Building on an Audience of One
by Michael Herman | posted 5/01/2003
 1 of 3
The success enjoyed by Big Daddy Weave since the debut of their first national release in 2002 has been overwhelming. Together for five years, the acoustic pop/rock band shares their thoughts on performing for an audience that has steadily grown from "One" to thousands.
Clockwise from upper right: Mike Weaver (lead vocals, guitar), Jay Weaver (bass, vocals), Jeff Jones (drums, percussion), Joe Shirk (saxophones, keyboards, vocals), Jeremy Redmon (guitars, vocals)
Your first album, One and Only, has been out for a little while now. Where is the band now as far as preparing for the next project?
Mike: We've already begun creating a new record, and Jeremy and I get to produce it, which is pretty cool. A tentative title is, Everything.
So far, the concept comes out of what we've learned over the last year—to really trust in the Lord with all of our hearts and not to lean on our own understanding. In all of our ways, we're learning to acknowledge him, and he's been making our paths straight and will continue to do so.
God wants to interact in our lives in so many ways. There's a song on the new album called, "Let Me Be Your Everything." It's a reverse-vertical song with God speaking to us. We have to let him do that. We stay in his way so much, but he doesn't force his way into our lives. That's the direction of the project so far.
We're excited to be able to produce the album. The process is a little different this time, because on the last album we went in the studio and put everything down in a three-to-five week
period. This time, we went in and put down some bass and drums
and were able to live with it a little longer so we could develop
other ideas. It'll be very interesting to see how that element
will make this project different.
Are the songs on the upcoming project all new songs?
Mike: We've only included three songs from the indie record. Some people basically rehash their indie record, but we wanted to put new music on this CD. We thought that was important. There are seven new songs to go along with the three indie ones. One is a cover of a Darrell Evans song called, "Fields of Grace."
What has surprised you since your first major label release came out?
Jeff: One of the greatest surprises has been when we show up at a venue far from home and realize people know the lyrics of our songs. It's amazing to know that God can use us in some way to have an impact on someone's life. People come up to each of us after concerts telling us how a particular song touched them or helped them through a certain time in their lives.
As an independent band, we played mostly regional shows and didn't get a lot of radio airplay. The reach was much smaller. But now the songs are being played on the radio and the reach is much larger. It's both overwhelming and very, very humbling.
Mike: Also, because the album is in stores and on the Internet, a lot of people have already heard us, so they don't have to spend time deciding if they trust us as musicians or not. When the songs have already connected with them, they're more ready to receive something from God from the start of the event. It definitely makes it easier for us, and it's a better experience for them as well.
Has the fans' expectation of hearing certain songs ever backfired on you?
Mike: I know what you're saying, and yes it has. We normally close with the song, "In Christ." It's a great song of encouragement, and we like to close with it. But because it was the last song in the set, people were like, "Are they gonna play it?!" When we heard that, our response was, "Man, we didn't know it was that big a deal."
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