DAVID ADAMS speaks with US-based Third Day’s Mark Lee about the band’s upcoming tour of Australia and their soon-to-be-released worship album, Lead Us Back…
It’s about 20 years since Christian band Third Day released their first independent album and, looking back, founding member Mark Lee says he’s grateful “God’s dreams for us are bigger that what we have for ourselves”.
Lee says his goal back then – he was still in high school and working part-time when he founded the band with Mac Powell – was simply to be working fulltime as a musician.
“Fortunately, God had much bigger plans that that…(M)y dreams kind of ran out pretty quick and fortunately God’s vision for things went a lot further than that and it’s been a great ride…” he says.
“So if I could talk to my 20-year-old self, I would say ‘Don’t sell yourself short’ and also ‘Just trust God that He’s got a plan for everything’ because it’s just been amazing…”
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THIRD DAY: (left to right): David Carr, Mac Powell, Tai Anderson and Mark Lee. “We feel like worship music has changed as a whole a little bit since the last time we’ve made a worship album and we’ve changed – it’s been 10 years, we’ve grown, and so we wanted this album to really reflect that.”– Mark Lee |
Third Day – who have sold more than eight million albums and snagged an endless list of awards including four Grammy Awards and 24 GMA Dove Awards – have announced they will be touring eight cities in Australia in February next year with NEEDTOBREATHE and homegrown musician Levi McGrath.
Called Make A Difference, the tour is being conducted in partnership with World Vision Australia and, says Lee, aims to “shine a spotlight” on the work the aid and development organisation does around the world.
The band – whose other members include vocalist Mac Powell, bass player Tai Anderson and drummer David Carr – have had a relationship with World Vision since the late Nineties. Lee says all of the band’s members sponsor children through the organisation – a model he finds makes the fight against poverty much more personal.
“You think about poverty and hunger and these different things…and you don’t really know what one person can do about it but they’re able to attach this face and make it a very personal issue,” says the father-of-two.
“I think it’s a really neat way – as an individual and also as a family – to use it as a tool to learn about some of these issues that are going on all over the world.”
It will be the fourth time the band have toured Australia (the first time was in the early Noughties) and Lee says that while the size of Australia means a lot of time spent on the road, they love performing Downunder.
“We’ve so many great memories of shows we’ve played in Australia…” he says. “So we’re excited to come back and make some new memories. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and we’re looking forward to it.”
The tour comes ahead of the official US release of their 13th album in March (their last album, Miracle, was released in late 2012). Lead Us Back, which the band have reportedly said will be available in the Australian tour, is the band’s first worship album since Offerings II – All I Have To Give was released in 2003 and Lee says that, as with many of the band’s albums, the idea for it came out of their touring.
“Worship has always been a big part of our live shows and we started to notice over the last two or three years that as we put the shows together…as soon as we go to put a worship segment into the night, we’re relying on these songs off of the Offerings project,” he notes. “But the newest one is over 10-years-old, so we just felt like it was time for us to make some new worship music…”
Lee says that in making the new album, the band didn’t just to want to go back to what they’d already done.
“We didn’t want to put out Offerings III. There was a distinct way that we presented those albums – there would be a couple of studio songs and then there would be a live song or two so there was a mix of the live songs and studios. We wanted to just get away from that – we wanted it to be a fresh album musically.”
“We feel like worship music has changed as a whole a little bit since the last time we’ve made a worship album and we’ve changed – it’s been 10 years, we’ve grown, and so we wanted this album to really reflect that.”
The new album – which Lee describes as “absolutely” having a Third Day sound yet says also represents a “big step forward” – features 12 songs recorded in the studio, all of which were written by the band, bar one song which was co-written with Brenton Brown and Matt Maher.
Lee says the band has always been intentional about writing their own music.
“There’s a verse in Psalm 40 that says ‘I’ll sing a new song’, so we want to take that literally and write some new songs whenever we come in and make a worship album.”
The band will be playing some of the songs on the Australian tour and Lee says he’s excited about the possibilities. “This is like the strongest batch of songs we’ve had in a long time, if ever – just top to bottom great songs. It’s going to be hard for us to pick out which songs to play live.”
Lee says he’s also looking forward to spending some time on the road, noting that he finds it helps him focus on God – away from the distractions of everyday life.
“I think as a believer you’ve got to make it one of your top priorties, if not the top – just (spending) that daily time in the Word and in prayer. It’s so important.”
For tour dates, see www.makeadifferencetour.com.au.
