For over 25 years , Third Day was a dominant force in Contemporary Christian Music , sometimes straddling both the CCM and Worship music worlds . With an American Music Award , 4 Grammys ® , 25 Dove Award wins , extensive radio airplay and millions of records sold , they disbanded in 2018 . Co-founder and front man , Mac Powell , has just released a solo record , New Creation , and discusses it in detail with us , along with some valuable perspectives for the Christian life .
[ WM ] Mac , what a special time for me to get to visit with you . Thanks for doing this today !
[ Mac Powell ] Oh man , my pleasure .
[ WM ] I want to explore a bit of your musical past before we get into the new project . Who or what albums were your biggest musical influences , both mainstream and Christian , irrespective of musical genre ?
[ Mac ] Okay . Great question . I grew up listening to records and musicians that my parents had . And just like most people , my Dad was in the Army , and so we were in Taiwan for a short amount of time . And from that , he was able to get a bunch of very cheap albums overseas . And so , everything from Jim Croce to James Taylor , you know singer / songwriter things , and from Elton John to Credence Clearwater Revival and Lynyrd Skynyrd . There was a lot of Linda Ronstadt and Eagles - those kind of ' 70s artists influenced this child of the ' 80s . I say ' 70s , but both ' 60s and ' 70s .
When I was a kid I loved pop music . Like everybody else , I have the Thriller album , so I was a big Michael Jackson fan , along with Lionel Richie . There was country stuff in there too . I loved Johnny Cash , Kenny Rogers , Ronnie Milsap , and Alabama . Of course , growing up in Alabama , I think it ' s a law that you have to listen to Alabama ( laughing ), so their lead singer was a big influence on me . I mean , there ' s a long list of amazing artists , from singer / songwriter to country to rock .
I didn ' t know anything about Christian music . I grew up singing hymns , excuse me , hymns in church . And every-once-in-awhile we would hear a Southern gospel song . That was kind of the modern thing , but it was not like today , with bands playing music . It was an old lady playing the piano and a handful of people in the choir . That was my extent of Christian music .
And so , I grew up singing hymns out of the
Southern Baptist Hymnal . But when I started listening to Christian music , there was so many great things , from Steven Curtis Chapman to Michael W . Smith , and my favorite of all time was Rich Mullins . He had a couple of albums . He had one , the first album that I really fell in love with him , is called The World as Best As I Remember It . And I thought he would never , that anything could ever be better than that . And then a few years later he puts out a record