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The sheep take
time to speak ...
Third Day
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jump to The Book on Mark Lee
Third Day's Mark Lee
speaks
of solitude, BBQ, the road
Frank "Buzz" Trexler
for The (Maryville, TN) Daily
Times, Fall 2004
With the band's hard-rocking reputation, it may come as a surprise
that if you listen closely to cuts from Third Day's latest release
``Wire,'' you might become aware of loneliness, and perhaps a need
for solitude.
But you will also become aware of a great deal of creativity.
``Does not all creativity ask for a certain encounter with our
loneliness, and does not the fear of this encounter severely limit
our possible self expression?'' asks contemporary theologian Henri
Nouwen in his book ``Reaching Out.''
From its inception in the early 1990s, when lead vocalist Mac
Powell and guitarist Mark Lee first began working together,
creativity has run unhindered in Third Day's music. Bassist Tai
Anderson and drummer David Carr joined in 1993, while guitarist
Brad Avery came on board in 1995. It was in 1995 that the band's
self-titled debut project was released -- and an incredible
journey began, much of it on the road.
During a recent telephone interview from Columbus, Ohio, Lee is
asked about encounters with loneliness on the road even in the
midst of a crowd. In answering, he reveals something of a secret.
``There's actually a song on our new record `Wire' called `San
Angelo,' and it's sort of a deep song and it's one that we -- I
don't know, maybe we shouldn't have done it -- we've been sort of
intentional in not really saying what it's about.
``I think if you listen to it, you kind of get it,'' he says.
``There's even a line that says, `When you're surrounded you can
still feel so alone.'''
Even with all of the people around them on tour, Lee said, ``It
is really like kind of a lonely place to be, just because you're
away from your family.
``I think a lot of times when you are away from home and you
start to feel lonely like that that, you can just start to doubt
yourself and I think that's when the enemy a lot of times is able
to gain strongholds.'' Lee said.
In combating loneliness, Lee agrees there is a need to discover
what Nouwen would call the ``solitude of the heart'' and he talks
about some personal practices that he engages in while on the
road.
``Something that I do personally is I'm a real avid journaler,''
he said, also noting that a life of prayer is a part of that
journaling process. ``I just love journaling and you know
sometimes I'll phrase it as a prayer, but I usually don't. But
what I'm really doing is it's almost like I'm just praying out
loud and I just write out all of this stuff that I'm going
through.
``Sometimes I may write for two minutes and it's like a
paragraph, and sometimes it may be a few pages,'' he said. ``It's
really a neat way of seeing God work in your life.''
Lee said he believes God works less as the ``big voice from the
sky,'' or clouds lining up to ``spell stuff out for you,'' but
more in the subtle things of life, and journaling helps to
pinpoint those signposts.
``I think by looking back a lot of times you can see these
small things that happen and you go, `You know what? That there,
that's God working in my life.'''
But a stranger wouldn't likely pick up on those things if he
happened across Lee's journal. The guitarist often does his
journaling in the solitude of the bunk on the bus, traveling down
the road, which leads to what he calls ``atrocious'' handwriting.
``I don't have any fear of anyone ever going and reading what I
wrote, because even if they tried they couldn't read it'' he said,
laughing.
Journeying with others
The 31-year-old Lee and his wife, Stephanie, live in Nashville
with their 1-year-old daughter Abigail where they attend The
People's Church
``There's quite a few artists that actually go to the church,''
Lee said. ``That's actually a cool thing that you can go there and
they understand what we're going through. Just the fact that even
in my Sunday school class ? there are other artists, so like it's
just no big deal for my wife to go there and them to understand
that if I'm not there that's because I'm out doing shows and
stuff.''
Lee meets weekly with a mentoring group of other artists that
came through his association with The People's Church in
Nashville.
``We meet on Tuesdays because it works out with the traveling
schedules and stuff, so I'm able to hook up with some other guys
that are artists who are going through a lot of the same things,''
he said. ``We just kinda, you know, grab coffee, just hang out,
talk about things.''
The underdog
Another theme that the listener may find in the title cut from
``Wire'' is that of taking risks for God ? and how sometimes
people are waiting for you to fall. Lee said the idea is that
anytime you step out and take a risk, you have people who, while
applauding you, are sometimes secretly hoping that you ``stumble a
little bit.''
``Because if you succeed, then that points back to them
(asking) why are they not doing something different,'' he said.
``That's a lot of what I was thinking about as I wrote it.''
Third Day has taken its share of risks.
In the 1990s, the Atlanta-based band -- whom Billboard once
called ``not only one of the best Christian bands of the '90s but
one of the best rock bands period -- would play neutral venues
that ranged from Atlanta's Roxy Theater to college campuses.
Billboard turned out to be right, as Third Day has risen from the
South to rack up four gold albums, a platinum album, a Grammy and
21 Dove Awards.
``With this tour, even with ourselves, we're trying to
encourage people to step out of their comfort zone and maybe take
God's message to places that it wouldn't normally go.'' Lee said.
``We wouldn't encourage people to do anything that we're not gonna
do ourselves. So, we sought and actually gotten a lot of really
cool opportunities this year just with a lot of press and media
things that for years we always wanted to try to do, but would
never really come through. So, it's been an interesting season for
us ...''
Likely a season where it can sometimes be difficult to
transition from loneliness to solitude.
THE
BOOK ON MARK LEE
Favorite guitars: "Aw, man, that’s
such a tough question. For the last couple of years I’ve been
playing Paul Reed Smith guitars. Those guys over at Paul Reed
Smith have been really good to me. They actually built for me this
new model they just call the ‘Hollow Body.’ It’s just a
beautiful guitar. It sounds just amazing and my favorite thing
about it is it’s got an acoustic pickup and an electric pickup
on it , so I can in one song — and I do this alot, actually —
I can play an acoustic part of a verse, and then just switch over
to electric and play it on the chords. ... That would probably be
my favorite if you made me pick one."
Guitar nicknames: "The only one that I
really do have a pet name, and I really don’t call it this that
much —I have to give you a little bit of the background on it
— when I was about 13 years old, I went with a friend of mine to
a baseball card convention. And while I was there this was this
guy that was selling Michael Jordan rookie cards for like 5 bucks.
It was kind of expensive at the time, but I was like, ‘You know
what. I bet this is a good investment,’ in my 13-year-old mind.
So, for like $5 I bought this Michael Jordan basketball card. And
then I sold it in 1999, or 2000, whenever he retired the second
time ... and I sold it for like $1,100, this massive profit. It
was probably the only good financial decision I ever made in my
life was buying that card. So, I turned around and bought a guitar
with that money. It’s a smart thing, right? I’m a gui... It’s
a Gretch, I always wanted to have a Gretch. So, I bought this
guitar and I kinda call it my ‘Michael Jordan guitar,’ my ‘MJ.’
That would be the only one that I kinda have a little name for and
it’s a got a little history there."
Favorite guitarist: Peter Buck of REM. He’s
not a flashy guy at all, but he just writes amazing guitar parts;
just simple. That’s what I’m a big fan of. Yeah, there’s the
flashy ‘Ooo, wow, look at that guy, he’s so technical’ kinda
solo. Then’s there the simple melody you can still hum a day
later. That’s the stuff that I love, stuff I kinda strive to do
myself.
Favorite spiritual reading other than Scripture: Madelyn
L’Engle. "Like, I started reading her books when I was a
little kid. She’s kinda like C.S. Lewis in that she has kids
books, she also writes some nonfiction books about Scripture and
about different things. She just has such an interesting mind and
honestly I disagree with her a lot. Theologically, she comes from
a different background than I do, but she’s just so sharp. ...
There’s a book called ‘Walking on Water’ in particular that’s
directed toward artists. Being a musician, that book in particular
really spoke to me.
Blogging: "It’s a totally different
kind of thing than journaling to me," he said, noting that he
will sometimes use it as a place to review a book or link to an
article. "When I started out, I tried to be a lot cuter, and
it’s evolved into more of a focus thing. I don’t post in it as
much as I used to."
Touring with Toby Mac: "I think it just
makes for a really diverse and really interesting evening of
music. Man, he puts on such a great show and it’s just top-notch
and so much energy there. We’ve got to be on our game every
night. We’ve got to bring the A game because he and his band
they just bring it every night. So, we’ve got to be ready from
the get-go to come out blazin’. … It’s been really cool and
really an honor for us to have him out with us and get to know him
a little bit."
Ancient-Future Third Day: Comparing first CD
and "Wire." "There’s a lot of facets to what we
do. You know we had the worship-type thing going, and something
that’s more the straight-ahead rock, or maybe the modern rock
kind of thing. Then we had that kind of raw, like Southern rock
thing, and there’s on this new record called ‘I’ve Got A
Feelin’’ that probably would tap into that same thing."
BBQ and Third Day: Third Day visited Knoxville
April 18, 2002, as part of the "Come Together Tour" and
bassist Tai Anderson and lead vocalist Mac Powell decided to trek
to West Knoxville for BBQ, which caused them to run a little bit
late getting to the concert. Asked if the band really liked
barbecue, Lee replied, "Oh, oh, man, let me tell you, yes. We
love barbecue. … For a while there, we were trying to find the
ultimate barbecue experience when we were on tour. Not to say that
we’ve abandoned that, but we just sort of found that barbecue is
such a regional thing that once you get outside of Memphis, you’ve
got Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, maybe a little bit
of Mississippi. But you get outside of that, and like the word
barbecue means something different. You go out to Texas, you go to
Kansas City, New Mexico, they make this really good tasting meat
product with barbecue sauce, but that’s not barbecue. Barbecue
to me is the pulled pork — you know, you can do the dry, you can
do the other with the sauce, either way, that’s fine, but to me
it’s that, and I guess this would be more the Carolina style of
barbecue, that’s barbecue to me. So, really like if you get
outside of that Southeastern area, you just really can’t do it.
The Rev. Frank
"Buzz" Trexler is managing editor at The Daily Times and pastor
of Green Meadow United Methodist Church, wwwthemeadow.org. You can e-mail
him at PastorBuzz@nxs.net.
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