Christian band MercyMe soars after some soul-searching — and a boost from a hit movie
MercyMe may be celebrating its 25th anniversary, but the popular Christian pop-rock band isn’t being all that nostalgic when it comes to the choice of songs they’re performing on their current “Imagine Nation Tour,” which stops at Charlotte’s Spectrum Center on Friday night.
“We actually had that discussion early on about kind of how much looking back we wanted to do,” bassist Nathan Cochran explained in a recent phone interview. “We certainly do touch on songs we think people want to hear or know from us, for sure. But we really have been weighing heavily on our last two records, ‘Welcome to the New’ and ‘Lifer.’
“Just kind of personally and culturally ... those are really important records for us. It felt like sticking with those two for the time being was where we needed to be, and it’s been good. Over the last couple of years, we’ve received great feedback about those records. People are excited about the music we’re making, and obviously excited about what we have to say.”
Those two recent albums — released in 2014 and 2017, respectively — came after a period when MercyMe had been at a major crossroads.
“Before we made ‘Welcome to the New,’ we went through a season of really, really trying to decide if we were going to keep doing this, and honestly had never really been to that place before,” said Cochran, whose band has been releasing albums since 1995. “All of us in one way or another were struggling, trying to figure out why we were still doing this (band), if we wanted to still do it, you know, are our families hanging on by a thread? ... Are they thriving?
“We had a lot of questions to ask. Going into making that record, we kind of decided we were going to throw away what we thought people’s expectations of us were, and try to make a record that we wanted to make. It came out as ‘Welcome to the New.’ For some of us, it was kind of watershed moment.”
The current tour, which was preceded by the release in March 2018 of a greatest-hits album (the group also released a best-of album, “10,” in 2009) comes at a time when MercyMe has gained renewed notoriety for the 2018 movie “I Can Only Imagine.”
The film was named after the band’s early-2000s hit single and tells the story of the inspirations behind the song, which singer/main songwriter Bart Millard wrote at age 19 after the death of his father, who had gone from being an abusive parent to living a life of faith. This transition helped Millard grow close to his father before he passed. (The movie wound up making more than $85 million at the box office.)
The song “I Can Only Imagine” was released on the 2001 MercyMe album “Almost There,” and went on to win the 2002 Dove song of the year award before crossing over to mainstream pop in 2003, reaching No. 5 on “Billboard” magazine’s Adult Contemporary singles chart on its way to selling more than 1 million copies. The “Almost There” album eventually topped 2 million copies sold.
Today, “I Can Only Imagine” remains MercyMe’s signature song and the movie has introduced a whole new audience to that hit tune and the band itself.
The emergence of new fans was a key reason MercyMe — which also includes guitarists Michael John Scheuchzer and Barry Graul and drummer Robby Shaffer — decided to release the hits album, “I Can Only Imagine: The Very Best of MercyMe.”
“There are a lot of people that hadn’t paid attention to what we were doing for the last few years that all of a sudden said ‘Hey, I remember those guys. Let’s go check them out again,’” he added. “So all these things that we had been building over the last three years and with the last two records, I think some people finally caught up with us because of the movie.”
The hits album, “I Can Only Imagine: The Very Best of MercyMe,” indeed includes both the original version and the newly recorded movie version of “I Can Only Imagine,” along with 11 other hit singles from across the group’s career.
Those aren’t all the hits MercyMe has amassed on the Christian singles chart over the course of nine nationally released albums. In fact, the group has notched 16 No. 1 singles on “Billboard” magazine’s Christian Airplay chart.
Cochran can’t really explain why MercyMe has so consistently connected with Christian radio audiences, but he sees a few factors that might contribute to the success.
“You know, if I knew what the formula was exactly, I think we could probably write a book about it,” he said, jokingly. “We’ve always been kind of a pop-rock band. We never really were a hard-rock band. So just kind of what we do inherently fits well on the radio formats we get played on the most. So we have that going for us.
“But you know, we’ve always thought about, if we’ve been accused of anything musically over the years, it’s that we haven’t changed enough. That’s probably due to the fact that the song itself is what’s most important to us first. Not that the music is secondary, but it certainly builds around the song (lyrics) we’re trying to create, if that makes sense. We’ve got to have something to say (lyrically), and so when those songs have come about correctly — where it actually felt like we had something to say — those seem to be the ones that always connect with people the most.”
MercyMe
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday.
Where: Spectrum Center, 333 E. Trade St.
Tickets: $27.25 and up.
Details: 800-745-3000; www.ticketmaster.com.