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Third Day tours for the needy
By JOHN BENSON
For Christian contemporary-rock act Third Day, getting nominated for a Grammy Award has become old hat. Earlier this year, the band received three Grammy nods and eventually won an award in the Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album category for its 2009 concert effort “Live Revelations.”
However, that old hat becomes bittersweet when the group releases what it believes is its best effort to date and somehow gets shunned from Grammy voters. This is exactly what happened exactly a year ago with the Georgia-based act’s 2008 album “Revelation.”
“When we put out ‘Revelation,’ we felt like it was our best album, and it didn’t get nominated,” said guitarist Mark Lee, calling from a tour stop in Jacksonville, Fla. “I realize you get tired of hearing the phrase ‘It’s an honor to just get nominated,’ but let me tell you, when you don’t get nominated, you realize what an honor it is to get nominated.”
Even though Lee’s comments could sound bitter, that’s not his intention. Instead, his explanation of the mind-set inadvertently gains credibility when he strays into Sally Field’s famous Academy Award speech territory.
“On a certain level, it does validate what you do,” Lee said. “We’ve been working really hard on the album and touring, and when we internally feel like things are going well and it’s well-received and you don’t get the Grammy, then you think maybe we were doing something wrong. Maybe it’s us. But you have to step back and not look at it [in a bitter] way. The Grammy is obviously an impressive award. Beside that, there are a lot of other factors. It’s funny because if you don’t win, you think, ‘Oh it’s political.’ But if you do win, you say, ‘Oh wow, they really like us.’ So you have to step back and take that with a grain of salt.”
Nevertheless, Third Day remains a bellwether in the Christian- music world with more than five million albums sold and countless tours attracting crowds from around the globe. With plans on releasing its new studio effort, “Move,” next month, the outfit is back on the road this fall as part of the “Make A Difference Tour 2010,” which comes through Northeast Ohio on Sept. 30 at the Covelli Centre.
These are interesting times for Third Day, which over the past decade has watched the CCM genre expand to its high-water mark.
“It’s grown a lot,” Lee said. “When we first started, rock music was a sub-genre of CCM. There was big mainstream artists like Michael W. Smith and Point of Grace; there was this kind of middle-of-the-road artist; and then you had the rock bands: us, Jars of Clay, Audio Adrenaline. And it was like here’s this really cool music, but it’s for the youth groups.
“And that’s the big thing I’ve noticed, that the rock-based music has become the mainstream over the last 10 years, and a lot of the 4Hims and Avalons, you don’t see many artists like that any more. And I think it’s a shame, because I think there’s a place for all kinds of music in this Christian-music umbrella.”