Amy Grant. Casting Crowns. Chris Tomlin. Steven Curtis Chapman. Kari Jobe. David Crowder.

Dante Schmitz? 

Although you likely haven't heard of the last name in that list of Christian artists, the Oklahoma-based singer-songwriter shares something in common with those GRAMMY- and Dove Award-winning artists: They've all worked with celebrated producer Ed Cash.

While Cash more often than not works with the big names in the industry, he allows time and space to help further new, undiscovered talent, and Schmitz was the grateful recipient.

Together, they created Schmitz's record Brighter Than The Sun, an easy-listening, acoustic inspired worship record that sits outside the prevailing winds of massive synths and/or four-on-the-floor hoedowns. 

Dante took some time to talk with me about his multifaceted journey in music, the chance of a lifetime working with Ed Cash, and how he picks set lists for three different churches in one weekend.

Tell us about yourself: family, alter egos, stuff like that. You live in Oklahoma. You're a multifaceted musician. What are the basics about Dante?

I've been playing music for about seven years professionally. I live in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma--or basically Tulsa, Oklahoma--and I've worked a lot with a couple of band projects. I still have an indie rock band called Dante and the Hawks that I work with. 

I've always played in church, just growing up helping out with different ministries and leading worship, but I kind of really dove into it about a year and a half ago. I really realized I like playing music in a lot of different capacities, but it was that moment where I thought, "What am I best at?" I feel like my gifts are the best fit with leading worship and I also enjoy it the most of any of the different things, music projects I've done over the years. 

It kind of got me to focus in on something and then that kind of opened the door to leading worship at a couple of churches in Tulsa regularly and working with various ministries over the past year and a half. Then of course doing this record with Ed Cash and getting to be a part of the Christian music and worship world and it's been fantastic. It's just been awesome.

Outside of that I'm a father and a husband. I have three kids and a lovely wife, so when I'm not leading worship and singing songs, I'm chasing my kids around and trying to be a dad.
 
Wow, so are you the worship guy at two different churches? 

I'm actually the worship guy at three different churches. My weekends are very church filled, and I love it, but it's funny how it works with my schedule because I had one church that needed somebody to do a Saturday evening service and so I said I could do that. The main church that I work with is a church called Kirk of the Hills. It's a very large Presbyterian church and I lead their contemporary service Sunday mornings. Then there's another church that actually has a Sunday evening program they asked me to do, so usually I'm Saturday evening at one church, Sunday morning at another church, and then Sunday evening at another church. I just can't get enough. I love leading worship. I can't say no, I guess.

As a worship leader of my own church, I have a logistical question I just have to ask. Do you do different songs for all three or do you pretty much go I've got my set for all three?

I'm fortunate to have a really tight band at the Sunday morning service, which is kind of the biggest service I do or the two Sunday morning services. I'll throw a curve ball here and there, but usually I kind of keep it pretty consistent just for the sake of my musicians and myself not having to do different songs throughout the whole day. My band is tight and they know a lot of material, so they can be flexible and they can just kind of wing it. They love it when I just ask them to wing it.

Even still, I mean, just doing the same songs for three churches and four different services is a marathon enough, so kudos to you. 

I got a chance to listen to Brighter Than the Sun and it's great. It's just real easy to listen to and soothing and there's even some moments where I feel like it reminds me of vintage Jars of Clay at times. 

I particularly liked the song "Alive in Me" and the banjo and all the acoustic stuff there. You've got rock groups--that's the space you've lived in for a lot of your musical career. How is it going a bit softer and even a bit more acoustic for this record?

Actually, 10 years ago, I kind of started out more folky and was doing more Americana/folk stuff. I'm a huge Woody Guthrie fan and I had the chance to play with Arlo Guthrie and some other folk legends and they were kind of my roots as far as music goes.

Then I started doing the band thing, so I kind of picked up the electric and stopped doing so much of the acoustic stuff. In a lot of ways it was like going back to where I started. It was like going backwards, but it felt very comfortable for me even though I haven't done a lot of that in the recent history.
 
You'd mentioned Ed Cash, who produced your album. That's a big deal. How did you have that hookup and what was it like working with him, his record?

He's amazing. His record speaks for itself, but I just contacted him through a mutual friend. The first song we did was "Uncovered" off the record, and I just sent him a single and he said he'd really like to produce it. We did the one song and by the time we finished it everybody was like, "This is great. It's a good fit." It's good chemistry, and that's not something I've found in my career, anyway, as far as working with other people. It's kind of obvious when you click with somebody. Some of it is musical, but even some of it is just your personality and your spiritual life. 

We hit it off, and Ed and his brother Scott were just really supportive of a lot of my songs. It was just amazing to be able to work with them--especially as an indie artist. I think Ed sets aside time in his schedule to try to look for new artists, like myself, who are just getting out there and they don't have the big budgets, the major labels and that kind of stuff. I couldn't thank him enough. I was just amazed he would make the time to work with me and he did an amazing job on the whole thing.

That's incredible. It must have been one of those things where you can always hope and dream and pray that something like that would happen, but to get that "yes"--that's incredible.

It was all so incredible. We did a Kickstarter, and I could not have done it without the support of all of my listeners and people. It really was a grassroots thing. I didn't have the money to finance something like this and they supported me and made it happen. So all around it was overwhelming to have Ed do it, but it was also overwhelming to be able to say we can afford to do this and it's going to be a really big production that we went all-out on.

Did you have him lined up before you had the funds raised or not?

Yeah. We did the single first and then he said he wanted to do an album and I kind of said well, alright. We're going to do it. I was like, "We'll finance this one way or another." I kind of did the album in pieces over the years, so it was kind of like we did some of it and then I said, "Let's do the whole album," and then we launched the Kickstarter and then once the Kickstarter funded everything, we did the rest of it.

So... you're full time. You lead worship. You're in your rock band. You released solo projects before and an original worship album. Where does this solo album kind of fall in the pantheon of Dante Schmitz's work?

It's kind of like I was saying before, that moment where I kind of sat down and honestly Ed having faith in my music, when you get that vote of confidence from somebody who knows what they're talking about, it's very humbling. I sat down and asked myself what am I doing? What am I doing with my life? Where am I going? But more like where does God want me to be? What am I good at? There's a tremendous amount of joy and pleasure that I think people get out of finding what it is that they're best at, and I think with me it was leading worship.

I've written a lot of songs. I've written love songs. I've written silly songs about my kids, but to me if I was being honest as a songwriter, I think that my spiritual songs are the ones that I'm best at or the songs that just really resonate authentically with who I am.
 
With that, how would you describe your personal mission as an artist, as a believer, and how has that sort of in a way changed over the years?

I actually did not grow up listening to Christian music. It's funny that I work so much as a Christian artist and people ask me all the time about my history. I grew up listening to Nirvana and Pearl Jam and just a lot of different rock stuff really. I didn't listen to Christian music.

I just think when I had that moment where kind of realized what I felt I was supposed to be doing, my mission kind of changed with music and I found myself just getting so much out of being able to lead people in worship. I guess now I just want to make great art that glorifies God. I'm trying to make great art, but I think that there's a lot of not so great art in the Christian music world and guys like Ed I think help raise the bar.

Yours is a well produced album. It's instrumentally great. Songwriting wise, what are some experiences and kind of some things from your life that kind of fueled lyrically this album?

I'm not really a topical writer. I really write from emotion and life experiences and actually each of these songs connects to a specific life experience. This album is a reflection of my faith's journey through the ups and downs.

I try to be realistic with people; I hate for people to think I'm perfect. I think that I'm a good worship leader because I acknowledge first that I'm a sinner and I'm flawed, and I think with a lot of these songs that's where I try to come from, just a really honest place. Sometimes life isn't perfect and I like how some of the songs on this record would kind of balance that and address the struggles of our life that always try to bring in hope to those struggles.

Good songwriting is honest songwriting. Truth that resonates. On top of your own life experiences, you've come armed with the truest truth ever.

A buddy of mine would always say a good song is just the truth and three chords and I think that that's true. Every great song out there is just the truth and three chords and that's all you need.

What next for you? The album is out...

It's live on iTunes now.

How can people be praying for you and your family and your ministry?

I have three lovely children. One of them is 2 months old. God's given me so many awesome opportunities. It's a busy, busy time for me with leading worship and just growing my ministry and growing my family and so I don't sleep a lot. There's a lot of four or five hour nights. It's a lot of work, but I love it. I'm not complaining. I'm just saying. I guess pray for strength and endurance and it's also, in the music industry, it's a humbling business and it's a very difficult business to make it in. 

I think that if people could pray for that endurance and that faith to just keep focused on what's important and sometimes -- I was recently opening for a pretty big act. I won't name names because I don't want to burn any bridges, but their crew came in and it was like they needed like seven hours to setup lights and all this stuff and they were kind of giving us a hard time about things and definitely not being very pleasant to work with.

I looked at my bass player and I was like what does this have to do with Jesus Christ? It has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. I want that to be my focus and that people can pray that my focus is on worshiping God and worshiping Christ and leading people in worship and all the other stuff. It's great if it happens, but if it doesn't, it's not the end of the world.