paved the way for future Christian rock bands when your band came out ?
[ Gordon ] I ' ve never stopped to contemplate it . I ' m sure we did , because I ' ve had some tell me , in particular like the guys from PFR , or Bart from Mercy Me . We recently did a show at a little church in Brentwood , the 30th anniversary of the Freedom album . Bart called and said , " Man , can I come and change guitar strings ?" You know what I mean ? That guy has got one of the biggest gospel songs ever . “ I Can Only Imagine .” But those guys were fans . I would venture to guess that it did , just like the people before me in fact influenced me and still do . We probably had an effect on some people that were wanting to do something similar and came after us .
[ WM ] Anything upcoming besides the huge stadium tour with Garth ?
[ Gordon ] The thing about doing the Garth tour is , it makes it hard to accept other things that might involve travel , or to put my name on a marquee . If somebody said , “ Let ' s do a White Heart reunion where we go out and do four shows . I would go , " I can ' t commit to it ." Because what ' ll happen is that I will say , “ Yes ", they ' ll advertise it . People will buy tickets and then I ' ll see the Garth signal in the sky , and go " Guys , I got to go ." That ' s it . Circle G up there . Anyway . I have to be on call for that , and I got a feeling we ' re going to hit the ground running , because of the lay off for so long .
We ' ve never done two stadium show cities back to back , but we are in July . The 10th and the 17th back to back . I think we ' re going to be playing catch up for a while . There are other things I would love to be able to do . Fundraisers and songwriter things , I get asked to do that are so near and dear to my heart . I am waiting going on eleven years to do a sequel to the Mosaic record with Skaggs . That ’ s a thing that I must do at some point . He wants to do it . We would be doing that record , paying for it out of our pockets , and giving it away . That ' s something I want to do .
But I ’ ve got a son getting married in October . There are great life things like that happening , I ’ ll just see what life brings . I ' m enjoying all of it . It ’ s all a wonderful adventure , and no gripes or complaints about anything that I do . I used to . I might ' ve years and years ago complain , " I ’ ve got to do this . I ’ ve got to do this ," and my wife would say , “ You get to ," and I thought , " You know what , you ' re right . I get to do this ." Everything that I ' m doing in my life right now , I get to do this , and she was right .
[ WM ] You have a relationship with Celestion speakers . Tell us how they revived your vintage Fender amplifier ?
[ Gordon ] I ' ve gotten to know John Paice in the last few years , and he ' s been great if I have questions like , “ Hey , what would you recommend for this application ?" Most recently I acquired a 1962 Fender Bassman piggyback rig , that used to belong to Chip Young , and was in Young ‘ Un Sound , his studio where Jerry Reed among others recorded . When I fired the amp up the original speakers were really bright and tinny sounding . I ' d had a Bassman some years ago that had some unmarked black Oxford speakers in it that sounded phenomenal , but this cabinet didn ' t have the same warmth .
I thought , the first thing I need to look into doing is maybe getting some replacement speakers . I had done this before with a 1960 Tweed Deluxe , where the original speaker was shot . Frampton said I should put a vintage 30 in there . That ' s what he had in his 4X12s