Voices In My Head Podcast Episode #260: Christa Wells

Have you ever thought to yourself, man, I'd like to host my own podcast? Well, guess what? You can go to podbean.com/voices and get everything you need to create, manage, and promote your podcast. I use Podbean every week for Voices in My Head. There's easy uploading and publishing tools, stunning templates, custom domains, social and promotional tools, an embeddable podcast player, monetization tools, and more. It is your all-in-one podcasting solution. With Podbean, you can create professional podcasts in minutes without any programming knowledge. Best of all, everything is mobile ready right from the start. So go to podbean.com/voices, and when you sign up, use the code "voices" and you'll get a sizable discount. Podbean, for your home podcasting. Thank you for listening to Voices in My Head. Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is your source for discussions on music, literature, movies, pop culture, theology, and more. Now sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of the Voices in My Head podcast. And don't forget to let the voices in your head be heard by following me on Twitter @RickLeeJames and sharing your thoughts about today's show. Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I am your host Rick Lee James, and I am so glad that you are here with us again this week. We have a great guest today, Krista Wells, the wonderful singer and songwriter, and we're going to get to know more about her in just a in a few minutes, and her new album, which is really good. I've had the chance to listen to most of it already. I'll be playing parts of it throughout this podcast today. But we're really excited to have Krista with us today. One thing I wanted to say before we get going is— actually, two things, two quick announcements, do some housekeeping things, and then we'll be off with our conversation today. The National Worship Leader Conference is coming up in Nashville, Tennessee. It is one of the most inspirational and informative gatherings of worship leaders, and it is a unique event that brings together musicians and songwriters, movers and shakers, theologians and scholars across the worldwide worship community. And so, and I will be there with my friends Brothers McClurg this year. So I hope that you can come out and join us. I'll be doing some podcasting while I'm there. I think I'm going to be playing for the Song Discovery stage, wherever they have that. So just come on out and join with us if you're in the Nashville area, May 7th through 9th.. You can go to worshipleader.com/nwlc for more details on registration. And speaking of Brothers McClurg, who I mentioned a few moments ago, just a couple of weeks ago I got back from New York where I finished recording my new album with them. And right now we are funding that album on indiegogo.com. You can go to indiegogo.com, just look up my name, Rick Lee James, and we have several different perks that we're offering. But one of the favorites right now is you can get 2 CDs, my former CD Hymns, Prayers, and Invitations, the new CD which is going to release in a few months called Thunder, and you get a book I wrote called Out of the Depths: A Songwriter's Journey Through the Songs, all in this one perk for only $50. Plus you get 2 instant downloads from the new album, including the unreleased Rich Mullins song Thunder. So go to indiegogo.com and pre-order my new album today. Just look for Rick Lee James. All right, well, that was a mouthful, and I'm glad to have all that out of the way. My guest today, as I said before, is Krista Wells, and Krista is an award-winning American singer and songwriter who writes deep-reaching alternative pop music. In 2006, Krista was named the GMA Songwriter of the Year for her song Held, which was recorded by Natalie Grant. She has released 5 albums as an indie artist, the Rogers Roger Wells' project Frame the Clouds, How Emptiness Sings, Feed Your Soul, and covers. And she will release her newest project, Velveteen, on Tuesday, April 10th. The first singles are out now, Down Down Low and Velveteen, and they are great songs. And we're going to talk about them today. Krista Wells, welcome to the Voices in My Head podcast.

Hey Rick, thank you so much. It's an honor to talk with you. My first conversation about the album, actually.

Oh wow, well I'm honored. That's fantastic. I am excited to be able to talk to you today and to get to hear a little bit more about it. I've watched some of the things that have been online and just some of the stories behind the song Velveteen specifically, and I really think people are going to resonate a lot with this album. And I'm so glad that you have another one coming out. What has it been, like 5 years I think?

Yeah, well since I released an originals album, it's been 5 almost 5 years. I guess it was sometime in 2013. Yes, so I've been, been saving up.

Well, that's good. Sometimes you need a little space in between albums and, and it helps out. But you've been writing like crazy. Uh, I don't know if every listener knows this, but you've written a lot of songs that people like, uh, like Ellie Holcomb have recorded on, on her Red Sea Road. You've written with people like Plum and Selah and Point of Grace, so, uh, some of which have been on this podcast. So, uh, Yeah, we just had Point of Grace a few months ago whenever they had their Christmas album out. So, uh, so you're— you have written with some really amazing people. And, um, before we get too far into the album, I want to say thank you to our mutual friend Dale Baker for kind of connecting us on this. Dale has been a good friend of mine for years, and I'm guessing— do you know him from your time in North Carolina, or did you know him prior to that?

I did not. I had only heard of the legend Dale Baker before that, and, and, um, it was, it was, you know, maybe, I don't know, 2006-ish or something like that, and then when I was just starting to dabble in playing my own stuff out, and, um, or maybe even later, maybe in 2008, and I, I had heard people out here in Nashville telling, you know, talking about Dale, oh, he lives there too. And so I think, I'm pretty sure my, one of my first efforts to reach out to him was me asking him if he'd ever consider playing with me for nearly free. Basically, I was like, um, I have like no money, I know you're way above me, but if you would ever, you know. And he was so gracious, and we became friends and have gotten to play together a lot through the years since then.

Well, we have a similar connection then, because I lived, uh, fairly close to that area. I lived in Burlington, North Carolina for a couple years, and, uh, and Dale's wife and I went to school together at Travecca University in Nashville. And then I moved to North Carolina, and they also moved there because of her working at Duke. So Dale and I used to get together and play music, and occasionally he'd come out and play at a couple of my concerts or worship leading events. It was the same thing. He was playing for Sixpence None the Richer at the time, and I was like, wow, I've got Sixpence's drummer with me, you know. But such a cool guy, very talented. And, uh, the Modlin Fee is actually his new stage name, uh, for his new albums. Uh, but yeah, and I— so anyway, I just wanted to say thank you to Dale, uh, publicly for connecting us. I just think he's a really— not just a great musician, which he is, but he's just such a good friend. And I'm so glad that he's doing some new things with his own music and not just playing behind others all the time.

Yes. Me too.

Well, let's get back to your music though. I, I wanted to get a little bit into your backstory today, and, and you can tell us as little or as much as you want, but I see that you— I didn't even realize this until this morning, but I see that you studied at Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana.

I did.

Yeah. And the funny thing about that is another connection point. I am actually from that area as well. My family is all from the Anderson, Middletown area.

So that is amazing.

What a small world. Yeah, it, it's crazy all the, the connections to Anderson University and people who have, uh, you know, just become great musicians. There's yourself, there's people like Sandy Patty, Stephen Curtis Chapman, um, Sean McLaughlin. Yeah, yeah, tons of them. Yeah, so there's a long tradition with Anderson. So maybe just tell us a little bit of, of your backstory because I don't know a ton of it. Are you originally from Indiana, or where did you originally hail from?

No, I, I usually say I'm from the Army because my dad was in the Army the whole time I was growing up. So we moved every, you know, 1 to 4 years. And, um, and yeah, spent time in the Midwest, in the South, in Germany several years, West Coast a little bit, East Coast. So a little bit of everywhere. And my parents landed in Wheaton, Illinois. Well, landed as in his first job outside of the military was in Wheaton. So I finished high school in Wheaton and then was looking for a school that would be away from there, away from home, but would be close enough to get home on a weekend if I wanted to. So, and then I was also looking for a music business program and preferred a small school, did not want to go to a big state school. So there were not a lot of options at that time that I was aware of. That fit all my criteria. Um, so I found Greenville College in Illinois, and I found Anderson University in Indiana, and those are the only two schools I applied to.

Wow.

And, um, I chose Anderson and had a wonderful, awesome college experience. Loved it. Made a lot of close friends who are still my people today, you know. And, um, and, you know, have gotten to connect into the music world, the music professional music world, um, in some ways because of the friendships and connections from Anderson.

Yeah, it's, it's amazing, isn't it? I, I don't know if you had any connection with the Gaithers while you were there, but they— it's always fascinating to me the way that they have sort of been the wind beneath the wings of so many people from so many different genres, and I I think that we often think of them as just, um, you know, that, well, they're just Southern gospel people, but really they've— they were kind of contemporary before contemporary happened, you know, back in the day.

Yeah, they just have a lot of wisdom and a lot of generosity. And when I was there, I was singing backup for their son Benji Gaither, a friend of mine who now lives here in Nashville, but I was singing for his band for a couple years and also had songwriting class with Gloria Gaither. She was really gracious to, you know, I don't know, a handful of semesters she came over and taught songwriting, and that was maybe the most valuable class I had during my 4 and a half years. And again, totally different genre, but you know, a lot of the principles of songwriting and lyricism they're true no matter what you're working on.

Sure. You know, so, well, and, and I think of, uh, you know, great songs I think can, can be translated into a lot of different styles. We're, we're singing Because He Lives this Sunday at church because it's Easter Sunday, but we're doing it a little more rocked up than, you know, it was ever intended to be. But I think that's kind of, again, the mark of a good song is one that I think you can do a lot of different ways. And, uh, obviously it's It's transcended time. I think Gloria Gaither's hymn— it's in our hymn book in the Church of the Nazarene, but she wrote a hymn to the tune of Finlandia called I Then Shall Live, and I think it's about one of the finest hymns I've ever heard written, period. It's just timeless, and it just so well describes what Christianity is. So there's a lot of depth there. Well, that's cool that you had a chance to spend some time with them and So, so from, from college, it seems that just a little that I know about you, you didn't take the, the traditional artist path. You were working more as a writer and you ended up at some point in Raleigh, North Carolina, which is where we talked about. So how did, how did your— I guess maybe walk us through a little bit of your, your story from the time you left college to when you got into songwriting and whatever you find to be interesting in that time. I'd just love to hear some more of your backstory.

Yeah, well, the highlights or the pivotal moments, I guess, were I joined a band towards the end of college with some friends, and that was what I really wanted to do at the time. I'd always thought I wanted to sing, and songwriting came about naturally later in high school. But even before then, I didn't know anything about songwriting. I just knew I loved to sing. So I joined this band, but in— and which was tremendous amount of fun and I learned a lot, but it also revealed just how, how much performance anxiety I, I had. And it was just kind of a plague, you know. I couldn't enjoy sharing the music, playing songs, because I just felt so overwhelmed with anxiety. So I still kept thinking I wanted to do it. We moved— my— I got married, my husband and I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and for his work and left Anderson, but my band was still back home. A few months in, I decided I loved the band, but the music we were making wasn't really where my heart was at, and I wanted to explore my own writing and do that. So I left the band, and a couple minutes— a couple months after that, my husband was offered a job in Raleigh, North Carolina, and so we headed over there. And so now I'm completely lost because I'm like, I don't know a soul out here. I'm not an ambitious kind of person. I'm not feeling brave. I don't know what I'm good at because I thought for sure it was music, but now here I am, like, barely able to get up on stage and perform. And what does a songwriter do out in North Carolina? I don't know. You know, I was just really lost at that point and had a great conversation with a veteran songwriter named Dwight Lyles. Here in Nashville. Just kind of, my mom had met him somewhere and he agreed to meet me. And one of the things, two things that he said to me in that conversation that were huge for me was, number one, he listened to my story and he said, "You know, I'm kind of hearing that you might be a better fit as a songwriter than a performer. It seems like, you know, it might work better for you." And he gave me a little bit of insight as to how to pursue that. But secondly, and it may have been the last thing he said to me that day, was he's like, I believe that, you know, God is sovereign. And he said, I believe that ultimately, if this is the work that he wants you to do, then you won't really be able to do enough things wrong to keep it from happening. And if, you know, and vice versa, if it's not what he wants you to do, you could do all the right things and it's just not going to pan out. And, you know, theologically people are all over the place on that, but at the time it really gave me a lot of peace to just acknowledge the involvement of the divine in our life, you know, in our life path. And so I felt like, okay, that freed me to do all the things I felt like you needed to do, that one should do, to be braver, to put myself out there, to kind of, you know, try to reestablish some connections I'd had previously and nurture my skills and my gifts. But it took kind of the burden off my shoulders. It made me go, I'm going to do my part, and that's all I can do. And if God wants it to happen, he'll make it happen. And, um, You know, I'm out there again, and, you know, far away from the music industry, thinking, well, you know, this is a lot of— I've got a lot of obstacles here. My own personality is in the way and my circumstances. And a few years later, 2000, maybe 2000, 2001, I had been doing some writing with Tiffany Arbuckle Lee, who is— was a friend of mine, but she's had started the band Plum, or started being Plum, and she wanted to record a couple of songs we'd written. And her husband approached and said, you know what, we're going to start handling Tiffany's publishing on our own, and I would love to try to handle your publishing. I would love to try to pitch some of your stuff. And it was out of the blue. I had not, you know, I had taken some steps to get out here and do some co-writing and all of that. I'd done what I knew to do. But I had not gone and knocked on publishers' doors, and I didn't know how to take a next step. And so Jeremy Lee did that. You know, he took that on, and he and Tiffany together started pitching some songs. So the Point of Grace song "Day by Day" was the first one. And that, you know, just was a very personal thing for me spiritually because I felt like I don't— this isn't even about what the world sees. This is totally between— for me, between me and God. Because I felt like as a little girl, he had communicated to me in some intangible way, you're gonna— I've planted this love of music in your heart, and it's not for nothing. It's going to be fulfilling work for you. And I really deeply believed that, even though I was terrified all through my teenage years and in early adulthood. But then there had been this lull, you know, when we moved out here, and I was like, okay, maybe I heard wrong, maybe, I don't know. And then the night I got that call that, um, that, you know, the ladies at Point of Grace wanted to use that song, actually it felt so personal. It felt like I don't care about any of the accoutrements or whatever that might go along with this. This just means God sees me and he He did plant that desire and he was faithful to it even when I had no means to bring it about myself.

Wow.

So that, that is really where, how it all began.

That's great, man. Well, and in, in the midst of that time, I, I love hearing stories and I, I want to spend time talking about your new songs, but the song that really kind of, I think, put you on a map as a songwriter and and helped you to, you know, win the GMA Award for Songwriter of the Year was the song Held.

Yes.

And, um, talk about a song that is— I mean, I, I don't know how Natalie Grant sings it without breaking down in tears because I'm one of those people that I get moved by things and I have trouble finishing the song. Um, but it feels like such a powerful story and, um And even just this week, my wife and I have been leaning on stories like that because we ourselves just this past week had another miscarriage. And I was—

I'm so sorry.

Oh, well, thank you. And I don't say that for any other reason than to just to say songs like this— I got to say the same thing to Andrew Peterson about some of his songs and the times he's been here. I always want to thank artists like you who write music that is, um, maybe doesn't seem even commercial at first, you know, because I don't know that— I don't know that Held feels like a radio hit, you know, like in the traditional sense, but there's something about it that so resonates with people like us who have been through such tragedies, you know, and in those ways, and, and God uses them to speak to us and to bring healing in the hurt. And so I, I wanted to take a moment to talk about that song too, but also before we got too far into it, just to thank you, um, because songs like that are things that are helping us right now to cope. And, and, um, and we just appreciate it so much. Would you mind, for, for listeners that may not know the story of that song, just kind of sharing where that came from?

Yes, we had just moved to Raleigh, North Carolina. Again, that was in that first couple years there. I was getting to know— I mean, I'd been married several years, but I was getting to know my mother-in-law a lot better and her story. And I became really close friends with a woman who was 10 or 15 years older than me named Patty, and she had recently been widowed. My mother-in-law had a story I had not heard previously about delivering a stillborn baby girl, full-term. And then I became close friends with another woman who was a few years ahead of me named Vanitha. And we were going to the same church, and I had actually brought her a meal after she gave birth to her baby boy Paul. But 2 months or 8 weeks after he was born, he died. He had a heart complication that they were aware of, but they lost him unexpectedly. So, you know, I had a friend who had lost a husband with 3 little kids, another friend who had lost a baby at 2 months, and my mother-in-law who had delivered a stillborn baby. And all of these, because they had gone through this, first of all, which had taken them to new depths, you know, spiritually. But then also because they age-wise were a few years ahead of me, I was able to just kind of sit at their feet and I listened and hung on every word they were willing to share during those couple years of getting to know one another. They had such wisdom. And I used to always say that they had experienced devastation, but they were not living devastated lives because all of them were bearing so much fruit and had such capacity for joy and such compassion for others. And, um, so I really felt like during— for a few months I was just storing up all their words. And then at one point, I believe it, it was either 1999 or 2000, I wrote the song, and, um, and I think I recorded it on an 8-track or something for, um for Mother's Day gift for them. So I was not— I had not yet met with Jeremy. I wasn't being published or handled or doing anything other than writing songs for people I knew. And that's— I suggest that to all the young writers I work with. I'm like, just start writing for people that you know, you know, give it away. And it's— so that song sat around for a few years, and then Jeremy and Tiffany kept trying to share it and share it with people out here in Nashville, and a lot of recognizable names, you know, said, uh, I don't think we can do that song. Like, I think we need to rewrite it. We had publishers or staff writers trying to rewrite the lyrics, trying to make it a little easier, a little more palatable.

Been there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I think we all have. And, um, one day Tiffany Lee was in a co-write with Natalie Grant who wasn't recognizable to a lot of us at that point, but she was about to write, you know, they were working on an album and Tiffany's like, "Can I play you this song?" Which is super generous of another writer to play a song she hadn't even written on. And she's like, "I want you to hear this song." And Natalie heard it and apparently called her husband Bernie on the drive home and was like, "I would be crazy not to record this the way it is." And so she just, God gave her the vision to— for that song. And she was able to hear that people need to hear this kind of rawness, this unpolished. And yeah, then I knew it was going to be recorded. I had no inkling or no, you know, reason to think it would ever be a single. Yeah. And I thought, like you, I was like, this isn't even radio format, these two long verses before you get to the chorus.

And yeah, but well, and And, and some of my favorite songs are not like radio format songs, like you say. And this is one that I just— I think it connects to so many people on such a different level. And I think there are just some songs that, for whatever reason, uh, there are, there are a ton of good songs out there, and there's a ton of great songs out there even, but there's— at times it just feels like the Holy Spirit just puts his mark on certain songs too. And to me, that feels like this song, you know, like when, when you hear it, there's something that God does, um, in, in the midst of hearing it that I think, I think God uses it and works through it. And what a, what an amazing gift that, um, that I think God gave you in that song and in the writing of it, because I really do feel like it is, is touching people in ways that no other thing can, you know. There's just times, for me anyway, A song can move me and help me deal with emotions that I didn't know I even had in ways that nothing else can, you know.

Yes.

And Held is definitely one of those songs. Well, um, I, I want to fast forward to your, your new EP. I appreciate you sharing that story. And there's another song that it feels like a deeply personal song called Velveteen that you wrote, and, um, it's, it's probably my favorite of those that I've heard on the new EP so far.

Love spoke my name and I felt life run through me, reborn in the flames. Nothing can undo me. I believe that I'm becoming, so if my beauty starts to fade, Well, I've been held in a thousand ways. If my heart looks broken in, then I've been brave enough to live. If perfect turns to perfect mess and all your love is all that's left, then I'm as real as real can be. Call me Val Fatty.

And I would love to hear some of the backstory to that. I, I know it has to do some with the Velveteen Rabbit, obviously, with the, with the, the title itself, but I, I feel like there's more to it that I'd love to hear about.

Yes. Um, I get so many ideas and song titles that probably you're the same way, from books that I'm reading or you know, conversation sermons. It's not like they come out of my own head. I wish I was that original. But books, I love to read, and books tend to meet me. I just— it's almost mystical how whatever I happen to pick up seems to intersect with something unspoken or very personal in my life. And so after moving here to Nashville in the summer of 2007, 2016. Um, are you still there?

Yes, I am. I muted it so I wouldn't make noise while you were talking.

Sorry. Oh, that's fine, that's fine. I just wanted to make sure before I got too far in.

Yeah, go right ahead.

Okay. We moved here in the summer of 2016, and, uh, we were— my husband and I were— had been in a difficult place for several years. Um, and the year prior to moving here, we were entirely separated physically because he was living and working in Nashville and the kids and I were finishing out our year in, in Raleigh. So we were very excited to get here and have a fresh start. But that year turned out to be very difficult in, in our, in our marriage. It just— things were not resolving the way that we hoped it would be. So I found that I was just leaning deeply into poetry and books early in the morning, you know, sitting with my coffee and just trying to breathe, you know, trying to breathe and pray and, and find the strength to get through the day and to know what to do next. And what do I have control over, and what do I not have control over? And Anne Voskamp is a friend from several years, and she had just released her book, The Broken Way, and she sent the book, a copy of the book, to me that fall. And as I was reading it, there's a section where she's kind of fleshing out this metaphor of the Velveteen Rabbit having to do with her relationship with her mom and trying to speak to her mom about the good work that suffering had done in her life, you know, and, and the beauty that it had brought about and the beauty of our scars. And so Anne was talking about the Velveteen Rabbit. I've heard that story so many times, as all of us have, but I don't think I had ever paid attention to it the way I did, because as I read her interpretation of it, I just was seeing myself and I was seeing a hope in it because the pain of this character, this rabbit, the pain he had to endure, but it wasn't for nothing. It was, it was truly a process of him becoming more who he was meant to be than he had ever realized was possible. And I saw in myself that I was having to release and let go of so many expectations in life, so many dreams, so many things that I was clinging to and things that were defining me, that were part of my identity. And I realized I had no power to keep hold on those, you know, that I had to let them go. And at the same time, I recognized when I read that story that even though the pain was just at times almost unbearable, there was deep down in me an awareness that I was not being entirely destroyed, that I was losing many things, but that I, the essence of who I am as a human and as a child of God, was not being demolished but was expanding. And it was so upside down, and I couldn't have fathomed that had I not walked through it, I think. I had heard people say things like that who have gone to these dark places already, but I couldn't internalize it without going through it myself. I held that image, the velveteen. When I read it, I think I made a note of it in my journal and was like, this— I have to do something with this. But kind of like a few years ago when also by Anne Voskamp's inspiration. I wrote a song called "How Emptiness Sings." I knew it was special. I just knew it the morning I read it. I knew it was special. I knew I had to write it, and I was terrified of ruining it. You know, as a songwriter, I was like, this— I can make this so cheesy and bad if I'm not careful with it. So I just sat on it. Plus, I was going through so much turmoil here that I didn't— I wasn't able yet. But the next spring I started dabbling in it, or early summer at some point. And I sat down one day and I wrote the chorus in almost, or nearly, as it is now. And I fell in love with it. I thought, this is expressing what I want it to express. And by that point, my husband and I were separated. I had never anticipated that being a part of my journey. Never was even on the table, you know. We had always said that's not on the table, but at that point it was out of my hands. I had done everything I could do, so I had to let that go, and I had to write this song. And a couple months of trying and trying to write the verses, I couldn't do it. And I had also stepped away from it. And as a songwriter, sometimes— I don't know if you've had this happen, but if you write a part that you love and then you don't keep going when you're still in that space, you can kind of lose—

yes—

your way.

Yeah.

And so I, you know, it was the last song that we wrote for the album, but I knew even then that it probably would be the title track if I could just get these verses. And yeah, so I met— spent a day with my friend Nicole Witt, and she and I worked on it, you know, and fleshed it out. We had a book about Velveteen Rabbit in front of us, and we wrote the verses. Then when I got to the studio, I played what we had for Ben Shive, and he was like, I love a lot of this, and I don't, I don't think it's there yet. And so he gave me some direction, and I took it home, worked on it some more, came back in. You know, it was literally like that, like almost on the day of, you know, tracking, um, we were still going, I think we need to swap this verse for that verse. And, um, so it was a hard— it was a difficult one, but it felt like it was important to finish it.

Well, I'm certainly glad you did. It's a powerful song. And yes, I have been there with needing to rewrite things for sure. Matter of fact, just a couple weeks ago, I was in a studio in New York, and one of the guys in the band said, "You know, you might want to change that song. It sounds just like this other song." And I was like, "What?" And then I went, I went, oh no, you're right, it's like that, you know. So yeah, like kind of on the spot, some of those moments happen. But it doesn't feel like it was one of those songs that— it actually feels so free-flowing in, in the way that you sing it and the way that it comes across. And, um, and you know, if, if memory serves, even in, you know, the, the Velveteen Rabbit like story, there's something in the, the book about the the rabbit has to go through the fire at some point before it really, you know, yes, makes, makes it to the point of this journey where it, where it needs to be, you know.

Exactly.

And your song really kind of represents that, the way that it's sung as well. And, um, yeah, I just, I really like that one a lot. I think you did a great job with it. And, um, thank you. I, I, and let me say as well, I want to stop because I, I feel like I need to just acknowledge a minute, you know, the, the sacred moment that you just shared. Not everybody is that transparent to talk about, you know, problems that they've had in marriage and in life. And, uh, and I, I feel like that is a— it's a gift that you're giving to us by sharing those stories with us and, and helping us. I, I too have, have been there, and, and I, um, I so appreciate— because sometimes those wounds that we bear God can use to bring healing in others and in ourselves. And I just, I know somebody's going to be listening to this and hearing that and thinking, you know, well, these artists, they all have it together. But, you know, when we hear these things, we're all people that are on this journey that desperately need a God who can, can pick us up and mend us and take us through those hard places together. So I wanted to just stop and say that to you, say thank you for being so transparent as we talk about these things. I think that there is power in that, and I think there is a real strength of healing that can come through our honesty in those moments. And it feels like maybe a lot of this record has that. There's a song which is actually a lot more upbeat, and it's "Down Down Low," and it's a more— it's almost like a soulful kind of upbeat I don't know how to describe it. Bluesy pop, maybe something like that.

Sometimes you gotta go dark, sometimes you gotta be quiet, sometimes you gotta get far from the voices that stir up violence. Everybody wants to talk, nobody wants to listen. Everybody wants to talk, nobody wants to listen. Listen, you got to get, get, get down, down low. You got to turn, turn, turn it down, down low. You got to take it, take it, take it down, down low. You got to get down low. Sometimes you got to go first. Sometimes you got to be sorry. Sometimes you're going to get hurt and go back to where you started. Everybody wants to win.

Nobody Yeah, it's a totally different direction. It's a lot of the songs on the album. I mean, there are only 7 songs, but quite, you know, the majority of them were connected to my relational crisis in one way or another. But this song actually was— I mean, I could apply it there probably, but it didn't originate from that at all. It was actually written during that same fall, but it was election season.

Oh, I don't know anything that was tumultuous about that.

I know, no, I was totally stressed out, but the rest of the country was calm as cucumbers.

It's been smooth sailing ever since. I don't know what you're talking about. Sorry, please continue.

I just, you know, my personality is, um, definitely a peacemaking, mediating, indecisive, I see both sides of everything kind of personality. And so I, I don't like conflict anyways. I'm learning to have a healthier acceptance of conflict, but it doesn't— it's not my favorite for sure. So when I'm, you know, and I do have family members who like love the debate, you know, and so I know that exists. You can, you can love it without being hateful as well. But I just was at times feeling like, okay, I need to know what's going on. I need to enter and engage. But also there's so much anger. It feels like— it feels like violence. To me, the way people are speaking to one another. And, you know, also as a Christ follower, I expect that to go on in the world, but I don't want to ever expect it from people who claim to follow Christ.

I— right.

And that's not to say we should be silent, because I—

there—

our lives need to speak and our words need to speak up for the oppressed and for the goodness and the truth. And we need to be willing to lay it all on the line for that as well. But there is a difference. You can do that without being hateful, you know. And I just felt disappointed, you know, in a lot of the voices that were out there. I felt tired. I'm tired of hearing, weary. And then sometimes even, you know, when I would get myself all worked up about things, I would just get tired of hearing myself talk. I'm like, oh, I just need a break. And I know many people felt that way. I remember seeing a lot of people say, I'm just taking a break from Facebook until this whole thing is done. And the election season was just, you know, it was an intensified moment. But it's— this happens all the time. You know, this is just what we deal with all the time. So that just happened to be what, you know, the impetus behind me writing the song at that moment. But I was driving by myself from Atlanta after a gig, and I was— I always write at the piano, so it was unusual. That's probably why the song sounds different, is because I wasn't writing at the piano. And that the first lines just came to me. Sometimes you gotta go dark, sometimes you gotta be quiet. And I just started writing that way. And then, you know, it's all pretty much on that same chord. Everybody wants to talk, nobody wants to listen. You gotta get, get it. So, you know, it just stays right there. It's just different melodic variations in that same space.

So, um, that just makes me want to hear you sing that for like 20 minutes. It's so good, even just acapella. It's so good.

Oh, and I sent it to, um, I came home and finished it, and it's just, it's a song about, you know, needing to give yourself space, not just for your own sake, although that's important, just for your own mental health, but also just learning to be quiet and listen for a minute. Just listen to what the other side is saying. Not listening, waiting for your chance to rebut, but just to actually try to understand where they're coming from. And the chorus is, you got to get, get, get down, down low. You got to turn it down low. You got to take it down low. And that's just humility. That's what the song is mainly about, is practicing humility, because— and what humility leads to, you know, in the bridge, is this opportunity for a deeper kind of harmony. A harmony is not unison. It is not we are all in agreement, right? You know, we need all the differing voices, but we can be in different places and still work together. That's possible. And I think people have just given up in a way on, on believing that that's possible.

Well, you're right, and that's actually a great way to describe that because you're right, harmony is the part that actually makes the song the most beautiful when you get the harmonies together. And if everybody sang the exact same note, it wouldn't be interesting. It wouldn't— it might be okay, but it wouldn't be as beautiful as it was. And one thing that, uh, just culturally, culturally, it feels like right now to me It's not, you know, I have this opinion, you have that opinion, we feel different ways. It's I have this opinion and you're evil if you don't share that same opinion, you know. And it just creates this very unhelpful environment and it makes conversation impossible because we tend to look at other people— well, we other them for one thing. We make them this person that's different than us. And I think there's a lot of wisdom in the song and it's It's funny that the song is about kind of getting away from things, getting down low and sort of unplugging a little bit, but it's such like a catchy poppy type song too, which is kind of fun. It's a nice juxtaposition with those two things. But I really like that about what you said about harmony. I think that is, if we could understand that more with each other, not just in the church but outside the church, Maybe we need to be reminded of it in the church too, though, because every 4 years, you know, we have this election stuff that happens, and without fail, it always just seems to drive people— you know, especially this last election, it just drove people out of the church by droves. They have statistics of people that felt their church was not a safe place for them to have conversations or fellowship, and they just, you know, felt like they had to leave., and when that's creeping into the church, that's when it starts to scare me, you know, because that really should be our sanctuary and our refuge. It should be our place where we can come and lose all of our identity in Christ, and all those other things have to fall aside. But yeah, I'm going to remember that about harmony. Good stuff. Well, and sorry, you were about to say something.

Oh no, I was just going to say, you know, that I've just become more aware over the last couple years how much it has to do with our innate, it seems like, an innate desire to control other people. And it's both. So you see it like in this song, I was more, you know, more writing from a macro kind of global perspective, but it's true on an interpersonal relational level as well. And in the other song that I released recently, Butterfly. It's kind of the same dynamic playing out. It's, um, wanting to learn to let go of that need to control and to be in perfect agreement with someone before I can love them.

So yeah, yeah, no, that's great. Can we talk just a little bit about Butterfly?

I'm only human. I'm only human after all. Answers were easier then. I had little chance of being wrong. These days are different. And I'm only human after all. We don't have to see eye to eye. You will always be a friend of mine. So go where you must go, be who you need to be. I'll meet you on the road, tell me what you see. Butterfly, my butterfly.

Butterfly is a song I wrote for my oldest son, and he was getting ready to graduate from high school, and I just started writing this song about our relationship. And, you know, it's just so humbling as you get older as a parent because they can see you more, much more clearly. You know, when they're 5 and 6, it's like you are a god, you know, you have it all together. And you just feel so, like, see-through by the time they're teenagers. And especially if you're going through a crisis like I was, like we were, I just was like, oh man, like, we're just shattering any delusions that they had that we were great people who had it all together. And so, you know, it's just kind of starting out saying, I know you can see it now that I'm, I'm only human after all. And the answers, you know, the questions they asked when they were younger, it was so much easier. And now I feel like I'm saying, "I don't know," so much more of the time. And you know, you set into raising another human with these grand expectations of doing it. I mean, it's like we all do this. Like you think, "I'm gonna do it better than anybody who's gone before me." And if I do X, Y, and Z, if I execute the plan, then they are all gonna come out believe what I believe. And you know what, and, um, that's not the way it happens. So, um, and both my husband and I are pretty— people are, for the most part, we actually are very artistic and creative, and, and that lends itself to wanting to raise kids who ask questions and try to do things in and express in new ways. Um, so that's what we got. We got kids who think their own thoughts and I just really wanted my son to know, like, at that point, as he's going off, you know, to the next phase, that like, I do not need you to hide yourself from me. I do not need you— now I'm glad to not be the boss of you anymore. Like, you can go and make your own choices, and whatever those choices are, you can come home, you know. And I— and the whole butterfly image was risky because I didn't— I don't think he would resonate with the image of a butterfly, but it just worked to tell the story of transformation. And becoming again, which is the same Velveteen theme in a way, you know, becoming. So I just wanted to say, you know, go do what you got to do, and I'm so excited to hear about your experience and what you see through your unique lens, because they're teaching me all the time how to see differently.

Wow, that's great.

It's in a way a simple song because it's just pretty clear-cut. It's just letting a person go.

Yeah, well, I'm certainly glad that we had a chance to talk about some of these songs today. And we've— thank you again. Thank you for just being so transparent about the writing. I think it not only helps, um, not only helps people who might be struggling, uh, to hear some of your story, but I think it even helps— we have a lot of songwriters that listen to this podcast and, and people who are creative types, and I think it helps them to kind of know it's, it's okay to, you know, have, have these seasons of life where everything's not always working great. It doesn't mean you have to give up. And an artist, you know, I don't, I don't know if you're like me or not, but you probably are, because almost all of us, we feel like somebody's gonna find us out at some point, that we're not really an artist, you know. Like, they're gonna find out I'm not supposed to be here, I'm not one of them, uh, somehow. And even, even like some of the greats, I think, struggle with that whole thing. And so if anything, maybe we can be a bit of an encouragement today to people as well who are in the creative field. And that can be— that can cover so many different things, from songwriting to even pastoral ministry. In a lot of ways, there's a lot of creativity that has to happen there. And I just so appreciate your, your being willing to share some of your story today, to share these songs with us. And I want to encourage everybody who's listening to on April 10th, go out and get a copy of Velveteen because I've been enjoying these songs and I think that you really are going to as well. Is there a way that they can pre-order the album right now?

Yes, actually it is up for pre-order on iTunes. So iTunes, okay, it's like $5.99.

Awesome. Okay, great. So make sure if you use iTunes, you go ahead and go there and check these out. You can hear some great songs. There are actually a couple of YouTube videos as well where people can hear the music. And I tell you what, we'll just send people to kristawellsmusic.com because that's going to have all the information that they need there. And it's a, it's a really cool website. You've got some great blog posts on there that you've written about music and creativity and family life and all sorts of things. So I, I think that if people want to check out more about not only your music but just a lot of the other endeavors that you have, because we didn't even talk about More Than Rubies today with Nicole Witt, who you mentioned, but sort of the folk-inspired music that you have with her. And we just appreciate what you do here and appreciate you taking time. Is there anything that I've left out that we should focus on before we close out our conversation today?

Man, I don't think so. I feel like I've talked your ear off.

I have enjoyed every minute of it. I've enjoyed the UPS package delivery or whatever it was, you know, that came in in the that our listeners won't know about because I will have edited it out by that time. But it's been great to sit down with you today, and I hope we can do it again sometime. I wish you all the best on the release of this new album. I know it's going to resonate with a lot of people.

Thank you so much.

Oh, sure thing. Well, Crystal Wells, thank you for being one of the voices in my head this week. Thank you for joining me here this week on the Voices in My Head podcast. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com, follow me on Twitter @RickLeeJames, like my artist page on Facebook at facebook.com/rickleejames, and keep up to date on what I'm writing at my author page on Amazon.com. Make sure to follow my calendar on the website, and if you would like to have me come to your town to do a concert, a speaking engagement, or a book event, you can book me through my website by clicking on the link for Pare Booking Agency. That's P-A-R-E Booking. And finally, it would mean the world to me if you were to leave me a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast is on the internet. And now the benediction: May the God of peace who raised Christ from the dead strengthen your inner being for every good work, and may the blessing of God Almighty Father, Son, and Holy Spirit rest upon you and dwell within you this day and forevermore.

Amen.