouring our hearts out.” David sees formulas and gimmicks being disproved more and more each day in music and other areas of culture. Not only is worship not defined by style, but “between Christian/ secular anything—that line is becoming blurred,” he says. He credits Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ as being “where faith and secular culture are coming to head. Walls of Christianity are coming down,” he says. And Third Day plans to be in the big middle of it. With the release of their new album, Wire, on May 4, the band’s label will be serving mainstream radio stations with a single. Brad Avery, guitarist, explains that with their debut record, their first Christian radio single got picked up by a mainstream radio programmer. The response was great enough for Third Day, which also includes Mac Powell (vocals, guitar) and Mark Lee (guitars), to do a radio tour to help promote the accidental success. When they tried to repeat the exposure with the second and subsequent albums, they got little response from mainstream radio. Now, a plan, resources, and people are in place to make a concerted effort to make it successful. “We really haven’t had the structure to do that since then,” Brad says. “It’s come into place. We want to create music for the universe, the world, for everybody. [There have] always been songs [that had] the opportunity to reach a broader audience.” “It’s time to rock,” Tai says. “We wanted to make a rock record. We’re going to do whatever we can to get our music heard.” But, he adds, “that doesn’t change our values. We don’t look down on Christian audiences—we love our audience.” Third Day also loves getting to be spokespeople for organizations including World Vision and Habitat for Humanity. The band went to Africa two summers ago with Habitat for Humanity and went to South Africa at the end of March this year. They see their hands-on involvement necessary to be able to get in front of their audiences night after night and ask them to personally get involved. “If we’re going to talk about AIDS [then we’re going to] give them more than just facts and figures—something personal to say,” Tai says. “[It would be] ridiculous to not be saying anything about AIDS if we’re going to come to the Lord in worship.” Third Day’s website reports that at Third Day shows, fans have made sponsorship commitments to more than 12,000 children through World Vision and helped raise over $300,000 for Habitat for Humanity to help build houses all over the world. Tai says, “I'm proud to be part of a community like we have that cares about its neighbors and answers to the call of our times.”
ninetyandnine.com © 2004, Cara Davis ---------- Cara Davis lives in Orlando, Fla., with her new husband, Jeff and her new puppy, Macey. |
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