Robbie Seay Gives It All Away
08-31-2007
by Kevan Breitinger

Give Yourself Away, new from the Robbie Seay Band, positively drips with encouraging sincerity, so I expected Robbie to have big heart. I was not disappointed. After our recent conversation, I was only more inspired to go out and figure out more about how my own faith could change the world.

 

 

CMCentral.com (Kevan Breitinger) : Hey Robbie, how you doing?

Robbie Seay (Vocalist/guitarist, Robbie Seay Band): Doing well, thanks for calling. I’ve got a little bit of a cold so I’ll try not to sound like a goofball this morning.

Well, I can’t promise that.

(laughing) Yeah, you’ve got no control over that.

(Laughing) That’s right, it’s out of my hands. Listen, I’ve been listening to Give Yourself Away, and really liking it so very much. Also liking that your music is so intentional. I’m wondering, how satisfied are you with the way you’ve managed to get your message across with the new album?

We’re really satisfied with it. We feel like this is the first collection of songs that feels complete in a lot of ways. I don’t know if that makes sense, but lyrically and musically it really feels like the songs relate to each other. In the past it felt more like ‘trying to make a record, trying to make that quota of songs,’ whatever. This one was much more intentional.

We spent longer on this record than on anything we’ve ever done. We’ve been making records independently for a while, before making the Sparrow records. As far as the message and what we wanted it to be, it really came together. We’re really proud of it.

So it sounds like there was kind of a spiritual flow to it too?

We knew that we wanted to talk about several things, the first of which was hope. We wanted this to be a hopeful collection of songs, that people would be able to sense the hope of God in these songs. The second emphasis was mission. We get to live out our faith in Houston as a band and in our church. When we began to live out our mission, that’s really when our faith began to come alive. So we knew that we wanted those two things to come across on the record. And for the most part, we feel like they did.

Absolutely, I felt like it came across strongly. And actually, that’s a big part of what blessed me about it. I felt very motivated to press in harder to God to find an answer to my own question of where am I supposed to be serving. Listening intently to the album really challenged me.

That’s great, thank you.

So I guess part of what you’re trying to come against is our culture’s apathy and self-absorption. I know I feel like that’s really what has to die in me. Do you feel like God’s been speaking anything specifically to you about how to come against that?

"I wonder what my faith looks like when I begin to give of myself?"

I think so. I think as a starting place we’re called to speak against our own. Realizing that though we know God and have encountered God, until we’re really serving in the context of our communities, giving of our time and our energy and our finances, letting our lives be turned over to God…. I’m still trying to figure right now, what does this really look like? What does this whole ‘following Jesus’ thing really mean? I think that’s where we start. And so I hope that people can go, ‘I hear what you say, and I wonder what that looks like in my own life? I wonder what my faith really looks like when I begin to give of myself?’ But it definitely wasn’t a thing where we were hoping to change the world; I think it was more of a thing where we were hoping God might change us in the process.

That’s usually where it starts.

Yeah, so I’m hoping that people go ‘I’m sensing there’s more to this faith thing that what we would call the Americanization of Christianity.’ You know, where it’s all about me, and all about my needs, but no, there’s more. Look at Jesus, He hung out with the losers of society, He hung out with the ill, and He served. When He came to this earth He served, and he gave of Himself. So that’s kind of where we started, and I hope the music goes beyond that.

Yeah, I like the way you put that. You mentioned community; how did your community impact the new album?

Probably in the same way it impacted all of our other music, it’s such a big part of who we are. We’ve been a part of that church for eight years now. It’s our big fat dose of reality, you know? Sometimes when you travel and play music you get skewed ideas of who you are and the value that you bring to the world, you know what I mean? And being back home is a great way to see it’s not necessarily about you and the music that you make. But we’ve been able to jump into our community and serve alongside them. A lot of these songs came from conversations and relationships, experiences there, so obviously it’s a huge part of who we are.

Yeah, you get home and it’s time to take the trash out, right?

Yeah, (laughing), exactly! Or in my house, change some diapers.

You have young kids?

Yeah, I have a 5 year old, a 3 year old, and a one and a half year old.

Oh wow, that’s a lot of diapers, and a lot of fun.

It’s a lot of fun, and a lot of chaos. Except for my wife, my wife is a pretty special lady.

That’s OK, brother, wait ‘til they’re teenagers. Then you’ll be looking back and longing for these days!

Oh wow, I’ll be calling you (laughing). Do you have teenagers?

I actually have four.

Oh yeah, I’ll be calling you.

Yeah, but I’ll have absolutely no brain cells left by then (laughing). So Robbie, tell me: I was really struck by the song “Go Outside,” and I wondered if you could tell me a little bit about Ecclesia’s efforts in Africa.

The song kind of has two special kinds of meanings to us. We began to get involved at church with the efforts to provide clean water around the world, Africa being one of the main spots we work in. We partner with a group called Living Water (http://www.water.cc ) , a great organization that basically digs wells for people that need clean water. My brother, who is our pastor, really got us motivated as we realized how many folks don’t have access to clean water. In Africa I think a child dies every 20 seconds from just lack of clean water. That song came to life around that time, when we were discovering all that. About a month later, Katrina hit in Louisiana, and we had about 200,000 folks come over to Houston from New Orleans.

So for the first time I began to see two things happen:  the government kind of failed, and the church really picked up the burden, to care for people and love on them. And I don’t just mean in my city or cities along the Gulf Coast, but I mean everywhere. We really got to be in the middle of that so that song has a special meaning in the sense that you begin to see how people are left out in our society, for whatever reason: social class, skin color, band account, whatever it is. Maybe not intentionally, but in our society, we exclude, on one big exclusion scale. But as we look at the Gospel, it’s pretty clear, that love is inclusive, nobody is outside of those walls. So that songs does have a special meaning to me, and a pretty simple message from Psalms 149 and 150. From those studies, and those experiences, that song came to life.

Well, is there anything else that you wanted to make sure we covered today?

One other thing that we’re excited about doing is the label is allowing us to give some music away, which is something we’ve always wanted to do. So we’re giving away two free songs off the record, at www.freersb.com. I’m excited about that because I think it gives people a chance to be introduced to the music. We’ve had a great response to that, and we’re very excited about that.

I’m not surprised, Robbie, it’s a great album, one of my favorite so far this year. And not just for the music, but for the message and the way it’s impacted me, as I shared. Thanks for all you’re doing to build up the Kingdom.

Thanks for spending time with our music, it means so much to us.

Ok, Robbie, go change some diapers now, see ya.

You bet, thanks a lot.