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MercyMe

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Greenville, TX

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Christian & Gospel

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MercyMe

As the tried-and-true saying goes, when an orange is squeezed, orange juice comes out; because that is what’s inside. So what happens when a band finds itself under remarkable pressure, having to express an entire album in just three weeks with not one note of it yet written? What comes out? In the case of MercyMe (“I Can Only Imagine”), it’s All That Is Within Me, the strongest and most deliberately worshipful release in the multi-platinum rock act’s career yet. And the story behind that time crunch is further indicative of all that is now within MercyMe. ��We thought we’d be able to write new songs on tour, but that notion has become absurd for us,” admits lead singer Bart Millard. Guitarist Mike Scheuchzer explains. “Besides all the work that goes along with being on the road, we’re all married and have ten kids among us now, none over the age of five. Life is busier than ever before. So this time around, when the tour ended, we realized we were due back in a recording studio in less than a month, and we had nothing!” Instinctively, MercyMe hauled its gear from the tour bus back into a Sunday school room at a church in its hometown of Greenville, Texas, where the guys banged out fresh ideas after a much-needed week of rest with their families. From there, the group met up with venerable producer Brown Bannister (Amy Grant) in the woods of Idaho at a way-off-the-beaten-path studio called Cider Mountain Recorders. “I know . . . who goes to Idaho to make an album?” laughs Millard. “But it was amazing. Surrounded by nature, we’d see deer and turkeys just walking past the windows as we recorded. And it was really awesome to be able to put everything else aside. We needed to hunker down and get all the pieces together in just a couple of weeks.” ��We ultimately said, ‘Let’s just make a record that comes out of our hearts,’” Millard says. “Among the six of us, we love all kinds of different music, but the more worshipful moments in any song always lead to our favorite moments on stage.” Quite poetically, the hurriedness behind All That Is Within Me led to a couple of its most gripping tunes. “You Reign” is the result of an iChat between Millard and one of his musical heroes and friends, Steven Curtis Chapman. Mentioning MercyMe’s rush for new material, Chapman shared a song idea he’d been unable to complete himself. In no time, the band coupled its creativity with the concept and had a huge worship anthem that will be the project’s second single. Album closer “Finally Home” was written on the spot in Idaho when Millard heard guitarists Scheuchzer and Barry Graul improvising on a simple yet stirring acoustic riff. Returning to the deep well of emotion that comes from losing a loved one, the singer writes more about the passing of his father from cancer that happened when Bart was a senior in high school. I��m gonna wrap my arms around my daddy’s neck and tell him that I’ve missed him. And tell him all about the man that I became and hope that it pleased him . . . When I finally make it home. “I wrote the first line and just started bawling,” Millard says. “Then we played it for our producer, and he started bawling. I wasn’t sure if the song would fit on the album, but Brown said, ‘You just made a grown man cry. It’s going on the record.’” Indeed, countless listeners first met MercyMe through the account of Bart’s father which inspired the band’s 2001 breakthrough hit, “I Can Only Imagine.” The song about heaven continues to comfort grieving people everywhere and is still a favorite on radio playlists nationwide today.

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