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Mercy Me - Staying True to Their Calling
interview by Paula K. Parker (Paula's bio)

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1994. "You guys have potential; you should move to Nashville." These are the words every hopeful band longs to hear. Mercy Me heard them from Scott Brickell, manager for Audio Adrenaline, when the band opened for AA at Oklahoma Baptist University.

"We thought, Ah man, that's great. It's the only way a band can do it," explains vocalist, Bart Millard. Millard, along with Jim Bryson (keys), Mike Scheuchzer (guitar), Nathan Cochran (bass) and Robber Shaffer (drums) comprise Mercy Me.

"We moved to Nashville for about a year. We hobnobbed (with the Christian music industry people) and finally got our showcase for a few labels."

The band had only about ten songs that they admit weren't very good. The only other thing they knew to play was worship songs, which the audience responded to; even continuing to sing after they left the stage.

After the set, the record execs gave them the ol' Don't call us. One comment that came up was, 'You know, you guys are really good, but the worship is kind of strange. It takes the focus off of you; and that's not very marketable.'"
        
Millard shakes his head in disbelief, "We said, 'Well…that's the whole point.'"

The band decided the 'industry thing' was not for them; they moved back to Dallas and began touring with an evangelist friend. They were soon playing over 200 dates a year, and the realization dawned that God had called them to help feed the hunger for true praise and worship music.

2002. Mercy Me stayed true to their calling and saw that - contrary to the label exec's comments - taking the focus off themselves was not detrimental. They played for nearly 200,000 people in 1999 and sales of their albums were keeping pace with many nationally known artists. This created a happy problem for the band; they were having difficulty keeping up with their booking, management, and distribution.

Whereas Audio A early on had encouraged them to seek a record deal, now they were telling them to avoid signing with a label. 'A label would only try to change you.'

Then Mercy Me met Jeff Mosley of INO Records. Mosley saw God's anointing on the band and wanted to sign them. "He told us, I don't want to change you. I want to help get you out there."

"Our whole focus is to know Christ and make Him known," Millard adds. "Obviously with the distribution from a label, there is a greater chance of making Christ more known than what we could do on our own."

The rest – as they say – is history. Their final indie project, Look, sold more than 5000 copies in the first few weeks. "I Can Only Imagine" (from The Worship Project) was a triple crown winner for Mercy Me at the 2002 Dove Awards®, garnering Song of the Year, Songwriter of the Year (Bart Millard), and Pop/Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year. Amy Grant covered the award winning song on her newest project, Legacy.

For the guys of Mercy Me, all of this is just another avenue of making Christ known. "We'll do whatever we have to do," Millard insists. "If it means cover songs to get it done; if it means using Powerpoint or overhead projectors; whatever it takes, we'll do it. If someone comes to our concert and they are not ushered into the Throne Room through worship, then we have completely failed."

Copyright 2002, Paula K. Parker. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

About Paula K. Parker: Paula K. Parker is an author, playwright, arts critic and hired-gun freelance writer. She has been married to her high school sweetheart for 27 years (so far) and is the mother of five homeschooled teenagers. From her home in Nashville, Tennessee, Paula frequently writes about the contemporary Christian arts and music scene. Visit her web page at: www.wordcrafts.net

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