The Museum hit the ground running in 2010 with their BEC debut
Let Love Win, featuring the successful radio single, “My Help Comes From the Lord.” After a couple years spent spreading their encouraging, inspiring message on the road, the band served up another set of hope-centered songs on
My Only Rescue (released August 28, 2012).
The Museum is a band passionate to live what they sing— whether that's on a global scale through their work with nonprofits like Compassion International and Not For Sale or on an individual level in the midst of personal tragedy. Bearing a name taken from a small Romanian museum celebrating a Christian-led revolution, The Museum's core dedication to justice and faith in the face of opposition and apathy continues to permeate every song.
NewReleaseTuesday's Bill Lurwick caught up with The Museum's lead singer Ben Richter to look back at the writing process, to look forward to where the band's headed, and to connect to the heartbeat of My Only Rescue.
My Only Rescue is your sophomore release. You’ve got a song out at radio already. “Love Will Find You” is doing pretty good there. Talk about that song.
Moe started out writing “Love Will Find You” as a message to a close friend of mine that was going through a tough time. He made some mistakes that cost him his marriage. I was trying to find the words to be there for him and to reach out to him. It seemed like the more I tried to be in touch with him, the more he just seemed to want to run away from everything. I started writing the song just as a message of what I wanted to say to him, just to let him know that whenever we make mistakes, we mess up, we have a God and we can’t outrun His grace.
Ultimately I think the message in the gospel is that God sent His son down to Earth to love us absolutely when we needed it the most and when we deserved it the least. It’s not about what we’ve done to earn that love.
I love Romans 8. It says that there’s nothing that can separate us from the love that we have in Christ Jesus. So ultimately that’s what I wanted to be the message of the song for anybody that feels like you’ve messed up, you’ve fallen short, you’ve made mistakes. It’s not your past that defines you, but it’s who you are in Christ and what He’s done for you. There’s nothing that can separate us from that love.
That’s the heartbeat of the song and what “Love Will Find You” is all about.
Where does the title My Only Rescue come from? Can we simply say that Jesus or God is our only rescue? Is it as simple as that?
In some ways yeah, but I think the whole heartbeat of this record is the hope that’s found in Jesus— no matter what we feel like we’re going through in life. When we go through those rough times and we hit rock bottom, God truly is our only rescue.
We started writing the song “My Only Rescue” at a cabin in the woods in north Georgia, and we had a really neat experience writing the song. We really felt that song was a core central message of the record.
We hadn’t named the album while we were recording. The day that I was in the studio recording that song, I pulled in to start recording vocals and I got a call from my wife. I was in Nashville and we live in Atlanta, so I was away from home that week. She called me to let me know that she was miscarrying what we thought was going to be our first child. So that was obviously a really heavy phone call and a tough moment for both of us. It wasn't the way that we had planned that to work out, but even in that moment I felt like my best response was simply to walk right in and record that song. The lyrics and the whole message was so true to me, to know that even in those moments when life feels like chaos, God truly is our only rescue, our only place that we can run to and find hope that lasts.
So we just felt like that was the heartbeat of the record and more than just that song. So we decided to call the whole thing My Only Rescue.
You guys have worked with Compassion International a number of times and have quite a story about your recent trip to the Philippines with the organization.
Yeah. We had an amazing time in the Philippines. My wife and I started sponsoring a little girl named Ella that lives over there about a year and a half, two years ago now. I never had any clue that I would actually get to meet her. In fact, when we were thinking about who to sponsor, we wanted to get somebody closer so there might be a chance to go visit, but then sure enough last December we got a chance as a band to go over to the Philippines with Compassion. Three of us in the band actually sponsor kids right there.
We all got to meet them for the first time. Such a surreal and amazing experience. It just really opened my eyes to the reality of the difference that Compassion is making. For a lot of people out there I think it’s easy to be skeptical about organizations and wonder when you’re giving your money to some cause, where is it really going?
I got to go see firsthand on that trip exactly the difference that $38 a month can make. When I sat down and met Ella and her family for the first time, they have a little tiny home. It’s probably about 6 x 6 feet. I could barely stand up or lay down in it. One of my first questions about their home was “where do you guys sleep at night?” It’s a family of 5. Her father said, “We sleep right here. We’re a very close family.”
They’re so happy about it. They don’t have a bed. They sleep on the wooden floor at night. They’re so happy and joyful because people from Compassion have come in through their local church and almost helped to bring their entire family out of that mindset of poverty. Ella’s got a little brother that was about 7 months old at the time. Her mom was in tears, thanking us and saying “because of Compassion, I now have a healthy, strong baby,” because he was able to have things like prenatal vitamins and healthcare that they never would have had otherwise.
So that $38 a month, it’s providing healthcare. It’s providing education. It’s providing a chance for Ella to be in a program where she’s learning everyday about Jesus. It was really just a life changing trip. I could go on and on about all the people we met and the places we got to see, but the bottom line is they’re making a difference. The mission statement of Compassion as an organization says “releasing children from poverty in Jesus name,” and that’s exactly what’s happening in 26 countries.
It’s so cool to see one glimpse of that.
Being in the Philippines, you may have seen some human trafficking going on. You’ve got a song about that closing out the record, “Not For Sale.”
“Not For Sale” really is our mission and our hope to be a part of a generation that would see human trafficking come to an end. If you’re not too familiar with what that term means, basically modern day slavery exists on a level that it never has before through human trafficking and all forms of forced labor.
There’s over 27 million people that live in slavery today and that’s happening right here in America as well as throughout the world. In the Philippines, we certainly did see places where that was happening.
One of the programs that we went to is actually the largest Compassion program in the Philippines. It’s got over 700 children coming to this church program. They’re right on the street. It’s called The Red Light district where literally as soon as it starts getting dark it’s like the entire neighborhood changes. All sorts of families and people live right there, but as soon as it gets dark, it’s prostitution. It’s drug deals. It’s all sorts of stuff in a really, really heavy environment where trafficking is thriving.
We felt like we wanted to use our voice in whatever way we can to help bring about freedom for those that don’t have a voice, for those who are living in slavery. So “Not For Sale” is a song about that. For all of our music, we really want to make sure we’re living out the message of what we’re singing about. We felt that was the most important thing.
“Not For Sale” was actually about an organization called Not For Sale Campaign, who we’ve also partnered with to help spread the word about human trafficking and to bring about freedom for people in those scenarios.
Even in 2011 we were able to do a tour where we sold Mens Designer T-shirts and brought awareness to that issue. We raised over $10,000 in a couple of months for the Not For Sale Campaign. It’s been really cool for us to be a part of and to see so many people like ourselves that have become passionate about the issue and really said, “In my life with who I am and what I do, I want to make sure I use my voice to make a difference.”
What’s your favorite song? You’ve got 11 on here. Is it one we mentioned already?
It probably changes every day. I think maybe today it’s “My Only Rescue.” It’s just a message that is, as I was saying, very personal to me, and we really like the song from a musical standpoint as well. The other one is called “Coming Closer,” and it’s a real upbeat song on the album. We’ve had a lot of fun playing that one live. We just started introducing it in the past couple of weeks.
We do some cool, fun things with that at our concert, and we finally got our bass player, Chris [to play trombone]. He grew up playing a trombone in his middle school and high school band. We finally got him to breakout the trombone and play at our concerts, which is pretty fun.
Where can people catch The Museum this fall on the road? What’s heading our direction?
We’re going to be all over the US this fall. We’ve got a couple of CD release events planned right after the album comes out, and then we’re doing a few tour dates with a band called Ashes Remain. I’m looking forward to that. We’ve got a lot in the southeast and the Midwest, but really we’ll be all over the country through the end of the year. You can always check out our full list of tour dates on our website, and also on Facebook, Twitter, all that stuff. The same thing, TheMuseumMusic.
Always excited about what you guys are doing and always excited to partner with you at . Thanks man.
Thank you. I appreciate the time today.
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