Elevation & Toad the Wet Sprocket

As I sat there watching my friends on the big(ish) screen, killin it, sounding so good, bringin the glory; I had the thought, “I’m so glad I didn’t play on this one.  If you go to www.elevationworship.com you can see what I’m talking about.  We just released the latest record- “Only King Forever.”  It is a collection of songs written by the EW family for our church, and it owns.

Mack sent me an email- “You’re kinda like me and tend to read into things so I wanted to explain... I’m just going in a different direction on this one”  I wasn’t going to play on this live record after playing on the first two.  I got it.  It happened with the studio version of “Nothing Is Wasted” the year before so I was used to Mack, in his infinite wisdom as a Producer, knowing exactly what he was going for and who would be best to get it there.  He got James Duke to play which makes all the sense in the world right?  Of course.  Why not have one of the most well-known Guitarists in the Worship World finally play on a live record from the church he has been a part of for years.  Besides, James has been a good friend of mine for years.  We took lessons from the same guitar teachers and played at the same churches.  Funny thing is we quite rarely play together.  Seems like less than a handful of times.

Anyway, it made sense to me, the personnel change, but of course I wanted to be a part.  Unfortunately, I had to miss the night of the live recording.  I had just taken over as Production Manager at two concert venues in town and the night of the recording was my first national show in this role.  Good thing Instagram had just released the new version featuring video.  I was able to watch vids my friends posted of my friends going at it with these songs we had been loving for a few months (Toad the Wet Sprocket brought their own FOH Engineer so I stood outside watching Instagram vids all night, not a bad gig).  

Yea, I hung out with some of the guys during Post Production but I really had no part at all in this record.  Then, while at Mack’s house previewing the videos, I saw something.  I had been so focused on “what did I do wrong to be passed up” I didn’t see what was right in front of me.  One guy on stage I had talked down from the proverbial ledge and encouraged to carry on.  Another fellow I had worked with for a couple years and saw a massive growth in his playing to become one of my favorite musicians.  This other guy I was able to encourage when he felt people hated him and he had no place musically.  There was also the guy who I was able to help brush off the shameful dust of bad decisions in a relationship.  Was I directly responsible for anything musically in this project?  Nope.  I realized though, I didn’t play a lick, didn’t engineer a take, nor write a note, but I am a part of it.  This record has drops of all of our blood on it.  It’s a record from Elevation Worship as a family tied together by our heart strings.  I’m messing up the quote but Pastor Steven Furtick has talked about what we are a part of being bigger than the part we play and this thought rang true in my ears.  If I didn’t encourage and challenge those guys someone else may have but I’m knit into this family so I was able to.

Enough reading. I'm probably not making sense anyway.  Go listen to what I’m talking about and if it’s still Tuesday January 14th go watch it . . .