Artist Spotlight: There's No Changing Point of Grace

Point of Grace are practically legends within the Christian music community yet despite all their success, which includes 27 consecutive #1 hits, the trio wanted to try their collective hands at a country music career. In this interview, the band discusses the transition.

With a storied eighteen year career filled with multiple gold and platinum albums, 27 chart-topping hits and multiple Dove and Grammy awards, Point of Grace really had nothing left to prove in the Christian music world.  With their label Word Records part of the Warner Music family, Point of Grace and Warner Music Nashville released a couple of singles last year to country radio to see how they’d do.  After founding member Heather Payne decided to leave the band to focus on her family, Point of Grace’s sound organically turned more rootsy and country.  So with this in mind, they went into the studio to record their latest album No Changin’ Us with producer Nathan Chapman.  At the same time the trio of Shelley Breen, Denise Jones and Leigh Cappillino worked on their first cookbook Cooking With Grace.  

In this exclusive interview, Shelley Breen discusses the changes the band has been through and the process they went about in recording the new album with Nathan Chapman.  In the course of discussion we learned about what song she would like to see as the single along with discussing the cookbook and how easy it many of the recipes are to make. 

Matt Bjorke: You recently changed from a quartet to a trio, was there any time you considered moving on from Point of Grace?

Shelley Breen: No, not really.  The other three of us still loved it and wanted to continue doing it but it all happened at a weird time because it was right when we were working our first single to country radio called “How You Live,” and we didn’t work it in a traditional sense, like going out on a big radio tour, but we got a couple of big stations to add the song to their playlist and got some good signals  and stuff from other stations about it  and we were so excited about this new journey. That’s when the label said “we think this might work” and then they asked us to go in and record another song.  And that’s when Heather decided to retire from the band.  The rest of us understood why, she had her fourth babies under the age five…

Matt: Wow, I can see why she decided to go in the direction she did…

Shelley: Yeah, I knew that was probably coming and in our minds we probably thought we’d replace her because we’d always been a quartet but I’ve publicly said before that Gator Michaels, who was the head of promotions for Warner Brothers at the time, helped us believe in ourselves and that we could go on as a trio.  We worked up the songs as a trio and tried it out in front of our band and our label at word and the new Warner country people because it wasn’t even on our radar to move on without a fourth member.  After we had tried out the other gal that day, Gator came to us and said ‘You know, she’s got a great voice but you cannot create chemistry.  And that’s one of the things that makes the three of you special and when you add in a person without that history, it was good but not as good when you sing together as a trio. If you get your confidence back, you can go to any station in America and you’ll be the best thing that they have heard this year.”

Now, I’m not even claiming that what he said is true or anything but it was enough to give us the confidence to go on as a trio and we moved on and moved away from Heather who had this crazy range and R&B sound but we were already going down this country road with her so God helped guide us.  They brought us to Nathan Chapman and he really helped us define our new sound.

Matt: That is actually my next question, what was it like working with Nathan?

Shelley: He was great and I don’t know if you know this but his parents are Steve & Annie Chapman, who had a record deal in the past and he literally grew up in the church with them as they traveled from church to church for marriage conferences, it was how they make their living and still do.  Anyway because of his background, he understood where we were coming from and our roots yet he just produced a couple of the most successful albums of the last couple of years (Taylor Swift’s records) and he knew what it took to make a hit record, comercially.  Yet he knew where we were coming from and our harmonies and things like that so he was the perfect combination with us.  He’s fast, he’s easy to work with and he’s a great mix between feel, emotion and technically speaking what makes a great hit.  He’d tell us –I don’t know if this is right –but he’d say 98 or 99 beats per minute, that’s what hit songs are and if you bump it down from that it can change a song from being a hit.  I was like, “Really,” but took his word, given his track record.  So he knows that stuff but the first time I went to go sing vocals with him, I thought he would be snobby or something but he was the most down home, nicest and cool guy. 

Anyway, he said when we walked in, “I don’t know how you work but this is how I want you to do it, I want you to go in and sing the song just like you would if you were singing from the stage…

Matt: It sounds so logical that the approach to recording would want to replicate what you do live instead of the other way around…

Shelley:  I’ve never had a producer in all of my 16 years who told me that.  There’s something in your psyche that happens when you get in there that changes you when singing in a studio because they always ‘stoke you’…

Matt: It’s a different kind of nervousness…

Shelley: Yeah, you don’t have any freedom in your voice because you’re being stoked and that’s exactly what he didn’t do.  I feel like I’ve been stoked to death by machines, producers, whatever when recording and when he didn’t do it, it was totally freeing to just sing it live, without worrying about being perfect.

Matt: like the old story of go and sing it this way, that way and again and again to get it perfect…and sing it 30-40 times to get it right…

Shelley: And that’s exactly what the past producers have done as I’ve literally sang a lead vocal 30-40 times and it didn’t feel organic or have any heart at all…

Matt: And it goes from being organic and real to being robotic so to speak. 

Shelley: Oh my God, that’s so true.

Matt: It there’s also software now that can fix it or you just leave it in because it’s how you’d sing live.

Shelley: Yeah, totally and that was what was so freeing to me and helped make it fun.  In fact, one day Denese had sang a song a couple of times and was getting frustrated and he said, “Denise, let’s move on. I can fix it better than you can ever sing it.” And we gave him so much heck after that during the rest of the recording for the record. But I understand what I was trying to say, he was like “I heard you guys enough live and in the studio.” 

Matt: And with Nathan, he brought you the song from his wife, Stephanie Chapman, the title track No Changin’ Us.  How did that song come to be the title track?

Shelley: We love the song stylistically and it sort of became the benchmark for how the rest of the album would sound like but I think the other reason it became the title track was more about the play on words and our transition with a member change, a new sound and jumping into the country music genre…

Matt: It sounds like a mission statement in a lot of ways…

Shelley: That’s right, it was totally that.  We wanted to remind the fans that we’re still the same and that we’re not going to leave them behind nor would we ever go sing a drinkin’ or cheatin’ song…

Matt: and country isn’t just that anymore…

Shelley: Oh, it’s totally not. And actually, I think it was more our worry than our fans’ worry now that the record is out and we’re singing these songs live.  All the songs coexist together, the country and gospel ones, they coexist so well together.  I think I was the most worried about all of it, that we’d lose the Christian fans and not get any country fans so Nathan was like, “Really? Just go with your heart as you are the demographic.”

Matt: Well you can go back to the 90s and Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith’s pop crossover success…

Shelley: Right, Amy got a ton of backlash from all of that stuff and I don’t think I could’ve delt with that…

Matt: So did he and he really didn’t change at all!

Shelley: Totally.  And I was worried that I’d go to Amazon and find some fundamentalist Christian people who would be completely like “they sold out, ½ the album is country music.”  But there wasn’t…

Matt: I did see a couple of those on iTunes but it didn’t seem like they were listening to the song samples because there are plenty of songs on the album that are Christian songs, particularly “Come To Jesus” which is totally a Christian song, although it may breakthrough at country at some point…

Shelley: I honestly haven’t seen too much of that or heard any of it at our concerts, and we just got finished with 24 straight shows, I feel pretty good that the reaction has been what it was and to be quite honest with you, if the next single doesn’t break through, and I want it to and we’re going to work our butts off to make sure it does, but If it doesn’t break, I am grateful that we have these songs because honestly it makes for a better show because now we have songs that are about life, songs we may not have chosen because they weren’t directly about God.  But now that we have songs like “No Changing Us,” it’s totally not about Jesus as it’s a straight-up love songs, it’s things like that, people, Christians love ‘em. It makes for a stronger show.

Matt: Yeah and Christian themed songs have always had a place in country music.  And artists incorporate things about life and love and god and if they’re singing about their life they’re singing about their faith too…

Shelley…But Christian radio is….

Matt: I know Christian radio is different but that’s why I liked Michael W. Smith’s albums, because they did mix both life and Christian songs in…

Shelley: Totally. So it’s been good so far so good.

Matt: There are quite a few female groups coming on the scene right now, after a long period where there weren’t, what separates you from the other artists out there? Is it your past experience and your fans?

Shelley: I do think that it helps.  When we did a limited run for our second country single “I Wish,” I would say that half or more of the people in the stations we visited knew who we were, either they listened to or worked at the Christian station before working at the country station, and for the others we may be new but we’re very seasoned to go in shake hands and kiss babies, it’s what we’ve been doing for 15 years. I honestly think with radio, though, that at the end of the day, if your song doesn’t strike a chord, it doesn’t matter.  I don’t know because I haven’t heard all of these other group’s songs but the label is working on choosing the right song now…

Matt: If you could choose the single, if it were just you, what song would you choose, based on a gut reaction from live shows or something?

Shelley: I think, as much as I hate to say it, there’s a song on our record called “Love And Laundry” that we really didn’t want to do at first because it is a bit goofy and cheesy and our gut reaction to it was really just from the title alone. 

Matt: That’s actually the song that people were complaining about the most on iTunes…

Shelley: The Christian music fans?

Matt: Yeah.

Shelley: I guess that meant my gut reaction was right (laughing).  We talked with Mark Bright, our label president at Word, he told us, “I’m telling you that that song, as hokey as it is, it’s straight-up the demographic, it’s the busy, everyday life of a woman. People are gonna love it.” And I hate saying this because I love Mallary Hope, who is a co-writer on it (with Coldwater Jane’s Leah Crutchfield) but she probably knows it by now but we were like, “I don’t know…”

Matt: And Mallary is probably too young to sing that song…

Shelley: Totally. So we went in and recorded it and ended up really liking the track on it.  But we’re jaded, I’m jaded. I live here in town and I know I am.

Matt: Maybe it’s the female’s version of Phil Vassar’s “Just Another Day In Paradise.”

Shelley: Yeah, maybe it kind of is.  We went out to a Christian women’s conference with over 2000 women and played it acoustically with just a guitar and djembe and every single woman who was in that conference went nuts over it and would’ve bought the record, as they asked for “do you you have the laundry” song.  And this happens every night so I feel like it strikes a chord in that demographic, weather we wanted to admit it or not.  So as goofy as I may think this song is, it hits home for people.

Matt: You know, “Chicken Fried” is a little goofy tune too but I don’t know if the band would’ve broken through without that hit.

Shelley, that’s right and I told Mark Bright, “If this is our ‘Chicken Fried,’ I’ll sing it all day long for the rest of my life!” (laughing)… You know, my favorites on the record are “No Changin’ Us,” I love it and I love “He Holds Everything,” and Nathan wrote that as a country song but it works as a Christian song too so I’d love to break through with a song like that, a song that represents both sides of us.

Matt: Yeah but perhaps it is good to not come at Radio with a song like that, at first, because they’re probably expecting you to give them a song like that, so that if you came with “Love And Laundry” first…

Shelley: is that good or bad?

Matt: Well, It’s probably a good thing to come with “Love and Laundry,” because it totally fits the country demographic so much that they couldn’t deny the single the shot, where they might be skeptical if you do come with a more ‘Christian’ song.

Shelley: Yeah, Mark was right! And we would’ve sold thousands of copies that night; they weren’t interested in the other albums, just that song really so we’ll see.

Matt: You know, I don’t know an artist alive that wouldn’t want a song to touch the fans like it appears this song does…

Shelley: yeah, totally.  And we have a younger gal who works for us and does video blogs with us and Word hired her to take a ton of our home movies we had and put them into a video in the song. 

Matt: Yeah and it could be the official video if the song is selected as a single.

Shelley: It totally could.

Matt: In addition to the album you guys released a new cookbook, is this something you’ve wanted to do for a while?

Shelley: It really has been something we wanted to do for the last few years because we’ve always been talking about the food we eat on stage, whatever it was be it stuff the church lady made us that night or some casserole that Denise made and took onto the bus.  The fans have asked us for years to write down the stuff we talk about so when we got to do this record, we decided we’d do that too.  It actually became more like a scrapbook of memories for us along with great recipes because we did a story behind each recipe and included a snapshot with the neighbor or family member where the recipe came from.  It was really fun but it was a lot of work to locate that stuff and test the recipes to make sure they were right and was more than we bargained for but at the end of the day, I’m telling you, people love it.  We sold more of the books than we did CDs on the last tour. 

Matt: Just flipping through the cookbook, a lot of the recipes appear simple and easy to make, like a Rachel Ray kind of thing, even broken down to sections. Was that a goal with the cookbook?

Shelley: My goal was to have it be between a Martha Stewart cook book which requires certain tools to make the recipe and a church cookbook.  I am probably the one in the kitchen the most and my goal was to have recipes that were impressive and looked hard but they’re really easy to do…

Matt: Like I just flipped through the book and came to the Apple dip recipe.  It doesn’t seem that difficult to do…

Shelley: it’s simple but so much better than the normal apple dip.  There’s another recipe that is for Pork Tenderloin with Red Currant sauce. It sounds fancy but it’s so easy to make.  So I think our goal with it was to have fun with it. 

Matt: What would you consider your favorite recipe in the book?

Shelley: You know, I think it would be my mom’s salsa.  I’ve passed it around all over town and brought it on the bus, and it’s something I am always asked to bring to parties.

Matt: What are your hopes and goals for this year, aside the obvious single on the radio?

Shelley: We’d love to have a song on the radio and we’re also getting ready to do a Christmas record and the first two we did were big and bombastic and we’re really looking to do a stripped-down version.  We’re real excited because Nathan is super busy right now and can’t do the record by himself but what we’re doing is employing Stephanie, his wife, to co-produce it.  It was his idea and a brilliant one.  She’s gonna do the legwork and help us to come up with the arrangements, musically and vocally. That’s what she really does best.  He was like, “I promise you that she’ll be better than me at this; it is right up her alley.”  And she’s a female too so she can sing it right to us because when Nathan would have an idea, Denise would have to sing it to me for me to get the idea.  The plan now is to go into the studio for three or four days with fiddle and upright bass and stuff like that and we’re hoping to know all of our parts and rehearse with Stephanie and go in and cut the album live with the band. 

Matt: That sounds like Patty Loveless’ Bluegrass & White Snow.

Shelley: I think maybe she did because Stephanie actually referenced Patty in a recent email saying “maybe we can do this like Patty Loveless would…” So that’s where we’re at right now with projects for this year.

Matt: Well, great. It was nice talking with you.

Shelley: Thank you! It was great to talk with you too and have a great day! I appreciate it!

You can support Point of Grace by purchasing the No Changin' Us album at Amazon CD | Amazon mp3 | iTunes.

You can also pick up the Cooking With Grace album at Amazon.

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