Transparent Christian Magazine

TCM: So, how did you start your Nashville career?
Paul: I moved from Michigan in 1994. I was going to college at GMI Kettering (in Flint) and I was working on seats for cars. I didn’t want to be the guy that made the “back rest lever” on an automobile. It’s not that there’s anything really wrong with that job, but it’s not something that I could do. I moved to Kalamazoo and got a job at Keyboard World. I joined a band called Nouveaux, and we eventually got a deal with Benson Music. We got on tour with Michael Sweet, and did 30 or 40 cities with him. I moved down here during that time.

TCM: I love your sound, you have an incredible voice. I noticed you have Patty Griffin as a Myspace friend. I’m a huge fan of hers. What do you like about her music?
Paul: [Smiles] Well, she’s SO guttsy and SO honest that it can make you uncomfortable. Her song Tony is about a homosexual person that takes his own life. We’ve all got our things that we deal with, and I want to be that transparent and not afraid to reach out to people like Tony, just let them know that someone to cares about them. Patty’s great…the first line on “Living With Ghosts” is Diamonds roses, I need Moses to cross this sea of loneliness….Awesome.

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TCM: What has been your biggest surprise in moving to Nashville?
Paul: Well…I was pretty sure, that I was going to move to Nashville, and take it by storm! I was going to change the world…one interview, one radio station, one record label at a time. And that did NOT happen. So, I’m sitting here and no sour grapes…I’m a marketing nightmare if you think about it. I came down with Nouveaux and had a ton of dates, and rode a great wave at Benson, but that specific segment of the label went out of business. Now I’m doing a ‘comeback album’. I guess I’m wouldn’t be considered a standard good bet in Nashville. They’re looking for the 20 year old. When I came to Nashville I depended on ‘the machine’, and put my faith in the machine…and tried to fit inside of it and tried to coexist with it.

(’The machine’ is a music industry term meaning the organized Nashville music companies. It usually has a negative connotation, and the name symbolizes an unfeeling mechanical unit, CHURNING out ‘parts’ or cd’s)

Paul: I’ve learned that my gift of music..and my ability to sing and do what I do has nothing to do with Nashville. It’s particularly evident with the digital revolution, I have my own little way of getting to the folks that care about me, and care about my music. If there are people out there that are interested in what I’m doing, and I can get my music in their hands without anybody’s help.

TCM: Tell me about your new CD, Drive it Home.
Paul: I Funded the whole thing. I did it piece by piece over the course of a couple of years. God blessed me with a great job in Franklin, and they are very supportive of what I’m doing. My boss is coming to my showcase! During my whole ordeal with getting a record deal, losing a record deal, and finding my way back to music, I think I have learned to hope for something different. If someone calls and says “hey, we want you to open for us” I would take a sabbatical for 3 months, keep my health insurance! [laughs]. God can do whatever He wants…If he doesn’t want me to go out on tour and sell lots of cd’s, than I’ll just give out a few hundred copies of something I’m very proud of.

Drive it Home opens with a song called “Wreckage” and the hook is infectious. Wreckage is as good as ANYTHING on CCM radio right now. It combines a comfortable acoustic strumming guitar with some great crunchy lead lines, and Paul’s lyrics bleed with honesty. Paul asks God to “Pull me out of the wreckage tonight, drag me out of the burning disaster that is my foolish pride”. He hopefully sings, “The man that I could be and the one that I’ve become, [are] getting ready to collide.”

Paul: There is so much I’ve learned about what defines me, and it has nothing to do with the number of records sold. I’m a father, husband, and friend, and those things are just as important as anything else. I used to think about it in such different terms. I would be waiting…waiting for my tour before I would start my ministry, waiting until my new album came out to start my ministry. I woke up 2 years ago and I felt like God said “stop waiting!” I started replying to people’s e-mails, being more active online and whatnot. Those are the little things that I can do to minister to others NOW. Shame on me for not realizing that sooner. I was keeping my light hidden from people.

Song 3 on “Drive it Home” is the ballad “Come to Jesus”. It is a powerful message that deals with the stumbles that we have as Christians:

“We all fall down, we all need saving, once in awhile, you are not alone. We all lose faith in need of mercy through our darkest night He said He’d wait for us, just Come to Jesus.”

TCM: How has God been blowing your mind lately?
Paul: The doors that God has been opening lately, my connection with Whiplash records, meeting Brian Hardin, and this new perspective that I have all have been blowing my mind…and don’t get me wrong, things aren’t all roses with my spiritual life. It’s kind of like a wrestling match sometimes. You don’t always feel super spiritual, and sometimes I think we do a disservice by saying that God just makes life easy. There’s a person that’s going to read that and say “well, God’s absent for me.” That’s life, man. It’s not all a victory party. We’re in the trenches here and sometimes you get a ray of sunshine! Sometimes you look back and you realize He was there in the trenches with you. If I can write songs that are more true to life, God might use one of those songs to minister to someone.

Paul’s song, Find Our Way is my current favorite on Drive it Home. It resonates with the tone of our interview, that even when things feel hopeless, God’s still there.

Find Our Way
I know this life’s unkind
Tears will fall and hearts will break
And there are no good reasons why
No comforting words to say
And sometimes all you have
Is the hand you’re holding
And a feeling that

Love will find a way

If I could I’d calm your raging sea
I’d be your shelter from the storm
And I would undo history
And all the casualties
Of your secret wars
But all I really have
Is the hand you’re holding
Are you feeling that?

Love will find a way

Sometimes all we need
Is the hand we’re holding
And to believe
Love will find a way
Love will find a way

Love, we’ll find our way…

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Paul has found a harmony with his music and his career. Drive it Home is exquisitely produced by Brian Hardin, and every song has little intricacies that contribute to a rich, full sound. Paul’s songwriting is mature, and this is one of the best overall CD’s I have heard this year…To learn more about Paul and pick up a copy of Drive it Home, click here.

Thanks to Benita Teems and McCain & Company Public Relations, for putting together this interview!

Jason

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