Third Day Wired for Tour

Third Day 'Wire'd for rocksponsibility
SundayNews
October 10, 2004
By MaryAlice Bitts

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"Oh, it makes me wonder/ What if I slip, will they catch me/ Or watch me fall?"
- "Wire"

In the song "Wire," Third Day guitarist Mark Lee compares the stress of being famous with walking a tightrope. And since Third Day has 21 Dove Awards, 20 No. 1 singles, and a Grammy under its belt, it's safe to say he knows what he's talking about.

"The audience is rooting for the high-wire guy, but a tiny part of them wants to see him fall, because the danger of falling is what makes it exciting," he says. "It's about risk."

Third Day must enjoy risk. Otherwise, it wouldn't be messing with a winning formula. Eleven years into a very successful Christian rock career, its new album, "Wire," marks a definitive shift in the band's focus.

"You get to the point where you've been (successful) for a while, and you can just stay comfortable," mused Lee. "But we started asking ourselves hard questions like: What do we want our legacy and our impact to be?"

Those questions led to "Wire," an album of pop songs that touch on both spiritual and secular matters.

The result is yet another hit. "Wire debuted on top of the Christian music charts and hit No. 12 on the Billboard charts last May. It also led Third Day to a guest shot on "The Tonight Show" and launched a hot new tour that brings Third Day to Hershey's Giant Center Thursday, Oct. 21, along with tobymac.

The album's new sound was inspired by its producer, Paul Ebersold, who's also straddled the Christian and mainstream scene, having worked with Three Doors Down, Sister Hazel, Big Tent Revival and Skillet.

But the band reveals its new, secular self in more than music. Third Day continues to support both Christian and other charitable causes - giving away free merchandise to fans who contribute to the Christian relief organization World Vision, building a few dozen houses for Habitat for Humanity and helping raise awareness of AIDS in Africa.

Breaking taboo

On this tour, they've added a kicker: Now, they're talking politics, going so far as to play at the Republican Convention last month.

Lee said it was a natural progression. "My grandfather told me never to talk about religion or politics. I was already talking about one of those because of my job, so why not take on the other?"

The band's voter registration campaign - and open endorsement of President Bush - began after Lee had a chance meeting on a plane with an American soldier returning home from Iraq.

"It made the (war issue) a lot more personal for me," he said. "We've got soldiers overseas literally putting their lives on the line for the sake of freedom. It's a slap in the face to those soldiers not to get involved.

"I've got to do that guy and his family justice by voting this year. So that's what we want to encourage people to do."

Frontman Mac Powell, mentioned Third Day's support of President Bush in an interview, and within the week, the Republican Party called to book the group for the convention.

"We're not at all getting up on stage and telling people who to vote for," Lee clarified. "I think it's more that this election season, with the race being so close and so many things going on, it's time when everybody needs to let their voices be heard, whatever it is that they have to say."

Some say the band that gained mainstream support working for secular corporations - recording a Coca-Cola jingle and giving away CD samplers to folks test-driving Chevrolets - now runs the risk of losing long-time fans who may not back its less obviously religious lyrics.

Lee does not agree.

"Any time you start talking about mainstream stuff, your audience starts to say, 'Hold on, does that mean you going to abandon us?' We love our fans - it's been awesome - and we have absolutely no intention to do that," he said.

The early success of "Wire" in both markets bears him out.

Grounded in reality

Lee said Third Day has had a lot of practice straddling the line between two worlds. With 12 children under age 6 between them, band members have worked to balance career and family for more than a decade.

("We have very expensive cell phone bills," Lee said, laughing.)

And besides, Lee noted, Third Day's members are living in a different world from when the band first arrived on the Christian charts.

"I don't know what mainstream and secular vs. Christian really is, anymore," Lee said. "You can go into Wal-Mart and see our record next to everyone else's. You can go see our show at the civic center. It's all a matter of how you phrase it.

"There's kind of a weird stigma with the word 'crossover.' But as a friend of ours said, it's not crossover because you're not crossing over and going anywhere. It's spillover. You're still in your main market, but hopefully there's going to be enough of a story there that it will spill over into other places.

"I think for years and years, when people talked about Christian music, there was kind of a negative connection. The music wasn't as good, and they were maybe five years behind. I feel like there's definitely a new attitude, where we're trying to create excellent music that will compete with anything else," he said.

"And I think we're selling ourselves short any time we are asked or pressured to do anything other than what God has called us to do. It's all about serving the song, and I feel like if I have to change the lyrics in any way to try to pander to the market, then I'm selling that song short.

"Do we have a question about where we need to go? Just because we happen to be people of faith doesn't mean that we don't have doubts every day and are constantly second-guessing things. We just place things in God's hands and know that he's got everything taken of."
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