Interview with Mike Crawford (Part 1)

November 28th, 2008 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0) |

The following is Part 1 (Part 2) of an interview with Mike Crawford about his album Mike Crawford and his Secret Siblings present Songs from Jacob’s Well, Volumes I & II: Even the Darkness Will Not Be Dark To You. You can read my review of the album here. Mike is the Worship/Arts Pastor at Jacob’s Well, an emerging church in Kansas City, MO. For more information about Jacob’s Well, visit their website or check out this article from the Christian Century.

For the record, all hyperlinks in this interview were provided by Mike, not myself.

JAKE BOUMA: First, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Let’s begin by getting to know you a bit. How did you get into music?

MIKE CRAWFORD: I got into music pretty early. It was probably a combination of a few things that culminated in my playing guitar. My parents were really into Texas Blues… they used to have friends over every Friday night to play dominos, drink wine and then dance till midnight to the “three Kings” — Freddie, Albert & B.B. In addition to my parents’ blues influence, I became obsessed with Elvis the year he died. I had just turned 10 that year. Somehow I got completely obsessed with his music and then all other late 50’s/early 60’s music. My parents took me to a Chuck Berry concert that fall and we sat in the front row — and that was “it” for me; somehow something clicked that night, I knew I had to play guitar. I saved up my allowance and bought an old Silvertone acoustic at a pawn shop and went to the library and got a Mel Bay book of chords. I proceeded to teach myself to play. After a year of persistence, my parents gave me a year or two of guitar lessons.

My sixth grade year, my Aunt Donna gave me The Beatles “White Album” and I was done for again. I fully entered the world of music — most of it through her and my uncle’s record collection — Jimi Hendrix, Van Morrison, The Beatles, Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band, Elvis Costello, Devo, Tom Petty, B-52s… they were hippies who were also into new wave! Oh yeah, the first “album” I bought was KISS’ Alive II… I joined the KISS army in 5th grade… it was all happening around that period for me… 10, 11, 12. I joined my first “band” in 7th grade — we were called Savage! I have played in some sort of band (mostly) ever since then. I played in a band called The Spin at Baylor University in the late 80’s and then ended up touring the country with that band for 3 years after college.

JAKE: So how did you get involved with Jacob’s Well?

MIKE: After that college/post-college phase, I really didn’t play too much music for about seven years. I entered a “desert” period during my late 20’s — doing a job I didn’t enjoy (computer programming) and not really playing much music. I had been living in Kansas City for a couple of years and was discipling a group of guys. Most of them were part of the core group that helped launch Jacob’s Well. They would always bug me about leading worship at Jacob’s, but I was pretty involved at another church, and honestly, had never led worship before. After singing at one of those guy’s wedding, I met Tim Keel. We struck up a fast friendship and a year later I found myself unemployed and seeking a new direction in life. Tim told me he and a few others had been praying for 6 months about asking me to lead worship at Jacob’s Well on a part-time basis. I had been praying for about 7 years for God to move me out of the corporate world and into a vocation involving “music and ministry”. I had no idea what that would be. I also talked to Tim about some ideas I had about starting a recording studio. I also told him about a new band I had formed called Builder. We talked at great length about the reality of the shifts into post-modernity, a new thinking of missional living, a new way of thinking of evangelism, a new way of thinking about lot’s of things! We decided pretty quickly to try to incorporate all of this (worship leading, studio, rock band playing in the local scene) into a full-time position at the church.

We ended up, with the grace of God’s help, fundraising a big chunk of my salary and all the funds necessary to begin work on building and equipping a recording studio. At that time, I was 34 years old, married, with two kids and a third on the way. It really didn’t make much sense to many people as a realistic career move. I mean, most worship leaders are in their twenties and don’t need much to survive. This was going to have to be something very different. I think the church was about 75 people strong when I started. It was definitely a stretch and a risk, both on my part and on the church’s part. I’m so thankful that it’s ended up working out. I can’t think of a better job!

JAKE: “Songs from Jacob’s Well” is unlike any other worship music on the market today. How would you describe the sound of the album? What kind of sound were you aiming to create?

MIKE: I knew I wanted to create something that sounded different than the “Nashville-machine” music that dominates most worship records. Even the best worship records tend to have a sound that is same-ish. I’m not saying those records sound “bad”, in fact most of them have great sounds — huge drums, giant guitars, amazing vocal sounds. They just sort of strike me as being on the dull side.

The music that moves me is more creative, earthy, noisy, old or even more grandiose than what I’d experienced when listening to worship music. I wanted to make a record that I enjoyed listening to.

My reference points for the album were The Beatles’ White Album and Sigor Ros’ takk record. Those records are quite different, but both have elements that really draw me in as a listener. They are also both quite layered and a bit experimental. I also really love jazz and classical music, and I knew I wanted some elements of those types of music melded in, too. In addition, I listen to lots of field recordings or found-sound kinds of recordings. Some of the work of a guitarist named Steve Tibbets has these elements, also a collective called Set Fire To Flames use these kinds of recording techniques. Brian Eno is also a big influence, especially his ambient recordings – Discreet Music, Thursday Afternoon, those kinds of things. Talk Talk’s The Spirit of Eden is another huge touchstone for me, although the JW cd doesn’t sound anything like that record. Another thing that has influenced me over the past few years is the music of Iceland, especially Sigur Ros and múm.

Click here to continue to Part 2 of the interview »