An art-to-heart with Mike Weaver
10-23-2006
by Brenten Gilbert

Big Daddy Weave just released their fourth album for Fervent Records. Every Time I Breathe is a musical picture of how Christians should incorporate worship into everything that they do.

Recently, Mike Weaver, lead singer and songwriter for the group, gave me a call and, after verifying his identity, we chatted for a bit about the album, their current tour with Mark Schultz, worship, and much, much more. Below is the transcript from our conversation for your reading pleasure.

Mike Weaver: Hey man, how are you bro?

CMCentral.com (brenten gilbert):Good, how are doing?

I'm doing a'ight!

You are the Mike Weaver from Big Daddy Weave and not just some random Mike Weaver, right?

I'm. . . yeah, I'm just a random Mike Weaver calling you up. I was actually going to try and sell you some phone cards, man.

Oh, I've heard that's a good investment.

(laughs)

Totally, dude.

Well, hey, it's Friday the thirteenth, so I guess anything can happen.

Woah, I didn't even realize that, man. Holy cow, that is totally right.

And you're doing a show tonight, too.

Yeah, we're down in Jacksonville today. Dude, this church that we're at, bro, it is like, huge man. I can't wait to go in and check it out, 'cause it looks like a hospital. Man, it's just a really big, big place.

Are you used to a smaller church then?

You know, traditionally, where I grew up and where I would attend, you know, was pretty chilled out. Yeah, so somewhere between 300 and 1000 mark, kind of. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, that's not too bad.

Yeah, and I've been to some bigger churches before, but this is really. . . Golly, this one's mammoth, dude.

It's the big leagues.

This is something man. Last time we played a church this big, they stuck is in the gymnasium.

That's cool. This tour is with Mark Schultz. How's that working out?

Absolutely, it's the Broken and Beautiful Tour. We didn't know what they were meaning at first when we were asked to open up for the Broken and Beautiful Tour, you know what I'm saying? It was like, are we the broken and are you saying that Mark is beautiful or what's going on here?

(laughs)

So we heard the song a little later on and then we were less scared with the idea and yeah, it's been a blast so far. Dude, (laughs) Mark Schultz is hilarious (laughs) I mean, he's a really funny dude, like all the time. It's always on. That's what kills me is because we go out there and man, he's so funny and he's really connecting with these people and then all of a sudden he starts dropping these, like, tear-jerking songs, you know? We're standing there on the side of the stage, he came over and kind of introduced the show and he played this tune from his new record called "Walking Her Home" and man, I'm telling you. . .

Everyone cries. . .

I felt like he had just robbed me of my manhood right there, you know what I'm saying. I was fully. . . I was just overwhelmed. You know, anyone who's married and you know, has kind of been through everything that goes along with that. . . It really just. . . Gosh. He's a really talented guy. He's not just tugging on the heart strings, it's like a full-blown tire swing and he's just swinging on them. You know what I'm saying, it's like, Golly.

Yeah, I talked to him about a week ago, and I asked him the same thing, like, how can you be such a funny guy and yet be such a "downer" when you write songs?

(laughs)

Everybody's just like crying and every man in there is just trying to hide somehow from everybody else in the place, you're just like, "oh man."

So has he played any backstage pranks on you, yet? Seems inevitable.

No, not yet, thank the Lord. And we try not to do any ourselves, because we know that what goes around definitely comes back around. And it ususally comes around right when you didn't want it to. Right when you're in front of everybody. I wonder, though, if it's just still too early in the tour. I know we'll think of something. Well, I know we did this one thing, but it wasn't on the stage. Our band's mascot thing is this taxidermy-ed mountain cat, you know what I'm saying?

All right.

We found it in this closet somewhere and this guy just gave it to us or whatever. It's been on the bus for a while and we've all gotten used to it 'cause it's like, the pose that they have it fixed in is some sort of growling position. So, it's showing it's teeth and all this stuff. It's the real thing, but it's been forever, uh, I don't know, whatever they do at the taxidermy place, they did that to it and it's permanent. So, we would put it in each other's bunks for a while, but now that we have other people out on tour with us, we started putting it in their bunks. (laughs) So when they go to climb into bunk, they pull it back and there'd be this thing looking like it was gonna get them, man. And that's been pretty awesome actually. Mark, you know, Mark didn't like that thing in his bunk at all, man.

(laughs)

Kind of because it has real hair and everything, he was pretty grossed out by it, so that was pretty funny.

There you go. Well, now you gotta watch your back.

Yeah, no doubt dude, no doubt.

Alright, so what happens every time you breathe?

Man, every time I breathe, I get a little bit closer. I never wanna leave, I wanna stay in your warm embrace. . . I'm telling you, we could just sing the whole song, right here, dude.

(laughs)

I don't know. For us. . . well, Big Daddy Weave has been around for the past few years and every album we've put out has been about our relationship with God. It's about knowing God and the fact that Jesus has, with His own blood, paid for this relationship that He's pulling us in to. And it's not just a weekend and middle of the week relationship. It's a moment-by-moment relationship, you know? So we just started thinking about things that happen naturally when you're alive. It's like, you breathe. If you're alive, you breathe and if you don't, you're really in trouble. Something's really wrong. (laughs) You're not going to be alive much longer. It's the same thing. If you're alive in Christ then you're encountering Him and so, it was just like breathing and it was just that picture. Instead of just saying "worship God" again, it's just that this may be a picture of worship.

So what would you say a lifestyle of worship actually looks like?

You know, it can be different with each person that you look at because, see, that's the amazing thing about being the body of Christ is that we all have differnt parts. We're all called to different things and some of us maybe are called to similar things and that's why we're put together in this time or whatever. But I think truly that some people are called do what we do maybe, some people are called to. . . Like my parents for example, they were the custodians at their church for years and years and years. Just 'cause we're up on a stage and they're cleaning toilet bowls, I mean, dude, we're both worshipping God.

Yeah.

I think that it's more about our individual walk with the Lord and responding to Him. That's what makes all the difference, man. That's what makes what it is really worship, because it's not just about the act, it's about who the act is for, you know? It's giving God everything that we are.

Right. It's about our motivation. . .

Absolutely man, and I think that the biggest picture [of this] that you see in Scripture is to look at the way Jesus dealt with the Pharisees. They're doing all this stuff, man. And He says "You worship me with your mouths, with your words, but your hearts are far from me." Dude, I'll tell you what. I'm not sitting here this morning proclaiming that I have it all right, because I surely do not. It's just stuff that we've been observing in the Lord that God's been challenging our hearts to be about. I can't tell you that I'm always in that place, but I can tell you that I wanna be in that place.

Definitely. Now your bio mentions that this is something that you've kind of realized over the last few years. . .

Yeah, exactly. This whole record kind of came from this kind of dry spot. We had made three other records for Fervent [Records] and I just kind of felt like I was out, man, you know? When they approached us about making record number four, I was just kind of like, Man, I just feel kind of spent as a writer and whatever. I felt like the Lord taught us a lesson in that it was just about. . . We don't really talk about it a bunch in church, because we just want to put on our happy church face or whatever, you know? But it's like, man burn out and just being dry is a real thing. Just because you don't feel as much like worshipping God doesn't mean that He's any less worthy than He's ever been. I mean, He is the same yesterday, today and forever. So if there's something wrong with the scenario, it's something wrong with me. You know what I'm saying?

Sure.

So these dry seasons and stuff, the Lord called us to really step out from the dryness and in stepping out, man, He really met us there. He brought some great fellowship around us. Like, for instance, some brothers like Michael Farren from Pocket Full of Rocks. I love that guy, I'm telling you. And a really good friend of mine, Andy Cloninger down in Mobile, Alabama who I just started to fellowship with. And I had these ideas for choruses, man, just some stuff that I had been dealing with - just a batch of choruses, if you would - but I was just stuck on the verse lyrics. It was just like, how do we get this started and we just kind of hung out together and it was just a beautiful thing because we were just kind of being the church to each other. That's what the church is about. That kind of fellowship, that kind of connectivity with other believers. And as did that, God brought songs out of that fellowship. It's something that I look forward to writing now because I don't feel alone in that anymore. I've got these guys to hang out with and who I really feel like are coming from the same place. Different enough places that it really spurs something on within me.

Definitely. So what advice would you give someone who's going through a "winter" of life right now?

Oh man. You know. There's a song on our new record called "Wait" and it's the whole Isaiah thing man of "they that wait upon the Lord, He will renew their strength. They will mount up on wings as eagles, they will walk and not faint." All that kind of stuff and, uh, man. Waiting is something that we don't do very [well] in our culture, you know? We are so instant, man. And my friend, Mike Parker, when I was still i a very dry place, before this record was done, shared with me that sometimes being in the desert is what makes you really, really thirsty for what you really need. It's like, we've been trying to fill this spot in our lives with all kinds of things - even as believers, we fall into the trap of thinking that the stuff of this earth is gonna satisfy us somehow. And man, when you go through that desert time, and you know that nothing else is gonna satisfy you, man, you get really thirsty for the Lord. So, there's something really cool about the desert that almost is like a reset button, you know what I'm saying? Like when you have to start your computer over because something got hung up or something happened and you have to restart your computer. It's like having this reset button that kind of cleanses the palate and gets you really hungry just for God again. And that's at least what I've found.

Well, you're obviously not a mac user. . .

(laughs)

Oh dude, you know, it's every once and again, I'll run into a problem with it. I hate it, because I am. . . I'm definitely a mac guy. I think I just try to do too much at once with it, because that's the beauty of a mac. You're kind of summoning thunder and lightening all at the same time. You know what it is. It's that I need the new one. (laughs)

Alright. You were saying about the desert. . .

Yeah. It's like, don't be scared of the desert, but let it be what it's supposed to be. And realize that you are hungry and you are thirsty, but who you're hungry and thirsty for is the Lord.

Very cool. So there's a Rich Mullins song on the album, are you guys big fans of Rich?

You know, I think we were. We didn't really know Rich, we knew of him and I surely wish that we had been a little bit sooner in the game, because it would've been awesome to meet him and be around him. But the first time we ever played as Big Daddy Weave, the song "Hold Me Jesus" was in our set list. And because of the dry place that we were in, we just kind of looking back. I mean, you look forward, but when forward looks bleak, you have to look back and see what you're forgetting about as far as where you've come from. And when we looked back, that song was in our past and in revisiting the lyric of that song, we thought, "My gosh, how timely is this lyric?" Just being stressed out and being downtrodden and at the end of your wits over this life and crying out for the Prince of Peace, man, you know? 'Cause people talk about peace on earth and we're in the middle of this war or whatever on terror and there's so many crazy things going on - people killing people and just, it's scary man. But truly, peace on earth is not about the end of all those things, you know what I'm saying?

Sure.

I believe peace on earth has already arrived. When they said. . . When the angels sang, "Peace on earth, good will towards men," doesn't mean that they were talking about, just this time. I mean, they were talking about the person of Jesus Christ. When He comes into our life, that's when peace on earth happens. Because the apostles knew Him and they all got killed, dude, you know what I'm saying. (laughs) And they walked in peace, man. That's something, man, because, truly, we're going in circles. Ecclesiastes says that nothing is new under the sun, I mean, we have just been chasing our tails since the beginning of this thing, but the truth is man, that in Him are the things that we can truly count on. In Him is real stability, because He's not tossed about by circumstance, man.

And so when people see the fruits of the spirit and they wonder how those things are most powerful because it feels like laying down. And it truly is laying down your life in exchange for what He has to offer. So peace is not about a time or a place or a set of circumstances. Peace is knowing God in such a way that you are no longer affected by the circumstances. You are walking above circumstances because you realize that everything here that is circumstantial is so temporary. It's already passing away. It's already going away. In Him, man, we find Him. He's the Prince of Peace. That's how peace on earth is here.

It's kind of like arguing about when the Kingdom of Heaven is going to be at hand, when it's not something visible. It's more of an internal process.

That's exactly right, man. That's exactly right. It's like Jesus was like, "You're looking at Him. You're looking at the Kingdom of Heaven. It's right here."

So, is there anything else about the album that you wanted to talk about?

Man, um. . . I think that when we finished it. . . Well, then there's this. We didn't stop to make the record. We were just gigging all summer long and half of it happened on the Todd Agnew tour and then the other half happened while we were at youth camps the rest of the summer actually. So, we went into the studio just for drums a couple of times. And then the rest of it all happened in like, hotel rooms and then these, just, literally anywhere we could find to record. So it was a wild experience. And then at the end of that. . . We really couldn't see it all coming together - Jeremy could, 'cause he produced the thing - but, when I got to listen to the record after it had been mixed and it was getting mastered, at the end of the mastering process, I just sat down and listened to the whole thing and I was really blessed by what had kind of transpired. So, if nobody else gets it. . . I got it anyway.

(laughs)

Interesting. So, for a fun question. I see that you guys recently changed over your website.

Oh, yes. They're working on it over there. It's still kind of a work in progress.

Well, I was poking around the old one a few weeks ago, with all the little sound bytes and the talking heads. . .

(laughs) Yeah.

. . . There were quite a bit that had to do with fashion. . .

Nice Pants. Cool Shoes.

(laughs)

Yeah, we were talking about it and it was like. . . How creepy is that, if you show up to a website and it's like talking to you as if we can see you instead of you seeing us, you know what I'm saying? (laughs) Like, hey, cool shoes. We thought that would be kind of awesome. 'Cause that's another thing, like with the artist thing, there's like this kind of separated-ness from other people, like "ooh, they're artists." And we're just dudes, man. We're just doing what we do, just like everyone else just does what they do. And we want people to be totally at home with hanging out with us if we come around. I think that's how the Lord can do great things in our lives, when we just hang out with each other and can, you know, get past the surface junk. So we just wanted to. . . You know, cool has never really been in our repertoire. So we just kind of throw that all aside and just be normal and crazy old us.

There you go. I thought it was a nice balance between cool and creepy.

(laughs) Yeah man, there's definitely some creepy there dude, but it is Friday the 13th, so there you go.

(laughs) Okay, so do you have any Halloween plans?

You know, I. . . and I don't know if I can share this with my Baptist friends or not, man. . .

(laughs)

. . . but I love it when little kids come to our house and I've got the candy there. I don't know if I enjoy it more because of the fact that I'm liable to like to grab a couple Reese's cups my own self or if it's just that like, you see them all dressed up and it's just such a cute thing. And I realize that we wrestle not against flesh and blood and people are always looking for a devil behind everything honestly man, but it's like, dude, little kids dressed up in costumes man, I just am not really convicted about it in my heart, I gotta tell ya. You know, maybe if they get a little bit older and I've seen some scary-looking kids, you know, but I don't know man, I'm really glad to dish out the candy. That's my favorite part of that night man.

(laughs)

Yeah, I noticed that you guys a little break from the tour around Halloween.

Yeah, I'm glad too, because the fall is my favorite time of the year. Especially since I grew up in Florida and we never really had seasons, you know. But we have it in Nashville and it's amazing. Just all the colors changing and stuff and when the cool weather shows up. Oh man, it's just nostalgia city, you know what I'm saying?

Definitely a pretty time of the year. So if you could describe Big Daddy Weave as a, Hallo- um, Hallelujah Night decoration. . .

(laughs) That was awesome!... Hallulujah Night!

(laughs) . . . which decoration would best describe the band?

Dude, well. I gotta tell ya man. One year, when we just had an indie record out, there's a brother named Russ Lee - I don't know if you've heard of him or not, but he used to front Newsong back in the day and he's got a solo thing kind of going on - but just as he was transitioning into his solo thing, Newsong was kind of happening right then. We went out on tour with him and backed him up as his band for the weekend and he let us come out in the middle and drop a couple songs as Big Daddy Weave. It just so happened that we were playing somewhere in South Carolina on Halloween and so, dude, I came out with this great big ole' orange shirt on - of course, every shirt that I'm wearing is a big ole' shirt. But I came out in this orange shirt and I had these pieces of felt that were kind of black and I had cut them out in the shapes of pumpkin eyes and stuff. So I would say, that if we could be anything, we'd be some killer pumpkins. I'm already halfway there. If I wear an orange shirt and a little green hat, I kind of would be a pumpkin.

(laughs)

Alright. Anything else we should talk about before we wrap up?

I don't think so man, but we'd love to hear from everybody sometime. Send us an email, tell us if you've dropped by, maybe tell us what you thought of the record or something. All our emails are on the site and everything. We love hearing from folks and seeing what's going on where they're at.

Find out more about the tour, the album and Big Daddy Weave at BigDaddyWeave.com.