Normal Rockstar

Back on the Road with Shawn McDonald

It's time to get back on the road. My band has spent the last couple of months in the studio working on our next studio release which is sounding KILLER (I'm a little biased, but I think you'll like it). So it's been nice to be home and do regular 'home" things... however, the coffers are empty and it's time to get back out on the road and sell some t-shirts!

And we're hitting it pretty hard... In the next 37 days we've got 27 shows (and 4 of those "off" days are GMA Week) from Florida to Washington State, Montana to California, and many stops in between. We're supporting an artist named Shawn McDonald and will be joined by a good friend of ours, Jason Gray. Along with drumming, I will be road managing the tour, so it's going to be a busy next few weeks for me. I will do my best to blog consistently, but if I disappear for a few days, you know what the deal is - it's called self preservation! I'd love it if you came by one of the shows and said hi though... Or just sign up to follow me on Twitter and keep tabs of me that way. Thanks - time to get back to work!

downhere, music, shawn mdonald, Twitter

Humble Pie: What NOT to Say to an Artist

This past Sunday morning I found myself having one of the more humbling conversations I've had with someone in a while. I will do my best to transcribe for you below the gist of our conversation. The whole conversation lasted no more than 4 minutes, and all the way I was thinking, "This is going to make a GREAT blog post!!" Please understand - I really don't believe there was anything malicious about this conversation... I'll just chalk it up to cluelessness. (Names have been changed to protect the identity of "Clueless Joe".) I've included some "What NOT to say to an artist" tips for those of you who may not catch them...

JT: "Hi, I'm Jeremy."
CJ: "Hey - I'm Clueless Joe. Do you play with downhere?"
JT: "Yeah, I do, actually."
CJ: "That's cool! My wife and I just picked up your album last week."
JT: "Oh, that's great, man! Thanks!"
CJ: "Yeah, we were in Lifeway and are suckers for that $10 discount rack." (Tip #1: Don't tell the artist his record is in the discount bin!!)
JT: "Oh, wow. Well, that's awesome man - I'm glad you got it."
CJ: "Yeah... my wife doesn't like it." (Tip #2: Don't tell the artist you don't like their record!!)
JT: "Oh..."
CJ: "Yeah - I guess I'd better listen to the album this week now that I've met you." (Tip #3: Don't tell an artist you feel obligated to listen to their record!)
JT: (Trying not to act too bewildered and deflated) "Yeah, I guess so!"
CJ: "I think it's in my car right now... right beside David Crowder. And if it's between you and Crowder, you know he's going to win every time!!" (Tip #4: This one's stinkin' obvious!!)
JT: (Attempting to bow out of the conversation and find a corner to lick my wounds and swallow the heaping serving of humble pie just shoved down my throat) "That's nice... Well, great to meet you! I hope you enjoy the album!"

"How Many Kings" - update

The most frequently visited post in the history of my blog was just posted in the last couple of months. Back in early December I talked briefly about a new Christmas song called "How Many Kings" that my band had recorded and released to radio in time for the Christmas season (you can read the original post here and actually listen to the song if you haven't heard it yet). I'm STILL getting hits from people via Google who are looking for more information on the song. Well, here's the update from our standpoint: "How Many Kings" went as high as #4 on the radio charts which makes it our highest charting single ever (before that our highest was #8). It was so successful at radio that we are already in talks with various artists and agencies about doing a Christmas tour in an effort to share the song with even more people.

So if you have found this post and my blog via a Google search for this song, thanks for your help in getting this song so much airplay! And stick around for more updates on things downhere related and not.

New Christmas song: "How Many Kings"

Everyone I know gets excited about Christmas music at Christmas time. When I was single my rule was that I couldn't start listening to Christmas music until December 1st. However, when I moved to Nashville, I quickly discovered that there was a deeply embedded cultural tradition that the day after American Thanksgiving was not only the biggest shopping day of the year but also the day that people started listening to Christmas music... so in recent years I've given in to tradition and broken out the Christmas tunes a week earlier than I used to.

I told you about a rather classical Christmas album in my last post - here's one for those of you who have a hard time swallowing that kind of music. My band - downhere - wrote a couple of original Christmas songs last year as part of a Christmas compilation CD that our record label was working on featuring various artists on our label. One of the songs - "How Many Kings" - was released to radio this year and has been doing really well. We've had a number of requests for chord charts and such so that people can lead it in their church services during the holidays. The lyrics are pretty powerful:

Follow the star to a place unexpected
Would you believe, after all we've projected,
A child in a manger?
Lowly and small, the weakest of all
Unlikeliest hero, wrapped in his mother's shawl -
Just a child -
Is this who we've waited for? 'cause...

How many kings step down from their thrones?
How many lords have abandoned their homes?
How many greats have become the least for me?
And how many gods have poured out their hearts
To romance a world that is torn all apart
How many fathers gave up their sons for me?

Bringing our gifts for the newborn Savior
All that we have, whether costly or meek
Because we believe.
Gold for his honor, and frankincense for his pleasure
And myrrh for the cross he will suffer
Do you believe?
Is this who we've waited for?

All for me...
All for you...

If you want to pick up the album to add to your Christmas collection (I don't think you'll be disappointed!), you can get a physical copy here or download it from iTunes here. You can ALSO get the accompaniment track here if you want to perform the song. Finally, if you're looking for chord charts for the song, you can download that here.

"Rockstar" - Normal??

Today I told you I would write about the second part of my blog name, "Rockstar". This is going to be a much harder post to write, as it's going to feel like I'm tooting my own horn in some ways. So let's get one thing straight up front: I use the term "rockstar" in a rather tongue-in-cheek manner. Honestly, in my personal vocabulary the word "rockstar" tends to be more of a derogatory term reserved for someone who thinks more highly of themselves than they ought ("Oh look at that guy... he thinks he's a rockstar!"). However, the truth of the matter is that there is a lot about my life right now that resembles the life of a rockstar (just not the A-level U2 or Tim McGraw rockstars).

Who Is Normal Rockstar?

I'm back. I'm sorry it's been so long... I took a rather impromptu, not-completely-intended hiatus from blogging for the last week and it's been rather nice. I've really just been trying to get reacquainted with my wife this last week since we returned home from an intense 6-day work trip (she travels with me, but that sure doesn't mean we see much of each other each day!), and it's been great.

So when I told her this morning that I needed some time to post a blog, she said, "What are you going to blog about? Why don't you tell them about your life? Don't they want to know who Normal Rockstar is?"

Well - it's rather presumptuous of me to assume that you DO want to know who Normal Rockstar is, but I guess I'll write the post and you can tell me in the comments if you NEVER want a post like this again. This may actually be interesting for some of you as you've recently become readers and haven't really figured out who the guy behind the blog is yet.

4 Days in Ireland: Day 3

Wednesday morning - the morning of the show - we woke up still not knowing if the show was actually going to happen. After talking with Philip, we moved forward as if it WAS going to happen - they had seen some movement that morning (it turns out a high ranking official in the Irish government was a Christian and had some family members who had purchased tickets to come to the concert that night, so he started pushing things through quickly) and while there was still no guarantee that everything would come through in time, things were looking a lot better than they were the day before. We were picked up by the bus to take us to the venue around 2pm. The Odyssey Arena in Belfast is the premier arena venue in all of Northern Ireland. And the funny thing is, the first time we were in Northern Ireland with Philip we drove past the arena on our way to Ballymena and he joked, "One day I'm going to have you guys play in there!" We all had a great laugh... and just a couple of years later, there we were.

Normal Rockstar Picks a Fight

downhere was on Total Axxess last night, and I found myself picking a fight with Wally the host (he was trash talking Jason for some reason and I thought it was time I stepped in). Here's the fight - I cleaned his clock!

4 Days in Northern Ireland: Day 2

Tuesday was when things started to get crazy. We slept in and had a late breakfast at the hotel. During breakfast we got a phone call from Philip's mom (Philip is the promoter of the show, in case you forgot) informing us that Chris and his band were stuck in Immigration at the Belfast airport and chances were pretty good that they would be denied entry into the country.

And the praying began.

Very quickly our day of sightseeing turned into a day of praying for divine intervention and entertaining ourselves at the hotel (click here to see what a whole day in a hotel will do to you!). Interestingly enough, Philip's company is named atiG Events - the atiG stands for "Always Trust in God". It was as if the Lord was testing to see if they really believed their namesake.

4 Days in Northern Ireland: Day 1

Well, I told you I had a story for you, and here it is... It's going to come at you in pieces as I obviously don't do a very good job of recounting tales such as this briefly (plus, I want to be able to remember the whole trip when I look back in a few years and read these entries). If you want a condensed version of the story from the perspective of one of my favorite Irishmen, click here.

Sometimes things just don't work out how we expect. I had grandiose intentions of blogging daily from Northern Ireland last week - I was there with downhere to open for Chris Tomlin in the Odyssey, Northern Belfast's premier venue. We flew into Dublin Monday morning and took a shuttle bus two and a half hours north to Belfast where we were picked up by our good friend Philip, who was also the promoter for the event. (Note to travellers: if you're looking at doing any cross Atlantic flights any time soon, I would NOT recommend flying Continental unless the price is just too good to beat. This was my first time flying to Europe with them, and it wasn't terribly pleasant - tight seats, old-school planes and entertainment systems... I will work hard to find other options before I book a long flight on Continental again.)

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