photo by Eric Brown
Then we were invited to take our first trip outside of town to play at a conference for Youth Specialties , back when Mike Yaconelli was the president . There was a big conference for Youth Ministers in San Diego . Now , I had hardly travelled anywhere . The only places I had gone was on family vacations . We would drive to Florida and go to Destin beach and to Disneyworld . And that happened twice . Then one time we took a trip to Michigan to visit some of my parent ’ s family , and that was all I ’ d seen of anything . Then we , ( the band ) get this phone call to come to sunny San Diego , and to get on a plane ! And that blew my mind .
Granted , we were just on a side stage . They had too many people to accommodate in the main room they were in , so we got to do the overflow . A dude by the name of James Ward was doing the main music . He had come to my church in Texarkana , Texas and done a concert . He was a jazz musician and a brilliant piano player , and I couldn ’ t believe that we were playing the same place that James Ward was playing . It was amazing !
So all along the way , it ’ s always just felt crazy . It feels unbelievable that something that I love so much could affect people , so it ’ s created a very heavy sense of responsibility all the time . I look at a room and think , “ There ’ s 200 people here . . . . and I ’ m just a dumb college kid . . . Wow ! I gotta work hard and do my homework and prepare , because I need to give my best to these people .”
You gotta be leaning forward all the time and making sure you are with people who feel the same way and are motivated in the same way . People who want to be more like Jesus , and who always are looking to treat people better and better , and will tell you if you ’ re not doing those things . If you ’ re doing that , then the rest of it kind of takes care of itself .
[ WM ] You have an interesting line in the bio that you wrote . You said , “ There ’ s only one definitive line , and that ’ s the line between death and life . These are songs about the divides found on our behalf , and I pray they are subversive and healing and insistence on that reality .” Those are deep thoughts for a boy from Waco , Texas ( laughter from David ). Tell us more about that .
[ DC ] Well , when I signed to do the records for my latest contract , I signed for a three record deal . So I started working with a concept and trying to think about how they will all fit together , and how there could be a thread and a progression both to the content and the approach to the music . It may be loose some of the time , but there ’ s an idea there . So when I moved from Neon Steeple to American Prodigal , I started reflecting on how , with the David Crowder Band , we started dabbling with the Bluegrass sound . It was fun , and it ’ s a part of my roots , so we thought , “ Why not ?” Let ’ s see if we can insert it into the scene that we were in and see how it played . And it really took off . People responded and it was a blast , and everyone was having a great time . It ’ s kind of like ‘ porch music ’.
So in between the David Crowder Band and this new solo endeavor , I started to think about what I was going to do , and I was a little bit scared . I thought to myself , “ Oh no ! It ’ s all going to be my fault .” If humans are good at anything , then blame displacement has to be one of the things we ’ re best at . Remember Adam ? “ She gave me the fruit ! It ’ s all on her !” So as I thought about a solo project , I started thinking about what it was going to sound like and what my concept was going to be . And also at this time I was stepping down from 16 years of being on staff at University Baptist Church in Waco . That had been a lot to balance during those years , with the way the David Crowder Band grew and what was on our plate also with being a part of a local church community . And it wasn ’ t just music responsibilities at the church . I was very heavily involved in the leadership side of things as well . We were just a bunch of college kids , and we never had much money . We got this old grocery store , and the renovations were mostly done by volunteers and the 3 of us on staff . I was setting up scaffolding to repaint the ceilings , or scraping the old concrete floors so that we could refinish them . You know , you just gotta do what you gotta do . But I was just going full speed all the time .
And the weight of responsibility in my local church and community was actually heavier than the platform that I had with the David Crowder Band . I had relationships with the college kids in my church ( about 1500 of them ), and I knew when someone ’ s mom died , or when someone ’ s brother had cancer . Plus , trying to figure out how to make community happen and
Jan � Feb 2017 WorshipMusician . com
21