Facing the Music (12 page)

twelve

S
igning with Gotee Records was both exhilarating and nerve racking. On one hand, it was an incredible opportunity to have a job centered around music, yet, on the other, I doubted whether I had the goods to make it work. That I had the makings of a Christian rock star seemed almost laughable to me. I couldn't see myself as anything other than a country tomboy. If I was honest, I felt ugly, fat, and a little nerdy. That's to say nothing about my self-image as a Christian. Alone, and in private, I was being drawn further into a spiritual world that continued to shape, inspire, and strengthen my inner being, but outside? I was self-conscious of how different I was. Everything and everybody in Nashville was larger than life to me. The CCM industry looked to be filled with people who had grown up in the church and worked to stay there. To my eyes, everyone was fashionable and physically fit. Maybe that's because they ate sushi. I'd never eaten sushi. I'd never lived in a big town. I'd never  . . . there was a lot I hadn't done, but all that was about to change very rapidly.

I moved from Pittsburg to Kansas City. Moving to KC got me closer to the airport, so that I could easily fly back and forth to Nashville without having to move so far from the Midwestern world I was comfortable with. Besides, there was no guarantee that my career was going to last long. As is often said to musi
cians, it's always good to have something to fall back on. I figured if this whole thing turned out to be a bust, at least I wouldn't be far from the safety net of my friends and family.

Thankfully, the staff at Gotee was small and down to earth, making my introduction to the music scene relatively smooth. They had a reasonably diverse core of personalities, ranging from executive accounting geeks and pop-culture hipsters, all of whom warmly welcomed me into their family. I was sure the vibe came from the merged influences of founders, Toby McKeehan (TobyMac) and Joey Elwood. Together, they represented, inspired, and encouraged Gotee's collective passion for creating music that was culturally and spiritually relevant to Christianity.

There was no doubt Toby was driven to keep his finger on the pulse of what was cool to young people. Though my interactions with Toby throughout my history at Gotee would be limited, his philosophy would leave a lasting mark on me.

What struck me about Toby was that he was confident in the person he wanted to be, both as an artist and as a Christian. It was hard not to respect that about him. “Jesus Freak” had changed the landscape of CCM, and it wasn't a joke or a money grab. Yes, the record was hugely successful, but behind the scenes, Toby was dead serious about integrity. He was serious about Jesus, and the lengths he went to to put out quality music and entertainment was his way of reflecting that.

Though we were completely different in terms of style, I took a lot in from Toby's peripheral leadership. Whether he intended to or not, he impressed upon me the importance of both spiritual and artistic integrity. As an observer, Toby appeared to have seamlessly merged the two.

I looked to Toby's example as the standard of what would ul
timately be expected of any CCM rock star making a living in the spotlight. If I were to succeed, I had to be excellent at my craft, as well as be beyond reproach with Christian integrity and unabashed when speaking about my faith.

In the early days, sitting around a conference table discussing what my image would be, Toby was the one who shaped what my personality would look like to the outside world.

I credit Joey Elwood for keeping me grounded through the chaos of what was a strange new world to me. He wanted to run his company well, but never let that get in the way of our becoming friends. He kept me motivated to stay passionate about the joy of serving others through music. He and I would share many conversations over the years about the challenges we both felt in balancing our faith and having careers, when faith was our business.

He was one of the few people who seemed to understand that I wasn't just performing for the money. I wanted to do something meaningful with my life, and music was a way to make that a possibility. Music, for me, was about what it did when you told it your secrets. Music seemed to turn our inner longings into prayers. Played back, shared, and transmitted, the impossible happened. We knew that we were
known.
By someone, somewhere.

Through the music, with Gotee's help, I truly believed that I could share a vision of the God who made me
known.
The God of Love that I had found, through Christ, through music, through faith.

These things weren't easy to keep hold of when the world seemed to be spinning so fast. As soon as the ink had dried on the contracts, I was neck deep in planning meetings aimed at creating the storefront image that was to be my public life.

No stone was to be left unturned. It seemed like every note of every song was dissected, every hair on my body colored, cut, or plucked. I was now in the music
business
and I had to look like I was up to the task.

Apparently, I needed a head-to-toe makeover.

Now, from what I understand about girls who
aren't
tomboys, getting the opportunity to have a complete makeover at someone else's expense would be a dream come true. The idea of spending days with endless spa treatments is enough to make some giddy with delight. Me? I was mortified.

I had no idea how much work it took to prepare a woman for a photo shoot. My hair was cut and colored by a stylist (back in Kansas we just called the lady down at the Main Street beauty parlor a
hairdresser
). I was introduced to and trained in how to use things called
hair
products
. Who knew you could put more into your hair care than hairspray and mousse?

When the hair on the top of my head was taken care of, the hair
on
my face was next. According to the lady at the spa, I needed two eyebrows, not one. And, of course, absolutely no mustache!
Ouch!

It was exciting to come out the other side of the beauty mill feeling like a new woman, but it was unnerving as well. Until that point, I had taken for granted how important and private my life had been. My body, my clothes, my faith, and my music had always been mine to decide. Now, I was only at the beginning stages of learning what it would be like to have to share elements of my private domain with others.

In 1998, Gotee Records released
Kansas
and, that fall, put me out on the road for my first official tour with headliners Audio Adrenaline (Audio A, for short). Mark Stewart, the lead singer for
Audio A, had produced
Kansas
, so he was more than eager to do his part to help launch my career by giving me a spot to play on his
Some Kind of Zombie
tour. Outside of a little professional nepotism, there really wasn't much reason for me to have been on the tour. Musically, I didn't seem to fit into the night.

Audio A was a rock-and-roll band that catered to mostly young men, and supporting ska act, The O.C. Supertones, did even more so. To say this was a testosterone-fueled production is to put it mildly. I had no money to hire a band with which to sonically compete, so it was up to just me and my guitar to make it work.

Nearly every night for four months, I had to walk out onto a huge, dimly lit stage, alone, in front of over a thousand amped-up (mostly teenage) Christian music fans. All of them were there to have their heads blown off, not to be lulled to sleep by some chick with a guitar.

For the first few weeks of the tour, I was an absolute nobody. When I walked out on stage, the audience was either ambivalent or annoyed.

I could see it in the faces of the boys assembled in the mosh pit. While they excitedly tried to push and shove their way to the front, a few faces stared up at me in disbelief. As if to say, “What is a
girl
doing here? Girls don't rock.”

Behind me, The O.C. Supertones backdrop towered and sparkled to remind everyone of who I was not. I was some unknown delaying the show they really came to see. My name was announced, a few outnumbered young girls clapped in feminine solidarity, the spotlight turned on . . .

I tried to think of it as my special honor to start the show. I had to be good. Better than good. The applause was feeble, but it
was my job to change that. I wanted them all to know that the night had started and I meant business. I wanted to win them over. The cards looked stacked against me, but I tried to put it out of my mind.

I had three songs to do my thing. Without a single word, I laid into the most rockingest songs I had, hell bent on pounding my guitar into splinters. I sang harder than I should and louder than necessary. I sawed my guitar as hard as I could. I played this way every night, trying to swing attention my way, until one night—
Thwack!
—a string broke on my guitar. The room went silent as my miniset came to a screeching halt. Disaster. Without a word, I took off my guitar, reached for another, and picked up right where I had left off. All of a sudden, the crowd went nuts. Every night after that, I made it my mission to play until it broke or die trying.

After every show, I came out and sat, usually unnoticed, at the end of the autograph table while fans made their way past Audio A and the Supertones. Occasionally kids would hand me their tour posters to sign, more out of mercy than anything else, but, on the night of the broken string, things started to brighten.

One sweaty boy came up to me and asked if I had a pick that I could sign for him. While I signed, he added, “I don't really like chick music, but you rock!”

Meanwhile, Gotee had been doing their best to get Christian radio stations to start playing my songs. People started making the connection.

“Oh! You're that girl with the song I like on the radio!”

The boys kept walking by, fully decked out in their Audio A T-shirts and hats, but then the girls started coming by too. By the end of the tour I was signing more and more
Kansas
CDs.

It took the sting—or maybe I should say, stink—out of being on tour with all those guys. I was one of only two girls in the whole crew, the other being my road manager/merch girl. We were on the crew bus, which we shared with the ten guys who unpacked, set up, and packed the entire tour production each day. Twelve people crammed into what is basically a big RV, most of them stinky and tired. One toilet (no number twos allowed!) and two televisions to share among us. The only guaranteed privacy you got on tour was your assigned bunk. Seniority determined your allotment. Bunks were arranged six on each side, end to end, in two stacks of three. The lowest on the floor were hummed to sleep by the sounds of tire treads, the highest rocked to sleep by the gentle sway of riding more than ten feet off the ground. The middle was a perfect blend of both hum and roll. There was no one favorite bunk to sleep in, but most everyone develops their own strong preference. Getting the bunk you wanted versus the bunk you hated could be the difference between your tour simply being long or a crucible you would have to suffer. When every day for months on end is the cycle “Rinse. Wash. Repeat,” a little thing like your bunk becomes a high priority.

Every day was the same: wake up, set up, sound check, and show. Pack up, get on the bus, and go to sleep while the driver heads to the next town. Wake up again, in a new place—it doesn't matter where. You have to do exactly the same thing today as you did yesterday. Just make sure that when you get on stage and shout to the crowd you remember where you are!

That tour was the first time I experienced the phenomenon of not knowing or even caring what city I was in. It all bled together. We played a lot of small arenas on tour. Arenas are either
round or square boxes made of rebar and cement. The hallways all look the same. The dressing rooms (if you got one) are usually gray and musty, thanks to the showers. Often, they were locker rooms of whatever local sports team makes the venue their home. Getting use of the showers was a mixed blessing. It was great to be able to have a place to clean up, but bad when it came to staving off athlete's foot, and brutal when the water only ran cold.

It was hard going, but by the end of the tour I was finding my stride.

Unbelievably, my first album was selling well. Better, I think, than any of us expected. A few of my songs had made it to #1 on the CCM charts as my name became more recognizable across the country (for Christian music fans, anyway). In early 1999,
Kansas
had sold well enough to give TobyMac measured confidence in signing me as the opening act for DC Talk's spring leg of the
Supernatural
tour.

It would have been unthinkable to do the tour without a band. So, before the tour kicked off, I flew down to Nashville, auditioned and signed a guitar player, a drummer, and a bassist. The only one of them I actually knew was the drummer, who teched for the Supertones on the Audio A tour. I don't think anyone of us had done a tour as big as the Supernatural
tour was going to be, and we would be lucky if we ever repeated it again. Joining in with us were ska up and comers, The W's. They would warm the crowd up, and I'd launch into the best of
Kansas
and pray that a riot didn't ensue before DC Talk took the stage.

We played every major city in America on that tour and then some. East coast, west coast, north, south, midwest to southwest. In the span of a few weeks, I had traveled through more states than some Americans would see in a lifetime.

In March, we took a small break from the tour and came back to Nashville. It was GMA week and the thirtieth Annual GMA Dove Awards (sometimes referred to as the Christian Grammys) were to take place. I'd barely been on the scene a year, so I was surprised to learn that I'd been nominated for a few Doves. The most shocking was New Artist of the Year.

It was certainly an honor to have been nominated, but I found myself shaken by the exposure the nominations seemed to generate. Out on the road, I was nestled safely in the cocoon of my bus. I did my shows; I hung out for autographs. I'd even made a few public appearances at malls for radio stations and bookstore signings. It was chaos, but it was controlled. Everything was on a schedule, at predictable times of the day. It was contained. I could walk the streets in obscurity as my face wasn't yet as familiar as my name. I was only famous when I was at work and I liked it that way. The frenzy of fans clamoring for autographs could be an affair that was entertaining and rewarding, but I'd only sign after shows with organized lines and security to keep things moving along. Plus, I had always hidden under the shadow of the headline acts. My popularity grew, but the pressure of it was nothing compared to what DC Talk faced. I was more than satisfied making a living sneaking through with just enough popularity to stay employed, keep the record company happy, and have a good time with it. The nominations were changing all that.