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David Wilcox—sophic, spiritual, folk-tinged singer-songwriter—has just completed a recording project like none other in his career. He and his wife of 13 years, Nance Pettit, dug up devotional poetry from a number faith traditions—including Christianity, Hinduism, Sufi Mysticism, Islam, Jewish Mysticism, and Zen Buddhism—polished the dust off and lovingly breathed new life into them for a new CD, Out Beyond Ideas. It's not what you'd call a "Christian album," though the artists behind it are Christians. Proceeds from album sales go to Partners in Conflict and Partners in Peacebuilding Projects, a conflict resolution initiative with the goal of world peace. In this interview, Wilcox and Pettit weigh in on what's meaningful about their new album, where the inspiration came from, and what it's like to harmonize together in the car.

This is the first recording project that you've undertaken with your wife, correct?

Wilcox She's always writing with me, but this is the first set where we've had equal roles in singing and writing together.

What was it like working with her in this kind of collaboration? You seem to have a strong chemistry and connection.

Wilcox I'm very grateful that we sing together. It takes me out of myself.

Do you both approach things in a similar way stylistically or do you find yourselves each bringing something different to the table?

Pettit We hit a method where we would choose the poems that moved both of us. Usually I would sit with the phrasing of the words and wait for a melody to fall out of the meter of the words, so we could have a starting point. Then David would find a guitar inspiration that went with the melody. We went back and forth, but Dave definitely had more musical inspiration with the guitar and I would have more musical inspiration with the vocal melody.

I think it's powerful that you two got to work together in this way.

Pettit It's one of the greatest blessings of our relationship that we get to do this together. It's not something that very many people get to do. I'm just really grateful that we have this possibility of musical collaboration.

Wilcox It's not just this project, but the way that we sing together. We could be driving down the freeway, and I'll play some playful little melody in my head, and as soon as I start singing it, Nance has a complimentary harmony. It always surprises me, and I'm so grateful that we have that.

What first made you think you could make these poems come alive by translating them into songs?

Wilcox The experience of hearing Nance sing one of them.

Pettit The last song on the record, "Awake My Dear," was one I wanted to remember, because it is so beautiful. The only way I remember anything is in a song, so I just thought I'd sing it. The next step was sitting around the fire with some friends one night and reading poems to each other. David and I got a musical inspiration in the moment, and that's when things started to take off and surprise us.

Wilcox This melody just came out of nowhere, and this guitar part that I never would have played just popped into being. The guitar parts especially were confounding to learn, because normally what I write is what's natural for me. But this stuff was like learning somebody else's tune.

How did you make the leap from fleshing these out together to deciding this should be a recording project?

Wilcox We were the last ones to get it. All our friends were saying, "Oh, I can't wait for the record," and we were still thinking this was something just for our living room. But after a while we started to realize that it was not up to us to say no, that these poems had momentum.

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