NRT's Bill Lurwick spoke with frontman Eliot Sloan about the band's first truly independent release since their breakout album, Home.

So the new project is called The Mission Field. Interesting title. I know it’s being released dually into mainstream and to the Christian market. Tell me about that title.

Well, the album title really is personal because that’s kind of the way I look at it, like I’m going out into the mission field. Jesus said, “Go and tell people about me. Go on out to the field and tell people about me. Go into the world and tell them,” and that’s what the world is to me, the mission field. I don't know if you’ve heard the title track. It's really short, but it’s my favorite song on the record. It’s a really beautiful prayer basically saying, “God, gear me up and let me go out to the mission field. Give me the power. Give me the strength to go and do what you would have me do,” and that’s where this music and this whole record comes from. It’s a whole new endeavor.

Tell us about the first song that’s going out to radio, “The Only Song.”

“The Only Song” is kind of like just saying, “Jesus, you are the only song that I want to sing,” and pointing people in the direction of Christ. That's where I’m at in my life right now, and I think this song has been in my head for awhile. Songs do this. They live in my head for about a year and it’s like something that you hear at a really faint volume and as time goes on, it gets a little louder then a little louder. It finally gets to the point like, “I’ve got to finish writing this song.” So, I took it to a songwriter friend of mine, and the song came together relatively quickly. If you don’t count the year that I was in my head, it came together in about 45 minutes.
 

You guys have been doing what you’ve been doing for a long time now. You burst onto the scene in ’95 with “I Believe,” of course. Now, at this point in the journey, would you say this is a shift in direction musically and lyrically at all?

Not too much of one. In listening to the first record, Home, that was a very, very spiritual record. To me, The Mission Field is a continuation of that--maybe in a more overt way. I listened to a lot of the songs on this record and then I listened to the songs on Home, and you could have intertwined a lot of these songs, and that’s kind of what I wanted to do. 

 

I really felt like our first record was true Blessid Union of Souls; that record was completely untainted. There was no record company involved with that record. We didn’t have a label or anything. It was just myself, my old partner Jeff, and our producer Matt just in a little itty bitty studio the size of a bedroom throwing down drum loops, putting the acoustic guitars to it and just singing songs about God. And that’s what this record is. Honestly there was no label involved when all this started coming together. You’ve got all the time in the world to just write and to just let it flow out, and I think this is a very natural sounding record. Like I said, it’s like a bookend from the first record to this one.

Let’s talk about a song that you like off the project that maybe folks won’t be hearing on the radio. Do you have one of those?

Yeah. We’re songwriters, so we think every song is a No. 1 hit.

That’s a good thing.

Yeah. It’s a good thing. I don't know. I really love the songs “Sweet Providence” and “Hold On.” They really register really, really great live. I think there are more single-friendly songs obviously on the record between “The Only Song” and “The Mission Field,” and “Miracles” and “Back from the Dead.” I think all these songs have a strong message and a lot of potential.

Even when we put out our first record, the main goal was to really try to do an album that, from start to finish, was really good. I don’t like rushed songs that sound thrown on. I don’t like fillers. I never want to be accused of that. One of the biggest compliments we ever got was, “When I put your record on, I can listen to it. I can hit play and just listen to it all the way through,” and I never want to lose that.

Sounds like they’re all your babies, and that’s a great thing. How do you keep it that way? What would you say keeps you guys grounded in your dedication to keeping the flow going?

I don't know. We really just take our time in writing the songs. We let the songs write themselves basically. I always tell people I’m not a great songwriter. The great songs kind of basically write themselves, if you don't get in the way of it and just let the song be the song. Obviously you have to start off with something good, then they will finish themselves if you just follow the path.
 

It's also me being stubborn. I want them all the songs to be great. I want them all to have depth. I don’t want to do things that are cookie cutter and sounds like it’s on an assembly line. I want them all to stand out. If you just really take your time and stay in prayer, it’s not that hard.