When he was with Caedmon's Call, Derek Webb enjoyed the comforts of fame, selling out 2,000-seat theatres on a daily basis and selling over a million total CDs. Then he left it all behind, splitting with the band amicably and going solo with 2003's She Must and Shall Go Free. He played house concerts for about 20 people a night. His radio visibility virtually disappeared. So why the move? Webb wanted to express some things that didn't really fit in the Caedmon's context—or the typical CCM pop culture mold, for that matter. Indeed, the title of his new album, I See Things Upside Down, says as much. Webb is incredibly candid in his analysis of Christian culture and its music scene. He balks at the idea of spiritual celebrities, confronts the church with its need for reform, and basically takes every possible risk one could apply to a rootsy acoustic rock record. In short, Webb likes to push the envelope—and we wanted to know why. Of course, he was more than happy to tell it like it is …

What were your expectations and apprehensions when you left Caedmon's Call?

Derek Webb: I was trying to not have expectations. I didn't know exactly how it would go and I tried really hard not to make comparisons to the group. When you walk away from a successful band like Caedmon's to do something on your own like that, there's definitely the temptation to want to hold yourself up against them. The thing is, I will never sell that many records. In my whole solo career, I probably won't sell as many as Caedmon's will sell of any one of its records. I'll never play those size concerts. But that's not the reason that I left. I didn't leave because I had ambition. I left because I had vision for something else.

If the band and I had not split so well, I think I would have been tempted to get disappointed or competitive, and there's been none of that—especially with the release of the newest Caedmon's record, Share the Well, which I think is tremendous. It's their first record without me and I find myself as a fan getting really excited. Truth be told, I've never listened to Caedmon's Call's records before!

Why don't you feel you were fully able to express yourself in Caedmon's?

Webb: I didn't really stumble on the more purely artistic differences until after I got away from the band and had some time to think about who I was as a solo artist. So my first record was kind of a transition. It was a little more raw and rootsy than the stuff in Caedmon's. Everybody in that band has their own background and musical tastes that they bring together, and that's how we reached the conclusions in the music that we did. I always liked kind of rootsier stuff, so that's what I went for on my first shot.

But it really wasn't about what I could and couldn't do [musically] within Caedmon's Call. It was more from the content perspective. Caedmon's had built a certain thing over ten years, and I didn't know if it was worth risking all that on a vision I was afraid maybe I was the only one who had. I didn't know if my first record of just songs about the church could've fit within those contexts. I would've had to say to the group, "I have a whole record's worth of songs I'm hoping can all be included on our next record, which is a risk I'm calling you all to." Going that route didn't make sense, so I went to them and we decided it would be right for me to do this record on my own. I realized I don't have time to do something solo and Caedmon's Call because both are so demanding. I had to do one or the other.

What's it like to see them succeed while you sit on the sidelines and watch?

Webb: It's definitely humbling, especially since it took me leaving for the band to put out their best record! But I'm happy to have gotten out of their way and to make the records I've made. I'm happy to have played my role in the group, and currently my role is to not be a part of it, except as a fan. I'll try to catch one of their shows if they come near me.

How does it feel to step into such scaled-back settings, playing house concerts instead of enormous halls?

Webb: I don't know if things over the last year and a half ended up exactly as what I would have thought, but it has definitely caused me to re-evaluate what I consider great successes and great losses or failures. That brings us back around to the new record, because that's what the title I See Things Upside Down is all about. I realized that playing to 20 people a night in a living room would, in the eyes of an outsider, look like I was taking a huge step down. That probably looks like failure, and I could see people saying, "Well, he's on his way out."

I had a lot of moments where I was tempted to believe that, and I had to realize the fact that God's kingdom does not look like our kingdom here in America. Sometimes real success does look like real failure and sometimes real riches do look like real poverty. I don't think I really understood that before and I realize this is great success for me. I'm doing artistically what I feel like I need to be and want to be doing. So with that in mind, it's been a great success for me.

I'm assuming there's been a natural pay cut. How have you dealt with that?

Webb: Here's the bottom line: The Lord has faithfully provided for me over the years, and I've never quite known where the money was going to come from. Publishing is a great mystery to me still! I'm really thankful I'm able to make a living doing what I love to do, doing what I would probably do for free anyway!

When I made this decision, it had to have been under the guidance of my wife [singer/songwriter Sandra McCracken]. She saw that I had a steady job and income with Caedmon's, but that I didn't feel like I was using all my gifts to their fullest potential. She said, "If that means us having to figure out financially how to make that work, then that's fine, because it still seems like a good decision to make." That confidence from my wife—that she would support me and make ends meet—was a big part of it, because I was concerned about what would happen if this completely failed. In fact, it still might fail, and I live every day expecting that the whole thing might be done tomorrow because what I'm doing is not commercially easy. It's hard to make your living doing what I do. It's easier to make your living in pop music. But I've never played music for money and I don't play music for money now.

How does Sandra's work as a recording artist weigh in on the equation?

Webb: It's interesting how the Lord kind of worked that out. When Caedmon's and I were making the Back Home record, knowing it would be my last record with the band, we tried to make a record that would be an easy transition—where they wouldn't really need me for the writing or for the tour that would follow. Writing songs in the group had always been my primary income for years, so I was nervous a little bit.

But the interesting provision that happened was in my phasing out, [Caedmon's Call's co-vocalist] Danielle [Young] kind of stepped up a little bit more to do some more singing. She's always sung songs one of us guys would write, but never songs specifically for her. So they approached Sandra and said, "You're a female, you can write from this perspective and you're a really intuitive writer. Will you write some songs for Danielle?" So she wrote a few songs on In the Company of Angels and on Back Home, and that was a great provision for us. Sandra's solo career is going strong too. She's over in the U.K. right now opening a tour for Hanson, so that all certainly is a big help!

In your songs, why are you so bold in speaking out about reform for the church and for Christian culture in general?

Webb: I'm concerned about those things because this is my marketplace, this is where I do business. I am surrounded by it. I think as believers but also as artists we have to take seriously the way we, the church, are engaging the culture around us. I think we're hung up thinking short-term on our own individual successes and not about the long-term need to engage culture. One evidence of that is that most Christian artists are more concerned with commercial success, Christian radio, and all the things that make our little Christian subculture go round. Are we really engaging the world with great art? That has got to be our primary concern.

How would you suggest Christian artists should impact the culture?

Webb: First of all, we've got to learn as a church to support artists who are respectfully engaging culture with good art. I think one of the reasons the church in this country is irrelevant in a lot of circles is because our art is bad—and it's always been a primary way of how the church has engaged with culture. Great artists can engage culture, not by getting up on a box and reading off all sorts of laws, but by making tremendous art, doing that work with excellence where the world would be intrigued and engaged with that.

Nowadays, we're not building bridges to culture. We're building escalators up and down the floors of our own little world. We're all just trying to get popular and secure our own little living for ourselves, and that's not kingdom thinking. You have to get beyond all that and think, As an artist, what is my role in culture? How do the decisions I make as an artist really effect eternity?

You've ruffled some feathers with this thinking, getting people out of their comfort zones. How can you stand your ground even if it alienates you from some you depend on to release your music into the marketplace?

Webb: I am keenly aware that I probably hold the minority view on this. I think deep down people know if they can unplug themselves from the western, Americanized, sub-cultural Christian matrix, we would be concerned with these sorts of things and not with our own commerce, successes, fame and fortune. Part of it is easy for me to say because I'm not really sacrificing anything, because I'm not very popular. It's not like I'm sacrificing a bunch of record sales to make an art record, since I probably wouldn't sell that many records if I made a pop record. I'm not a big name.

But I still try to be really careful and I try to be really gentle. It's the spirit that leads us to the truth and reveals it to us, and we've got to pray for each other and encourage each other. I put aside my desire to be popular and have a hit on Christian radio to do what my instinct is and that is to make really great art. I want to see it and my worldview to be engaging, and that may very well be the role I have in building up the kingdom.

For more about Derek Webb and his solo career, visit our artist page for him. If you're curious what's new with Caedmon's Call, check out their page as well. Click here to read our take on Derek's latest solo endeavor, I See Things Upside Down. Visit Christianbook.com to hear sound clips and buy Derek's music.

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