Over the last ten years, Andrew Peterson has quietly carved out a niche for himself as one of the most thoughtful, poetic, and lyrical songwriters of his generation.

More recently he’s established himself as the grassroots facilitator of an online literary and songwriting community (www.RabbitRoom.com) and an emerging fantasy novelist as well. But it’s still ultimately that sense of rootedness that listeners, readers and fans seem to respond to most deeply—because Andrew’s songs (and books) remind us again and again of simple, solid things like love and friendship and hope and redemption and beauty and how our stories were meant to be shared.

All of which brings us, in a roundabout way, to our real starting point, because somehow, Andrew Peterson's new, twelve-song project, "Counting Stars" manages to do all that without ever leaving home.

Framed in a largely acoustic context and underpinned by a sense of gentle but ancient and unyielding strength, Counting Stars aches and glows, finding infinite wonder in the stuff of hearth and home, family and friendship, struggle and storm. Perhaps it’s because the writing approach this time around involved a conscious departure from the string of concept albums Peterson has released in recent years.

NRT Contributor Bill Lurwick spoke with Andrew about the process and the meaning behind the latest album.

In writing this album, you guys just kind of barricaded yourselves in for a week or so there. Tell me about the writing process heading into recording.

As soon as the Christmas tour was over and we got back from the Christmas holidays, I looked at my song list and I only had about five complete songs--and that was representing the previous two years probably of song writing. I don’t write a lot.

January 1st rolled around and I did not have all of the songs quite written at the beginning of the recording process, which is really weird for me. I try to have all my ducks in a row, but it was a busy year last year.

We knew that we were going to leave on January 17 to go make the record. So, I got in a little bit of a panic. I started finding places to go hide and work for hours to try to find these other six or seven songs. By the time it was all said and done, we had 14 to work with, which was more than I’d ever had going into a record. Something about the fear pulled out the songs that I needed to write.

So, it ended up being interesting to me because I didn’t go into it with this concept in mind. I just wanted to write some songs and see what would happen.


The first song that headed out to radio is "The Reckoning." Where did that line up in the process? Was that one you already had written or is that one of those last-minute songs?

Well, it was one that I had started about a year ago on my front porch. I remember writing in my journal the first verse -- about the storm blowing in. I wrote The Reckoning underneath it and I underlined it, and then wondered what in the world the song would be about. I had no idea and just kept it in my journal -- but that’s how a lot of this happens.

You write a little idea and you write it in a journal, hoping one day that seed will grow into an actual song. That one was finished in the couple of weeks before we left for Washington. I had a songwriting session with a good friend of mine, and the song popped out.

There's some great stuff on Counting Stars. There's lots of acoustic sounds, orchestration and arrangements. I thought that “Dancing in the Minefields” is an interesting song title for a love song though.

Yeah, it always gets a laugh when I play it live. I tell the audience this is a song I wrote after my 15th wedding anniversary for my wife. My in-laws really like the song a lot and they’re actually in the music video. Whenever they get into a fight or an argument, they now refer to it as “Dancing in the Minefields,” which is sweet to me.

So, yeah, 15 years of marriage celebrated right before we started making this record. It’s Dec. 30, and it was a wonderful anniversary. My wife and I, we get along really well. Not only do I love her, but I actually really like her. We really like spending time together and so, it’s pretty rare that we get into real arguments, but we got in a real argument just like a week after our anniversary.

I came downstairs frustrated, and she was also frustrated. I got out my guitar, and I had one of the rare times when I was able to write a full song in one sitting. And I was able to play it for her the next morning, which is always a disaster.
It’s funny. Somebody asked her one time in an interview what’s been the worst part of being married to a songwriter. She said, “Having to listen to his songs. Having to be the one to hear his songs the first time.” It’s because her reaction is never right; if she makes a big fuss out of it, I just say, “Oh, you’re just saying that.” And if she says, “It’s good,” I go, “You hate it.”

So, anyway I played her the song and it was actually good for us that day.

Talk about the song "The Magic Hour." What’s that about?

This place--the house where we live--has just been one of God’s greatest gifts to me. It’s not some sprawling ranch or anything, but there are lots of trees around and there’s something about evening here. Everything changes a little bit.

I have a friend who was over here one time and I said, “Man, isn’t the light just beautiful on the side of those hills?” and he was like, “Oh, it’s called the magic hour.”

He’s a movie guy and he told me about what they call “dusk magic” in film and photography. The lighting is perfect. There’s like this other worldliness to the lighting, so a lot of films try to take advantage of what they call the magic hour. So, that became part of our family lingo.

We would go walk the woods or sit up on the hill at the magic hour and that was just this wonderful in-between time in the day, when I felt the Lord speaking to me.



Something I read really struck me regarding the title of the project, Counting Stars--that how we, the Church, are the seed of Abraham. Explain your thoughts on that.

It’s kind of a profound thing to go back and read the verse where God takes Abraham outside and says, “Look up at the stars. Count them if you can. ...So shall your offspring be,” and of course, Abraham did not understand that.

I don’t think anybody in the Old Testament really had an understanding of how God was going to play everything out, but we have this amazing perspective as the Church to be able to read the story and realize that we are living out that promise to Abraham.

In Christ, you and I are the stars and the grains of sand that God was referring to in that promise, and that’s an amazing blessing. So, a lot of this album ended up being songs about family and community and about that church and how we are living out that promise.

Andrew, appreciate you spending time with us. God’s blessings to you.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me and supporting the record.