Facing the Music Page 11

  It was an electric ego boost when TobyMac called and said he’d listened to my old Wishing Well record and liked it. In April 1996, Gotee invited me to hang out with them at the Nashville Christian music event of the year, GMA (Gospel Music Association) Week. To go meant skipping a week of my college classes, but my grades were okay, so I decided that I could take the risk. It seemed ridiculous to pass up the opportunity to meet with a label that actually seemed interested in signing me.

  When I got there, I met label president Joey Elwood and the small staff that worked in keeping Gotee up and running. The company attitude reminded me a little of the New Earth scene, with a bit more polish. Not too much, though. It seemed like a few of the people that worked there had lived a little, and I liked that.

  The Gotee peeps took turns showing me Nashville and the behind-the-scenes world of the CCM industry. That week, I spent most of my time around the primary meeting place of the GMA crowd, the lobby of downtown Renaissance Hotel, and walking along Broadway, Nashville’s Main Street.

  Hanging out in the musically historic Nashville for the first time thrilled me. Walking past the storied Ryman Auditorium, the birthplace of the Grand Ole Opry, where legends like Hank Williams and Patsy Cline reached out to the world over live radio broadcasts filled me with awe. It was exciting to walk past the Broadway honky-tonks at midday and hear the live music spilling into the streets! I wondered if the players in the bars played all day in the hopes that the Music Row record executives would stroll through the scene looking for the next untapped talent. Even the buskers on the street turned the sidewalks into stages. I wondered if every hopeful country singer and songwriter in the world had landed here, vowing to sing nonstop until their dreams came true. That I had been flown in by a record label added to my sense of how rare this occasion was.

  During GMA week the Christian music industry filled the streets of downtown Nashville. The artists that were the face of CCM could be seen passing through the lobby of the Renaissance nearly every second. I tried not to freak out at how intimidating it felt being around all the signed artists. It was hard not to be when cameras were going off everywhere. Everyone who was anyone in CCM, at some point, had to pass through the revolving doors into the lobby, braving the bustling crowd filled with fans, media, and Christian retailers. Even if I wasn’t a fan of all the artists that were walking around, the truth was, these were people who I could only dream of equaling in terms of success. Heads turned and bulbs flashed when artists like Stephen Curtis Chapman came through. The crowds parted and stilled like the waters of the Red Sea when gospel sensation Kirk Franklin and his entourage of glitter and gold thundered through the mob. In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t imagine how on earth I found myself in such a place.

  One of the nights, Gotee was putting on a showcase concert with all their acts. Toby was interested in signing me, but few people in Nashville had ever heard me play. It was up to me, that night, to take the stage and prove that I could handle myself. I was terrified. It didn’t matter that I had a hundred shows under my belt—compared to this crowd, I was a rookie to be sure.

  Gotee had rented a vacant bar to serve as their venue for the week. On the night I was to play, it was packed with very serious fans buzzing about how excited they were that Johnny Q. was going to be rocking their faces off. The band had amps and drums and fans ready to mosh. I, on the other hand, was armed only with an acoustic guitar.

  The crowd looked so cool that I felt out of place even in the audience. Backstage, the all-male Johnny Q. filled the room with their rock-star musk. I remember TobyMac calmly welcoming me into the green room while he casually picked at a box of sushi with a pair of chopsticks.

  Sushi? Raw fish? Who on earth—I said to myself, completely grossed out. “Who would ever eat raw fish?

  My subconscious answered me back in a jazz-cool voice, “Rock stars, babe. Rock stars eat sushi.”

  What was I doing here? I was definitely not in Kansas anymore.

  Before I knew it, Joey Elwood had taken the stage to introduce me. The buzzy room stopped for a moment, a few lazy hands smacked together when he announced my name, and then it was my stage.

  All I could do was take a deep breath, close my eyes, and play my heart out. I couldn’t be anybody other than who I was, so I had nothing to lose.

  Thirty minutes later, I looked up and it was all over. I don’t remember much about the applause in the room, just that I automatically did what I always do when I leave the stage. I reached to pull the cable from the end of my guitar, gave a little thank-you wave, and turned to get off stage without further embarrassment.

  As I walked off, one of the girls who squished up into the barrier in front of the stage asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Jennifer,” I said off mic. “Hi!” I didn’t know what else to do except smile and try to leave.

  “No,” the girl returned, “What’s your name on your record?”

  “Oh, uh—” it felt strange introducing myself to someone with my full name, but she wanted it all, “Jennifer . . . Knapp.” Weird.

  “Cool,” she said, “I’ll be looking out for you!” I heard her say, as I walked off.

  AFTER GMA WEEK had ended, I returned back to Pittsburg for the last few weeks of the spring semester. I fought the remaining adrenaline and flattering buzz that still lingered, and tried to focus on the coming final exams when I got the call from Joey. Amazingly, Gotee wanted me on board and were offering me a five-record contract.

  I was twenty-two, a new Christian with barely a dozen songs to my name, and I said yes.

  I was still a semester or two away from completing my psychology degree, but it was going to have to wait. I finished my classes that spring in what would be my last term at Pittsburg State. I committed myself to being a full-time, signed, Christian recording artist.

  twelve

  Signing with Gotee Records was both exhilarating and nerve racking. On one hand, it was an incredible opportunity to have a job centered around music, yet, on the other, I doubted whether I had the goods to make it work. That I had the makings of a Christian rock star seemed almost laughable to me. I couldn’t see myself as anything other than a country tomboy. If I was honest, I felt ugly, fat, and a little nerdy. That’s to say nothing about my self-image as a Christian. Alone, and in private, I was being drawn further into a spiritual world that continued to shape, inspire, and strengthen my inner being, but outside? I was self-conscious of how different I was. Everything and everybody in Nashville was larger than life to me. The CCM industry looked to be filled with people who had grown up in the church and worked to stay there. To my eyes, everyone was fashionable and physically fit. Maybe that’s because they ate sushi. I’d never eaten sushi. I’d never lived in a big town. I’d never . . . there was a lot I hadn’t done, but all that was about to change very rapidly.

  I moved from Pittsburg to Kansas City. Moving to KC got me closer to the airport, so that I could easily fly back and forth to Nashville without having to move so far from the Midwestern world I was comfortable with. Besides, there was no guarantee that my career was going to last long. As is often said to musicians, it’s always good to have something to fall back on. I figured if this whole thing turned out to be a bust, at least I wouldn’t be far from the safety net of my friends and family.

  Thankfully, the staff at Gotee was small and down to earth, making my introduction to the music scene relatively smooth. They had a reasonably diverse core of personalities, ranging from executive accounting geeks and pop-culture hipsters, all of whom warmly welcomed me into their family. I was sure the vibe came from the merged influences of founders, Toby McKeehan (TobyMac) and Joey Elwood. Together, they represented, inspired, and encouraged Gotee’s collective passion for creating music that was culturally and spiritually relevant to Christianity.

  There was no doubt Toby was driven to keep his finger on the pulse of what was cool to you
ng people. Though my interactions with Toby throughout my history at Gotee would be limited, his philosophy would leave a lasting mark on me.

  What struck me about Toby was that he was confident in the person he wanted to be, both as an artist and as a Christian. It was hard not to respect that about him. “Jesus Freak” had changed the landscape of CCM, and it wasn’t a joke or a money grab. Yes, the record was hugely successful, but behind the scenes, Toby was dead serious about integrity. He was serious about Jesus, and the lengths he went to to put out quality music and entertainment was his way of reflecting that.

  Though we were completely different in terms of style, I took a lot in from Toby’s peripheral leadership. Whether he intended to or not, he impressed upon me the importance of both spiritual and artistic integrity. As an observer, Toby appeared to have seamlessly merged the two.

  I looked to Toby’s example as the standard of what would ultimately be expected of any CCM rock star making a living in the spotlight. If I were to succeed, I had to be excellent at my craft, as well as be beyond reproach with Christian integrity and unabashed when speaking about my faith.

  In the early days, sitting around a conference table discussing what my image would be, Toby was the one who shaped what my personality would look like to the outside world.

  I credit Joey Elwood for keeping me grounded through the chaos of what was a strange new world to me. He wanted to run his company well, but never let that get in the way of our becoming friends. He kept me motivated to stay passionate about the joy of serving others through music. He and I would share many conversations over the years about the challenges we both felt in balancing our faith and having careers, when faith was our business.

  He was one of the few people who seemed to understand that I wasn’t just performing for the money. I wanted to do something meaningful with my life, and music was a way to make that a possibility. Music, for me, was about what it did when you told it your secrets. Music seemed to turn our inner longings into prayers. Played back, shared, and transmitted, the impossible happened. We knew that we were known. By someone, somewhere.

  Through the music, with Gotee’s help, I truly believed that I could share a vision of the God who made me known. The God of Love that I had found, through Christ, through music, through faith.

  These things weren’t easy to keep hold of when the world seemed to be spinning so fast. As soon as the ink had dried on the contracts, I was neck deep in planning meetings aimed at creating the storefront image that was to be my public life.

  No stone was to be left unturned. It seemed like every note of every song was dissected, every hair on my body colored, cut, or plucked. I was now in the music business and I had to look like I was up to the task.

  Apparently, I needed a head-to-toe makeover.

  Now, from what I understand about girls who aren’t tomboys, getting the opportunity to have a complete makeover at someone else’s expense would be a dream come true. The idea of spending days with endless spa treatments is enough to make some giddy with delight. Me? I was mortified.

  I had no idea how much work it took to prepare a woman for a photo shoot. My hair was cut and colored by a stylist (back in Kansas we just called the lady down at the Main Street beauty parlor a hairdresser). I was introduced to and trained in how to use things called hair products. Who knew you could put more into your hair care than hairspray and mousse?

  When the hair on the top of my head was taken care of, the hair on my face was next. According to the lady at the spa, I needed two eyebrows, not one. And, of course, absolutely no mustache! Ouch!

  It was exciting to come out the other side of the beauty mill feeling like a new woman, but it was unnerving as well. Until that point, I had taken for granted how important and private my life had been. My body, my clothes, my faith, and my music had always been mine to decide. Now, I was only at the beginning stages of learning what it would be like to have to share elements of my private domain with others.

  In 1998, Gotee Records released Kansas and, that fall, put me out on the road for my first official tour with headliners Audio Adrenaline (Audio A, for short). Mark Stewart, the lead singer for Audio A, had produced Kansas, so he was more than eager to do his part to help launch my career by giving me a spot to play on his Some Kind of Zombie tour. Outside of a little professional nepotism, there really wasn’t much reason for me to have been on the tour. Musically, I didn’t seem to fit into the night.

  Audio A was a rock-and-roll band that catered to mostly young men, and supporting ska act, The O.C. Supertones, did even more so. To say this was a testosterone-fueled production is to put it mildly. I had no money to hire a band with which to sonically compete, so it was up to just me and my guitar to make it work.

  Nearly every night for four months, I had to walk out onto a huge, dimly lit stage, alone, in front of over a thousand amped-up (mostly teenage) Christian music fans. All of them were there to have their heads blown off, not to be lulled to sleep by some chick with a guitar.

  For the first few weeks of the tour, I was an absolute nobody. When I walked out on stage, the audience was either ambivalent or annoyed.

  I could see it in the faces of the boys assembled in the mosh pit. While they excitedly tried to push and shove their way to the front, a few faces stared up at me in disbelief. As if to say, “What is a girl doing here? Girls don’t rock.”

  Behind me, The O.C. Supertones backdrop towered and sparkled to remind everyone of who I was not. I was some unknown delaying the show they really came to see. My name was announced, a few outnumbered young girls clapped in feminine solidarity, the spotlight turned on . . .

  I tried to think of it as my special honor to start the show. I had to be good. Better than good. The applause was feeble, but it was my job to change that. I wanted them all to know that the night had started and I meant business. I wanted to win them over. The cards looked stacked against me, but I tried to put it out of my mind.

  I had three songs to do my thing. Without a single word, I laid into the most rockingest songs I had, hell bent on pounding my guitar into splinters. I sang harder than I should and louder than necessary. I sawed my guitar as hard as I could. I played this way every night, trying to swing attention my way, until one night—Thwack!—a string broke on my guitar. The room went silent as my miniset came to a screeching halt. Disaster. Without a word, I took off my guitar, reached for another, and picked up right where I had left off. All of a sudden, the crowd went nuts. Every night after that, I made it my mission to play until it broke or die trying.

  After every show, I came out and sat, usually unnoticed, at the end of the autograph table while fans made their way past Audio A and the Supertones. Occasionally kids would hand me their tour posters to sign, more out of mercy than anything else, but, on the night of the broken string, things started to brighten.

  One sweaty boy came up to me and asked if I had a pick that I could sign for him. While I signed, he added, “I don’t really like chick music, but you rock!”

  Meanwhile, Gotee had been doing their best to get Christian radio stations to start playing my songs. People started making the connection.

  “Oh! You’re that girl with the song I like on the radio!”

  The boys kept walking by, fully decked out in their Audio A T-shirts and hats, but then the girls started coming by too. By the end of the tour I was signing more and more Kansas CDs.

  It took the sting—or maybe I should say, stink—out of being on tour with all those guys. I was one of only two girls in the whole crew, the other being my road manager/merch girl. We were on the crew bus, which we shared with the ten guys who unpacked, set up, and packed the entire tour production each day. Twelve people crammed into what is basically a big RV, most of them stinky and tired. One toilet (no number twos allowed!) and two televisions to share among us. The only guaranteed privacy you got on tour was your assigned bunk. Senio
rity determined your allotment. Bunks were arranged six on each side, end to end, in two stacks of three. The lowest on the floor were hummed to sleep by the sounds of tire treads, the highest rocked to sleep by the gentle sway of riding more than ten feet off the ground. The middle was a perfect blend of both hum and roll. There was no one favorite bunk to sleep in, but most everyone develops their own strong preference. Getting the bunk you wanted versus the bunk you hated could be the difference between your tour simply being long or a crucible you would have to suffer. When every day for months on end is the cycle “Rinse. Wash. Repeat,” a little thing like your bunk becomes a high priority.

  Every day was the same: wake up, set up, sound check, and show. Pack up, get on the bus, and go to sleep while the driver heads to the next town. Wake up again, in a new place—it doesn’t matter where. You have to do exactly the same thing today as you did yesterday. Just make sure that when you get on stage and shout to the crowd you remember where you are!

  That tour was the first time I experienced the phenomenon of not knowing or even caring what city I was in. It all bled together. We played a lot of small arenas on tour. Arenas are either round or square boxes made of rebar and cement. The hallways all look the same. The dressing rooms (if you got one) are usually gray and musty, thanks to the showers. Often, they were locker rooms of whatever local sports team makes the venue their home. Getting use of the showers was a mixed blessing. It was great to be able to have a place to clean up, but bad when it came to staving off athlete’s foot, and brutal when the water only ran cold.

  It was hard going, but by the end of the tour I was finding my stride.

  Unbelievably, my first album was selling well. Better, I think, than any of us expected. A few of my songs had made it to #1 on the CCM charts as my name became more recognizable across the country (for Christian music fans, anyway). In early 1999, Kansas had sold well enough to give TobyMac measured confidence in signing me as the opening act for DC Talk’s spring leg of the Supernatural tour.