Charlie Hall

In Part One of our exclusive interview with Charlie Hall, Hall opened up about the creative and spiritual processes that help to shape and create his music. This time out, he explains to Soul-Audio how he stopped caring about album charts, how he got over comparing himself to Chris Tomlin, and how he ended up autographing a Baptist hymnal.

SA: What does that place do for your artistry?

Charlie: It’s a place of freedom. I wasn’t writing Christian music or worship music to feed my career or to get CCLI charts or to continue pleasing a certain system of people. I was writing for a human being as opposed to a Christian or a non-Christian or this type of person or this Sunday morning or that alternative worship service. I was just writing for the human being that’s attempting to survive and I knew I had the hope for them. So of course I try to write in a way that’s singable, but I was trying to heal…

Because I know I’ve got Jesus, I was trying to heal their souls, their hearts. I’m trying to write in a way that would deliver people, show people they are loved in their nastiest place and show my friends around me who aren’t Christians that have embraced me as a Christian and I’ve embraced them as non-Christians - I wanted to write a record that had language they could grapple with. It wasn’t their language, but it wasn’t church language. Instead it was something they all had to grapple with.

SA: What is the struggle like for those things you mentioned earlier - writing for CCLI or writing for chart hits?

Charlie: I think when you choose this as a career - or when it chooses you - I never expected to do this but it’s a very wonderful way to live and process God and life and make songs and records. There’s a business side to it that’s real and I used to hate it and pretend I wasn’t into it. But now I’m free from it so I can still think of it and do my best at it without being arrogant or rebellious and I can know it’s part of the system I’m in and use it. But I’m not bound to it. It’s not the end all. I really believe God is creating music and lyrics in me and I have to love and respect the business but I don’t have to bow to it. It’s not what’s important to me, but yet it is. God is supporting me and people and the business helps all of that, but I’m not bound to it.

SA: I did want to ask about your place within the Passion scene. There are so many distinct songwriters under the banner of Passion and I didn’t know if you guys talked about your individual places…

Charlie: I don’t know that we’ve talked about it out loud in a circle, but I’m grateful for the years. The years have shown that I used to have some comparisons inside of myself wondering why these things haven’t happened to me. Now it’s more that I understand. I understand what Chris [Tomlin] is for. I understand what God is doing there. He’s created a worldwide community that has the same songs to embrace. You can’t even point a finger at Chris and think he did that. God is behind that. He’s pulling the levers on all that and Chris gets to ride it. Then I really think that David [Crowder] has widened the artistic box for what worship leading is, as well as being extremely entertaining. So between the presence and power of God in his songs and his talent as an artist/entertainer, that’s something incredible. It’s very different from Chris. I don’t know that, for me, where I sit altogether.

But I’ve let go of that and so I just know that I fit somewhere. It may be for… well, I don’t know what it’s for. It may be for the really offbeat person. I think when someone experiences the music and how they experience it and if they’re able to look past that it doesn’t always sound like worship music or lyrically it’s not like Christian music - if they’re willing to go with me there and know that I still respect worship and Christian music, then I think those are the people that might find something in me.

SA: Tangibly what’s happening for your own music and the Passion scene.

Charlie: The Passion World Tour just ended a day or two ago in Australia. It was pretty awesome. We only did five or six shows of 17 dates, but even our dates were incredible to see the receptivity of songs and music and the spirit of the event as well as the Holy Spirit. I’m watching Passion… it probably went worldwide way before, but I’m seeing this thing literally go worldwide. All of our music is involved in that. There are at least a few of my songs that people know across the globe. That’s crazy! Plus the collection of people that have received the vision of God’s glory in a real heart-level way. It’s awesome.

For my own music, we’ve been on the road for about 10-12 days per month. That’s been consistent through the years. This is my 15th year of traveling and writing music. One of my first little songs, “Give Us Clean Hands,” just landed in the Baptist hymnal, which is pretty crazy. [Laughs] I wrote that in 1994 in my room. I did the Navigators for a year where they have you meditate on a Scripture and memorize it. I was meditating on Psalm 24 and I decided the way that I’d meditate would be to play it after memorizing it. Then the next morning, the church I went to and was helping to plant and we sang it and that was ‘94… someone came up to me at a deal we were playing at this summer with a Baptist hymnal and had me sign it. That’s crazy. [Laughs]

So it’s those little things. And then I’m watching one of the more recent songs “Marvelous Light” still really affect people and it’s gotten into a place where it has a life of its own. I don’t have to be there to carry it, so the Holy Spirit and the church got a hold of it which is awesome. Then the last record did medium well for us. I’m very pleased on how it did. And I’m really, really pleased with this record. We’re going to tour it 10-12 days each month for the next couple of years and, from a business side, it’s about a getting record out.

From my strong perspective, I’m trying to literally inject this concept into the heart of the church. I know it rumbles around in there already, but I’m trying to find the stragglers and those who don’t feel they fit inside the church anymore because of what they’ve experienced in life. I’m trying to get into as many places that I can to inspire and give them hope and saying you belong to God and that you’re at your best when you walk with God and that He’s the one who made you.

• www.charliehall.com
• www.myspace.com/thecharliehallband

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