Online geek Shaun Groves is all over the Web-with a personal blog, his website's own message board, or his MySpace page. Unafraid of mingling with the online common folk, Groves has a reason for sauntering around the net: his new album, White Flag (Rocketown) just released, and he just wants to get the word out. Once a more "adult-friendly" artist, Groves has embraced more of a grassroots approach that works well with his passion for reaching out to college students. In this wide-ranging interview, Groves sounds off on this new passion, as well as his heart for theology, his online persona, soccer moms, critics, and what he really thinks of Christian media.

Word is the big inspiration behind your new album is your work with young adults. What brought on this newfound desire?

Shaun Groves: Well, I'm not a really good singer. I'm a decent songwriter. But I do think I'm good at teaching and that's what I love to do. For me music is a tool that opens up new possibilities. It's nice to have a record that's built around one specific theology or moment in Scripture. It just makes it so much easier to talk about and apply to music.

Yet before now, you were always marketed more as a songwriter. Why the shift in approach?

Groves: It's actually always been this way for me. Ever since I was twelve, it's been something I've wanted to pursue. I wanted to identify with Christ. I'd meet with this friend before school, and we would read a chapter of the Bible, talk about it, and pray for each other. Soon other friends got pulled in, and before we knew it, we had 20-25 kids meeting in the cafeteria. We couldn't all just crowd around a book, so one of us had to do the reading. I became that guy, and I became a sort of pastor to my peers. It was weird, but I've loved teaching ever since. I've always been discipling the youth.

I went into this new album, then, deciding to talk about who I really am. I'm a teacher, and people don't always get Matthew 5, The Beatitudes. Since we recently taught that to college-age kids, I thought it was as good a time as any to show who I really am.

It seems like you're no longer writing about yourself then, like your first two records, but rather focusing on Scripture and applying it to everyday life.

Groves: It's because there's less struggle-less "me" language. It's not just me reciting, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," but my response to that theology, and learning what it means. There's a difference between painting the sun and painting how the sun affects a flowerpot outside on the porch. You learn a lot about the sun by seeing how its light affects objects. Likewise, you get an idea how Christ's teachings work by seeing how they affect my heart and my mind.

What's nice about White Flag is that it's not merely about the Beatitudes. You chose to apply them, and that's something altogether different.

Groves: Thanks. Songwriting 101 states, "The more personal, the more universal." And so, to take some truth and say it in another impersonal kind of way, I don't really see that as valuable. It's more effective to say, "Here's my response. Here's my prayer for my enemy. Here's the world I perceive as being when peace breaks out. Here's how I feel when I'm moved to surrender to God."

That was one of the major hurdles for this record: "How do I make this work without it seeming like it's coming from a pastor or a theologian? How do you talk about surrender without actually saying 'surrender?' How do you talk about peace without referencing war?" That's the thing I love about songwriting as opposed to teaching. With teaching, you need to use ordinary language to keep everyone on the same page. With songwriting, there's an extra incentive to try and say the ordinary in a new way.

Though you have a heart for reaching out to students, your music seemed to follow more of an adult contemporary sound.

Groves: I'd say you're right about that for the first album. That came from me being new and not calling the shots. I'd deliver the songs, they'd turn into what everyone else needed them to be, I'd raise my hand if I saw a major foul, but that was about it. Radio drives the machine, and there were seven radio singles pulled from that album.

Now the second record, that felt like cotton candy to me. I was trying to make an album for the post-high school and college 20-somethings that stop going to church until they marry. That can be a long time without being involved in a church and having anyone pouring into your life. While making Twilight, I was listening to a lot of European music. Stuff like Travis and Coldplay-what they call "shoegazer" music. I went for that on the record, and man, my concert bookings went through the roof.

I don't really play many shows for 30-something soccer moms anymore, partly because radio didn't play the Twilight record, and also because the album resonated more with college students. Now I play tons of colleges-I even partnered with Campus Crusade for a while. Acoustic singer/songwriter stuff appeals to that age group-the alt-folk side of the student market.

And yet this new album isn't really shoegazer folk. It's more rocking and heavy. Why the change?

Groves: I have a short attention span. I've tried to have a lot of diversity with every record, and I think I've accomplished that much. Twilight was diverse, but it was still the alternative singer/songwriter thing-mellow, sleepy, whatever. I got kinda bored with it.

And also, to be honest, I'm in my 30s now. I've got a wife, kids, a minivan, and a mortgage. I think this album is almost like my midlife crisis. I felt like I needed to prove that I can rock with the best of them. So I strapped on the electric guitar and threw down some tracks with my band, and it felt good.

In a way, I'm still trying to figure out who I am musically. I love singer/songwriters like Patty Griffin, Nichole Nordeman, and James Taylor, but more for their lyrics. On the other side, I love rock bands like Switchfoot. And like Switchfoot, I've always wanted to combine lyrical depth with rock themes. Let's have fun and think-they're not mutually exclusive.

Why didn't Twilight do better commercially? What went wrong?

Groves: I don't think anything went wrong with Twilight itself. I made the record that I needed to make-it was honest and it was real. It may have been sleepier than we wanted, but I don't care if critics didn't like it, Twilight was still a good record. It bombed because people weren't exposed to it. According to sales, more people leave my shows with a copy of Twilight than with my first album. That tells me, when people hear it, they like it enough to buy it. The problem is Christian radio doesn't let them hear it. This new record has some radio potential, but not a lot, so it'll be a tough sell.

Other alt-folk acts like the Shanes and Bebo Norman don't get a lot of radio success either, yet they seem to be doing alright.

Groves: And my second record actually did about as well as Bebo's last record. Shane and Shane on the other hand, I was under the impression that they were massive. I'd go to colleges and ask what the students were listening to, and it'd always be Shane and Shane. But they succeed because they're constantly on the road.

Is Rocketown, your record label, comfortable with you taking a more college-oriented approach, rather than the more AC-geared market?

Groves: They've been supportive. They haven't said no to the idea. Because I'm not exclusive, I don't consider myself an adult contemporary artist or a college artist. I just make music for the church.

When the radio thing kinda went away on the last record, the college audience stayed loyal, so I'm obviously going to be a little more loyal to them. I like the way they think anyway. They hang after the shows and ask me questions. I feel like I have something to contribute to them as an old guy in their lives. It's a good fit for what they need and what my strengths are. Not that I'd turn down an opportunity to play before thousands of older fans, because I'm one of them and I love them too. But the people that have loved me most these last couple years have been the 20-somethings. Rocketown will never ask me to be something I'm not, other than this haircut. (laughs)

You're also very involved online, on message boards and with your blog. You seem very hands-on and real, and sometimes reactionary to people who criticize your work. Is that what you're like offline?

Groves: Not really. I also like to kick back, have fun, and relax. I'm not smart enough to win every argument. I've never been able to be a fake online. The one thing I like about forums and my own message board is that real people are involved there, and we discuss like real people. Some are shocked that I would say some of the stuff I say. If you asked me what I thought about Christian radio online, I would tell you the truth. Why would I give you a fake answer? If I'm going to answer at all, I'm going to tell you the truth.

As for criticism, yes, I am a bit of a perfectionist. I remember my first parent-teacher conference when I was in seventh grade, all of us trying to figure out what to do because I was going to get a zero-not because I couldn't do the assignments, but because I wasn't handing them in. And it was because I knew the work wasn't perfect yet. I didn't want to turn it in and have the teacher mark X's on it. That's always been something that's plagued me.

When it comes to my music, I don't think I'm that defensive. I'm teachable. Your review of Twilight was actually the only review I read, and it was very helpful because you review in a constructive manner. The ones I hate are the ones where the critics obviously didn't know what they were talking about. They didn't say why they thought they way they did. I only get defensive when reviewers don't back up what they say.

So how do you really feel about the Christian music media?

Groves: I think CCM media, as a whole, is among the worst media that I've encountered. As I do interviews, I've noticed it's the most inept. When I went to the UK with Michael W. Smith and I did interviews over there, it was amazing. They don't separate between Christian and non-Christian media over there, and they ask great questions because of it. ChristianityToday.com is one of the best. It's not like you're asking, "Hey, what's in your CD player? What's your favorite pizza topping?" It's real conversation.

For more about Shaun Groves, visit his artist page on our site. Be sure to check out our review of his latest, White Flag. You can listen to sound clips and buy Shaun's music at Christianbook.com.

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