Despite a full-ride scholarship and a law degree from prestigious Pepperdine University, George Rowe never fully felt at home filing legal briefs and arguing in courtrooms. His place was at a piano, behind a microphone, making music that changes people's lives.

Tell us about your first album.

George Rowe: I've been working on it for the last year and a half. It's really a variety of stuff. I have such an eclectic taste in music. I listen to everything from country to classical and from R&B to pop, so you hear that in the music I write.

There are gut-wrenching ballads like "Broken" with just me and a piano and a cello. On another song, there are some really complex, dissonant harmonies that have a Take 6 flavor. Then there are straight-up pop/adult contemporary songs as well.

One thing I struggle with is the question of what style of music I do. I don't feel comfortable being pigeonholed as one style. I don't want to be called this pop-artist or this jazz guy or an R&B or ballad guy. I enjoy a wide variety of music so that's what naturally comes out of me. I want to be true to the styles of music I like and I don't want to do music just to win the favor of one particular crowd.

I hope that means there's something on each of the albums for everyone.

What style of music do you most enjoy doing live?

Rowe: I would've thought that I'd like the security blanket of being behind a piano singing a ballad and not being too exposed on stage. I don't think of myself as an entertainer dancing around the stage. But I just got off the tour with Michael W. Smith, and he had some pop/rock stuff we were doing and I just got consumed into it. So many people after the shows were saying that I was fun to watch and that I dance more than anyone on stage. It's not a choreographed thing, we were just moving along to the music.

I'm new at this as an artist. This is my first record and I hadn't toured big before I did with Michael, so I'm still developing as an artist. What I've typically done though is just me singing at a piano. Because I haven't had the luxury of the support of a record label up to this point in my career, I haven't had a band with me. So that limits what I can do.

What does your songwriting process look like?

Rowe: It really depends on what I'm going for. For a while during the contract negotiation with record labels, my wife and I were kind of freeloading off her sister in Little Rock, Arkansas. We were living there and I was driving back and forth to Nashville meeting with folks at labels. That was a six-hour drive each way so I spent a lot of time with a voice recorder in the car. If a song idea, music, or a melodic or lyric idea came to me, I'd sing it into the recorder. There are times when I sit down with intentions of writing and absolutely nothing comes out. That's a scary feeling when nothing comes out of you.

There are other times when I'm co-writing with somebody and it's a real collaborative process. He might throw out a lyric idea and I throw one back at him and we kind of shape it until we're both pleased with it. It goes the same with the music side of the songs we create that way. Sometimes it's an intentional process and other times it just happens.

What's the story behind your song, "Broken"?

Rowe: I wrote that at a time when I trying to decide if I should use my law degree and get a job. I've got a wife and three kids, so I asked myself if I could afford to take these risks [by pursuing a music career instead]. But I really felt called to do music. It was almost a crisis of faith. I was so used to putting my faith in myself and making sure I had a steady paycheck, so it was a huge leap of faith to put all that aside and do this.

I was just banging on keys and praying during a quiet time. Tears were flowing while I wept this prayer about how broken and confused I was. I asked God to show me what I was supposed to do. I wanted to make sure I was doing it all for the right reasons. The song emerged four hours later from that time with God.

Talk a little more about leaving law school and how that played out.

Rowe: While I was in law school at Pepperdine, by day I worked with a group of attorneys doing tax and estate planning. That paid the bills. But at night and on weekends, I was traveling around to colleges, churches, and festivals singing. I was just so content, at peace, and completely fulfilled. I felt like I was doing something good.

After a couple years of that, my wife and I thought, Why are we wasting our lives doing this day job thing? That's not where our heart is. So it was tough giving up the predictability of a paycheck each week. Now, I can't remember the last time I had an income. But things get taken care of every month from a different source every time in a different way.

I really do think that if the desires of your heart are to honor God, then God will honor those desires. I knew I was going into law for the wrong reasons and staying out of music for the wrong reasons. But my heart was to do the music, so now we're doing it.

You can learn much more about George Rowe at our artist page for him, where you can read a review of his debut, Think About That. Visit Christianbook.com to listen to sound clips and buy his music.

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