Learning to Lose with The Turning
06-20-2006
by Brenten Gilbert

The second release from young RKT Music comes from a group known as The Turning. Learning to Lose hit shelves on 6 June 2006 and has already made an impact with listeners.

CMCentral.com sat down with The Turning during GMA Week to discuss the new album, their current single ("Out of My Hands") , the process it took the band to get to this place, and more. Below is that interview.

CMCentral.com (brenten gilbert): How are you guys doing?

Jacob McGinnis: We are doing great man

So you guys have a new album coming out. Do you want to go ahead and just talk about that a little bit?

Matt Warren: Yeah, new album, Learning to Lose, comes out June 6th. It's our debut album. We spent the last five years working things out and going through the struggles that a band goes through. Just in the past year things started to come together and June 6th is when it comes out.

So what's going on with the album. How's it sound in your opinion? What kind of themes do you see?

We were fortunate enough that Jeff our drummer actually grew up with a guy named Nathan Dantzler who's a terrific and amazing producer. So when it came time to do an album, we had a great contact with him. We had already worked on a couple of small projects with him. So we went to him and started working on the new album and he really helped us out and gave us a great direction. What came about is a wonderfully well written album with a lot of great songs. Some great pop songs, some great rock-n -roll tunes. There is even a little bit of worship laced in there as well.

It's great because it really reaches listeners on a multitude of levels. After a casual listen, you go, "Wow! This music feels great - the melodies are catchy, the band sounds great." But if you want to really dig into it, there are a ton of benefits for repeat listeners. There are a lot of really catchy, melodic musical spots, but if you take the time to investigate the lyrics. . . It's a great first listen, but when you come through the second and third time, you go, "Wow! There are some really powerful thoughts and encouraging words here." We wanted to release a record that people can identify with instantly and then really latch onto as you listen to the record for the first couple of weeks. We just want it to sit and resonate with people because I think there is a lot to it.

That's cool. So you mentioned some band struggles, anything in particular?

Obviously, there are certain struggles that you'll go through when you first come together as a group, but I think the biggest struggle that we went through brought us to where we are now. When we came together as a group, we really didn't have a focus. We were just trying to write cool songs and some of them had Christian influences in them because we are Christian guys, but some of them didn't, so there was just no focus. Over the course of a few years we just started to realize that God's hand wasn't on it. We thought that we were following our dreams and that God would have His hand on it, but He didn't. That's a great thing about what God does. He allows us to put in all of our efforts and energies into something and He'll just watch us do it. He'll let it fail. And when it fails and we are broken, He sweeps in and shows us what He's got planned for our lives. That is kind of what happened with us. After three years, we sat down and we weren't sure if we were going to continue on - we thought it might be time to hang up our hat and call it quits - and Jeff said, "Guys, I'm going to take off to Nashville. I'm going to do music whether you guys are coming or not." So we sat down and had a long meeting and talked a lot of things through.

Jeff Goff: I was really surprised when I had already moved up here and found out that it really sparked a fire [within the band]. Just a couple of weeks later, I was hanging out with Jeremy and we were playing with another friend of ours. We were playing some music at a show and [Jeremy, Matt and Jacob] were all thinking about moving up to Nashville. I thought that it was a pretty big commitment. I thought I was going to move up by myself, just see what I could do up here. Maybe not necessarily being in a band but just doing anything in music, whether it was doing some studio work or anything I could get my hands into. Then they all came up and everything just started progressing extremely fast from that point on. So it was a really big commitment. I was really excited at that time.

Band struggles, wow. Community. Communication. Treating each other well. We've been great friends since we were younger, but it's still such a struggle when you go on the road. You want to understand each other, but when somebody has an idea of how something should be done - even as simple as backing up the trailer - and you have these strong personalities. We all want to do something our own way.

We are all full grown men, we have our own ideas. We are all type A.

To get the personalities and to understand that I can look at this with "right and wrong" glasses and say that there is a right and a wrong way. Or I can try to evaluate [the situation] and ask if it's working or not working. The name of the record, Learning to Lose, comes from the thought that sometimes its not about being right or wrong. It's not about compromise in a negative way, but in order for relationships to work effectively.

Community.

I might have to give in on some stuff. It's not always about me being right or you being wrong, it's about us working together to make something work. That's kind of where the title, Learning to Lose, comes from. Relationships are not always about a victory, they are about working together and going deeper with each other. Learning how to be kind to each other and encouraging through the struggles. . . this is the stuff we are really learning heavy right now.

So do you guys think you really have it in you to last for a long time together?

Yeah, we've talked longevity since the day the band got together. Of course nobody wants to be a flash in the pan or a one hit wonder. I think from the beginning that we understood that one of the keys to longevity, besides the relationships, is the songwriting. You got to write songs that are timeless. If you want to write a song that is relevant, as far as the theme and the lyrics of the song and how it strikes people, it has to be cross generational, it's got to meet a lot of people. If it's a 90s rock song or an 80s rock song, obviously production has a hand in that. From the beginning, we've wanted to write songs that are going to be relevant for a while and continue writing songs like that. Plus the relationship aspect. We want to be around and do this for a while because we enjoy doing it and we enjoy being with each other. We are great friends and we want to continue doing this.

So who writes all the songs, is it a collaborative effort?

Mostly the two of us. Jake comes from a strong songwriter background. He used to be a solo artist, a café singer. Since I was twelve years old, I've been writing guitar parts. We came together collectively and it just turned in to this really cool music. Because he was a singer songwriter Jeff was really pushing to get Jake into the band, saying that he could write our lyrics and the melody. . .

We knew him. He was a close friend for a long time.

I wasn't sure he could write rock songs though, since he was playing little acoustic songs about puppy dogs and butterflies. . .

(laughs)

I knew he could do it. I knew he should be there for us.

(laughs)

What kind of happens when we do music, when we put our songs together, is that Matt will come up with a hook, a basic idea. Then we'll bring that into a practice situation. We'll play around with it a bit, just trying to lay out the structure of the song - Jeremy and I do a lot of the structuring - and then Jake just takes it once the music, structure, and the song is already set and then he spends a lot of time writing those lyrics. It almost seems like a backwards style of writing, but it's been a really good process for us.

When the band was initially formed, they were playing together and doing their music and I was out singing songs by myself. So when I came into the situation, they gave me a lot of music that they'd been working on. They didn't have anybody singing or any melodies, so they had to create music that was interesting in and of itself, even without the lyric and melody on top of it. They brought me into the picture and I focused on making sure that the lyrics and the melody were strong. So when you mesh them together, it was just kind of a cool marriage.

So are you guys going out on tour soon?

We are putting a lot of stuff together. We are lining up dates in June to go promote the record release. There is a really big push. We are trying to get some dates together with a really big tour in August. We just really got all of this stuff together. We didn't sign the record deal until February and didn't have a booking agent until a couple weeks after that, so we are still putting pieces of the puzzle together. But we have faith that God is going to fill in those missing pieces. If we can get a chance to get out and promote the message we are trying to communicate. . .

Everything has been moving fairly fast since February so it's been really good.

You can keep up with our schedule on MySpace - myspace.com/theturning. We'll keep the dates posted.

So how about some fun questions?

All right.

There are many ways to prepare eggs, what type of preparation of eggs would typify . . .

Dude just scrambled with cheese, that's all you need on eggs.

I like eggs cooked over medium, I like them in a sandwich too.

Scrambled, that's all I do.

Over easy, a little toast, work with the yoke.

A little pre-Madonna too.

See, they like to hang out in the kitchen a lot.

I cook breakfast almost on a daily basis. Breakfast is my favorite meal, bacon, eggs, coffee, juice.

He drinks a lot of coffee too.

What television shows do you guys like to watch?

Grey's Anatomy.

Grey's Anatomy, Scrubs, CSI - any CSI but New York. New York is horrible. They are Vegas guys, I'm a Miami guy, to be honest. I like the scenery better in Miami. . . ocean, blue skies. . .

I like watching Conan O'Brien.

Okay. . .

(laughs)

I highly enjoy Sportscenter. I get a dose of Sportscenter every day. Maybe two or three episodes straight even . . .

It's the same thing. . .

But you'll get something you missed cause you were getting juice or something then.

(laughs)

It's like the band's second job to know how many yards so and so has had in the last Eagles game.

We like sports.

What teams do you guys follow then?

We are Titans fans.

Jeremy Little: Broncos fans.

Broncos fans?

Bronco fan, I guess.

NBA, the Dallas Mavericks. College football, I'm a UT fan, I'll be honest. But I'm down with any SEC team.

I'm a big Nebraska fan and LSU.

For pro baseball, of course, we've got to go with the Braves.

Atlanta Braves all the way, except that they never do it.

We are so competitive. Any time we hang out with the youth group, if we are there for more than a day, we challenge them to dodge ball or ultimate Frisbee. We always want to be playing something. If we're not playing music, we're playing some type of sport. We just love good competition and a good game on TV. We love to hang out and watch sports with each other - except for Jeff, he gets a little crazy.

(laughs)

We've yet to lose that is why we are Learning to Lose.

There you go

(laughs)

Last GMA Week, we were here as an independent band and we took time out to watch the Masters as Tiger Woods sank the last little putt, it was amazing.

(laughs)

We are totally not talking about the stuff we are suppose to be talking about - the record, the single. . .

Okay, talk about the single then, what's going on with that?

The first single - we've never had a CD for a single to release - is called "Out of My Hands." It's a really cool track. It's kind of the story of how we put a lot of efforts into stuff in life. Jake hit on this earlier, with the dreams we feel that maybe God has planned for us. It's the point where those thing get exhausted and God steps in and shows you what He really has for us. And that's so much better than what you could have conjured up on your own. The song is just about how God is in control and so often He has to save us from ourselves. The things we hold onto so dearly are sometimes not the things that God wants us to be pursuing. He's got a really cool plan for us, we just have to be open to that.

Anything else?

Just that the record is going to be pretty beneficial. It's encouraging. There are a lot of heart stories on there and I think it's going to mean a lot to people on many different levels. We are excited about that. We can't wait to get feedback and to have people encouraged by what we are doing. We hope that everyone latches onto the message we are sharing.

For more information on The Turning, visit TurningMusic.com, MySpace.com/TheTurning, or RKTMusic.com