8 May 2008
An Interview with Ben Shive
by Jeff Bourque
On Sunday, May 11th at 6 p.m., we will have the Future Grace Celebration Concert to celebrate Future Grace and all that it means for our congregation. During the concert, you will have the opportunity to see David Spencer, Ben Shive, Wendy Wills, Laurianne Cates, Josh Wilson, and Paul Bogart perform some of their songs with a full band. The remainder of this post is an interview with Ben Shive. Check this site later this week for interviews with the other artists.
Ben came to Nashville from St. Louis to attend Belmont University. After graduation, he soon became a right hand man for Andrew Peterson, a well-known grassroots Christian artist. It wasn’t long before he was producing Andrew’s records, playing piano on other artist’s albums, and producing more CDs. He lives south of town with his wife, Beth, and their three kids, Jude, Lucy, and Ezra.
How long have you been at Grace, and what brought you to the church?
I’ve been at grace since I moved to Nashville in the Fall of 1999. Grace was the second church I visited. Expository preaching, Valley of Vision readings, Barbara’s vibrato. It was an easy sell.
You’ve done quite a bit of production/studio work (including Grace Community Church’s “Waves of Grace”, Andrew Peterson records, and several others), but have been writing songs on the side and working on an album of your own. What’s the difference in your mind between the support/production creative role and writing and producing stuff of your own?
When I work on other people’s records I’m trying to put myself in their shoes so that I can help them understand themselves musically and find a voice to say what it is they mean to say. It’s like I’m doing impressions–trying to make my “voice” sound like theirs. That’s part of the fun of my job, actually. But writing and producing my own songs is very enjoyable and liberating for me because I get to speak in my own voice and on my own terms. When I’m working with other people’s songs, sometimes I’m reluctant to take big risks and make bold musical statements. I liken it to how you pull punches when you’re roughhousing with somebody else’s kid. I know these people’s songs mean the world to them so I don’t want to show some kind of disregard for their babies by monkeying around too much. But I want the music I write to be as bold and unorthodox as possible. And when it comes to producing the songs I write, I just don’t really have any fears and I’m certainly not protective. I’ve been producing this first record with my friend Cason and I keep asking him “how can we mess this song up?” I want to turn a song upside down to see if I can shake a little extra change out of the pockets.
Sadly, the other main difference between working on my stuff and other people’s is that I always find time for other people’s projects while mine sits on the back burner. What an Eeyore thing to say, but it’s true! I want to get this record out for the world to hear but it’s always the still, small voice and therefore the easiest to ignore. I believe that’s called the tyranny of the urgent.
We are very appreciative of your work on the “Waves of Grace” album, which some have said truly captures the essence of worship at Grace. What made you want to work on the record, and what was your vision behind the production?
I approached Jeff Bourque about working on the Grace record after I had an epiphany of sorts about giving. I was thinking about Dave Wills and how beautiful it is that he’s able to serve Grace (and, by extension, God) with his profession. And that reminded me of how the Jews were told to bring the first and best of their crops and livestock to God. This seemed like such an organic mode of giving to me and it appealed to the side of my brain that likes to think of the musical work that I do in terms of planting seeds, cultivating a crop, and reaping a harvest. So I brainstormed about how I might give the first fruits of my work as a producer to Grace and the first thing that came to mind was that I could maybe lend a hand on the next worship record, which I knew was coming up soon. Jeff was kind enough to let me hop on board. He didn’t know he was doing me a favor.
Jeff brought me sushi from Publix one day and we sat down with Scott Patty to talk about what would be “Waves Of Grace.” Scott listened to whatever-the-heck I had to say. Most of it was probably technical and sort of irrelevant to him. His response, nearly the only thing he said in the whole meeting, was that he wanted two things from this record: he wanted it to sound like Grace and he wanted it to make people feel welcome to sing along. So that became my mission statement. To accomplish this, I knew my work needed to be totally transparent. That makes me sound like a ninja or something. But I really didn’t want there to be a moment on the record where the listener was aware of the production. That would break the spell.
Initially I wanted to record the whole thing in the sanctuary, but that proved impractical, so we tracked in a nice studio with a great engineer friend of mine. All the players were Grace people of course. We did plenty of overdubs and I edited the fire out of those tracks, let me tell you. But we didn’t do some of the things that typically make a record sound produced, like doubling vocals and guitars, adding all kinds of effects in the mix, that kind of thing. And throughout the process, Jeff and I knew that the congregational recording was our ace in the hole. We gathered as many people as we could in the sanctuary one night (if you were there, thank you), set up mics all over the place and played all the tracks over the speakers while they sang along. We encouraged them not to sing any prettier than they’d sing on a Sunday morning, but to sing for goodness’ sake. And they did. I think it’s that, more than anything, that makes the record sound like Grace and makes you want to sing along.
I have to mention a funny story that came out of the congregational recording session. In addition to having them sing along with the record, we recorded the group reading passages from Romans 8, which we then used on the album as segues between songs. I listened back to the scripture readings a couple of days later to see what we had got. At one point something caught my ear so I rewound a bit to see if I had imagined it. But sure enough, right in the middle of that great passage about nothing separating us from the love of Christ, was a woman (I know not who) saying, “This is a LONG verse!” And she must have been right in front of the mic, because it couldn’t have been any louder, really. Don’t ask how I got it out of there.
What songs can we look forward to hearing at Sunday’s concert (with a short explanation of each)?
Rise Up: I made the mistake of tuning into talk radio one day and not five minutes later I was praying for the apocalypse. I won’t say which party they were leaning toward, but it doesn’t matter. They’re both lying. Who can you trust when everyone lies to protect his own interests? When will the truth finally come out? Just thinking about it paralyses me. But then I pray with the Psalmist “Arise, O Lord in your anger. Awake, my God!” And I wait for the day of his return.
New Year: I wrote this song after I realized I’d been withholding my unconditional favor from Beth and decided to stop that nonsense.
She Is The Rising Sun: In which the Moon confesses his love for our local hero, the Sun.
Category: Invitations.
