Back in November I had the privilege of interviewing Lindsay McCaul when she came to my church as part of Casting Crowns' Come to the Well Tour (check out my concert review
here). It was so amazing getting to interview her, and it was so cool to see how much God shines through everything she does. This is a really nice and long interview, so I think you'll enjoy it! Also, be on the lookout for our review of her album that releases tomorrow,
If It Leads Me Back (which we talk about in the interview), pretty soon!
Jonathan Kemp: So how’s the tour been going so far?
Lindsay McCaul: It’s awesome. It’s like the best tour I could have imagined being on. I know you’re a Christian music fan just from reading your reviews; I am too. I’m like the hugest Christian music fan. I remember listening to Casting Crowns years and years ago when they first started and I was like a huge fan.
JK: Have you been on any other tours before this?
LM: Not a big tour like this. I did a Christmas tour with Shane and Shane last year. I’ve done a couple other little runs, like one-offs or stuff like that, but never a big tour like this before.
JK: So out of all the bands, which would you say has the best live performance?
LM: *Laughs* I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to answer that. Wow, that’s a really hard question. Casting Crowns is amazing...gosh...I don’t know if I can even answer that. They’re all so good and so different. They’re all different, which makes it I think a really good show because everybody brings a unique piece to the night. Yeah I don’t if I can say. I’d get in trouble with all of them if I picked one. They’ll read it and be like, ‘What?! You like Sanctus better?!’ I think they’re all amazing and they all bring something really special to it. They’re all incredible people, just every single one of those guys and girls are so genuine and humble and they really want to be in ministry. They want to do this so that the kingdom of God is expanded.
JK: So, how’s the attendance been with all the show, cause I know this one’s pretty much sold out?
LM: Yes, a lot of them have been sold out, most of them I would say. It’s been incredible. It’s so funny to see too, when we go to different parts of the country you know the different personalities of different states. It’s interesting. Certain states everybody will stay seated the whole time, and then other states - usually in the South - people are like on their feet. And you’re like, ‘So weird. You people like to sit down...’ I don’t know, it’s just been funny. It’s been really great. Pretty big crowds every night; it’s Casting Crowns so you know. They’re pretty much the biggest artist in Christian music.
JK: Hopefully people will be up and standing tonight!
LM: We’ll see. Where were we...two nights ago we were in North Carolina and I think that might have been the peppiest crowd that we’ve had. They were very, very lively. Sometimes you don’t know, you’re like trying to figure out people in the front row crossing their arms. And you’re like, ‘Is it me? Or are you just really excited for The Afters and you can’t wait for me to be done?’ I don’t know.
JK: So what’s your favorite moment from the tour so far?
LM: Well, on a grand level, my favorite time of the day - other than show or intermission when we get to go out and sit at our tables and meet people. That’s probably my favorite part. But I also love - we have tour prayer time everyday at 4:00 and everybody, all of the bands and all of the crew, and everybody gets together and we have a Bible study. Different people lead it, but usually Mark Hall. Then we all go out and spread out over all the seats and pray over everything - the whole room - so that everybody is prayed for. I love that everyday, that’s probably my favorite time just because I feel like it sets the tone for the whole day and for the tour. This is all for a reason; we do everything that we do for a reason. I love that. Let me think, my favorite moment. Well, when we were in Nashville, I got to meet Ginny Owens. That was pretty cool. That was pretty sweet, I’m not gonna lie. I love her stuff. So, that might have been a highlight for me. But also the other day I got to go to a women’s prison and spend some time with some of the lady inmates there. They were all believers and they were all on this dance team, they danced to Christian music. I got to spend some time with them and just hear their stories and see their dances. They were huge Casting Crowns fans, so that was cool to just talk to them about how music really does change people’s lives. I didn’t know what to expect when I first was going and then as soon as I got there they were just so joyful. You could tell that they really sincerely have walks with Jesus. Just the way that they were sharing about some of my songs and Casting Crowns’ songs, or other Christian music that they were listening to in jail - that these songs have an impact on their life and how much it has meant to them while they’ve been in prison to be encouraged through music. That was really powerful to me, because I know how much Christian music has impacted my life, but to see it so clearly in their lives too. It made me excited to get to do what we get to do every night. They were all like, ‘We’re praying for you tonight at your show!” I was just like, ‘Wow, they’re in prison and they know at 7:00 PM - I knew they were all going to be praying for me.’ You know, and it was even one of my best shows. And I just felt it like it was such an amazing night. Even that night I was like ‘I knew they were praying for me.’ It was just really cool. That was probably my favorite day.
JK: Have there been any pranks yet on the tour?
LM: Not yet, and I’ve heard of pranks that are being planed for the last - usually the last day of the tour is when pranks happen, and I am very nervous about that. I grew up with all girls; I have four sisters. We don’t do pranks, girls really don’t do pranks - it’s the guys. Trust me, I know they’re scheming and so I’m just trying to make an alliance, so I’m not the only one person that doesn’t have a prank going on. I think we have a couple that we’re working on. I don’t think anybody’s done any so far. So, yeah I’m a little scared. They keep threatening me and I’m like, ‘No, no, be nice to me.’ I think they’ll be pretty moderate pranks as far as they go, but we’ll see.
JK: Can you tell me just a brief history of how you got into music and they music industry?
LM: I grew up loving Christian music and I started writing when I was pretty young; I think I was 13 or 12 or 11 or somewhere around there. I taught myself guitar and so I just wrote these songs. And then when I was 16 my twin sister convinced me to enter this songwriting competition, which I won. It was with this company from Nashville and they were like, ‘Oh we’re gonna put out a CD for you or something.’ They made all these promises and then it fell through. I was really surprised and disappointed because I really wanted to do it. I remember I was in my room and I was just like, ‘God, seriously? I’m so disappointed.’ And I felt really strongly that God was clearly saying to me, ‘You know Lindsay, if you are writing songs and doing all this for you, then you should be disappointed and devastated. But if you’re writing songs for me, then you don’t need to worry about what happens. If you just keep writing your songs, I’ll take care of how I use them in people’s lives. You just be faithful to write them and do that. Then let me take care of everything.’ I just felt so peaceful about it because it had never occurred to me that if God is giving me songs to write or putting it on my heart to write songs then if I want to do something for His glory, He’ll be the one that accomplishes it because He is far more concerned about His glory than I am. I think about giving God glory, I don’t even know what percentage of the day, but it’s not nearly as much as it should be. And God thinks about His glory all the time, He always wants to be glorified, which He should be. It was a realization that I’m really glad I had early on. Then I kept writing, but I wasn’t as focused on ‘Oh I want to be a Christian music artist or whatever.’ I grew up in Florida, and I moved to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago to go to school when I was 17, and I kept writing. I started leading worship at Moody; this girl signed me up to lead worship - I didn’t even seek that out either. So, then it was like I was writing but more in the leading worship side of things. After I graduated I went to my church in Chicago and started working there. They were like, ‘Hey we worship at our church, why don’t you write some worship songs for our church and we’ll record a congregational worship album for you.’ So I went to this camp that we have and spent a couple days writing and wrote these songs. I came back to a couple of the worship leaders and pastors and was playing them these songs; and they were like ‘Well those are nice songs, but they’re not congregational worship songs. They’re artist, story songs.’ So they were like, ‘Well we’ll still help you make a CD, even though it’s not what we thought it was going to be.’ So that’s where I made that CD, that one’s called Ready. Oh, I made another one with my church in Florida, it was like a little EP thing just when I was 17. So I made that CD my church and my roommate at the time was a girl named Meredith Andrews, who’s another Christian artist. She had just started working on her first CD, I think it was just out or something. Her producer, who comes up to our church in Chicago and leads worship like every month or two, is a guy named Jason Ingram. We knew each other a little bit, but he had hear my CD that we made with our church. He said, ‘Hey I know you write these songs, what do you want to do with them?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ He was like, ‘Well have you ever thought about being with a record label or something like that?’ And I was like, ‘Well I’ve thought about it. There’s no formula for how to get to a record label.’ And he was like, ‘Yeah I could help you at least with writing. So come down to Nashville, and we’ll work together.’ So, I went down and I started writing with him and he brought me to my record label, Provident. I signed with them a year and a half ago. Yeah it was just really crazy. I feel like it was a reminder for me that when God gives us desires in our hearts to obey Him and glorify Him, He will be faithful to fulfill that because He wants glory. It gives Him joy to fulfill desires in ways that we would have never imagined it. I thought I would get to do music when I was younger, and I’m 27 now. I never thought I would be this old, that sounds terrible, *Laughs* I didn’t think it would take this long to do something like that. Or then after that whole first thing happened, I thought I wouldn’t get to do something like this. So, when the door started opening and I knew it was God doing it and not me pushing it. I never wanted to push a door open for this because I thought if God wants to do then He will. And if I want to do it then I don’t want to just do it because what if it’s not what God wants? So yeah it’s been crazy just to see Him keep opening these doors. Even to be out with Casting Crowns; I got to open for them last fall on two different individual dates. And after the first night Mark Hall came up as they were getting on stage and as I was coming off stage, he was like, ‘Hey you wanna go on tour in the Fall?’ I was like, ‘What?’ ‘Yeah, hey next fall. We’ll pray about it!’ I was like, ‘Ok, I’ll pray about it. I think God said yes!’ It’s been amazing to see how God opened these doors, that I didn’t have to push open. I just feel like that’s been an encouragement to me that when things are tough, then I know God wants me to be doing this?
JK: So how long has it been since you singed with Provident?
LM: I signed with them April 1, 2010. So it was April Fool’s Day. So when I tweeted about it nobody believed me. *Laughs* I was like, ‘I just signed my record deal.’ They were like, ‘Haha that’s funny.’ I was like, ‘No, wait, no. I really did! Wait what?’ So about a year and a half now.
JK: So it’s been a pretty quick process.
LM: I had been talking to Provident for about year before that. So Jason and I had started working together the year before. We just were writing a bunch of songs. I would come down to Nashville about once a month. We wanted to have a bunch of songs ready, so that if I got signed by any label we would be ready to start working on an album and start record. So, to me it seems like it’s been a pretty long time. It’s been like two and a half years. But nobody else knows who I am so they are all like, ‘Oh you’re a new person. Did you just make your CD?’ But it’s good because I know that it’s in God’s time. His timing is always better than mine.
JK: I actually hadn’t heard of you before until I heard that Casting Crowns was coming to First Baptist. And then I looked you up and I was like, ‘Whoa I really like this music.’
LM: Oh, thanks Jonathan!
JK: So what are your influences on your music?
LM: Well I’m probably the biggest Steven Curtis Chapman fan ever! I seriously am. My first concert was his. The first CD I ever bought was his.
JK: Me too!
LM: Which one?
JK: I think, is it Speechless?
LM: Speechless, that’s a good one. Mine was Signs of Life, because it was the Signs of Life Tour and I was like, ‘Oh he is amazing!’ I just loved the way that he wrote songs and the way that he put his lyrics together and his lyrics were incredible and his voice is obviously is awesome. I loved especially that in his CDs he puts scripture references for how and why he wrote songs. So that’s something that I carried over to my CD too. So it’s funny now because we have the same manager, but I didn’t know he was Steven’s manager when I met him. And he asked me who’s your biggest influence? And I was like, ‘Steven Curtis Chapman!’ Then somebody was like, ‘You do know that’s Steven Curtis Chapman’s manager.’ I was like, ‘Oh my gosh! I’m such an idiot!’ So, Steven and then Nicole Nordeman is my other absolute favorite. She is just incredible. She is like a genius songwriter. So those are my two favorites. Cindy Morgan is another one that I just love her stuff. Watermark, so the the Nockels, David and Christy Nockels. They’re not Watermark anymore I guess. Those are probably my favorites. Casting Crowns, I should have had them in there. I think Matthew West is a good songwriter. Just all these people I grew up listening to and they really influenced [me]. Because I listened to Christian radio so much, they really influenced me and how I thought of songwriting and what I think is a good song. It makes me want to write better songs, because I know that when I write a song I’m like, ‘This is the worst. Those artists would never sing this song; I need to write a better song.’ So I just have to keep going back to it and going back to it.
JK: So when you went to Moody, it was for applied linguistics, right?
LM: Yes! Wow!
JK: So how do you use that to write your lyrics?
LM: That’s a good question. Well applied linguistics is for Bible translation - that’s the main purpose of that degree, at least at Moody. So when I was a senior I was like, ‘Oh well I’m gonna go overseas somewhere and translate the Bible.’ My mentors and friends and people that I was translating with kept saying to me, ‘We feel like you are ignoring something that God has given you with your songs and with music. And maybe you’re supposed to be music ministry instead of translation.’ And I was like, ‘What are you talking about? You don’t want me to do this?’ And they were like, ‘No, no, not that. We just think you need to pray about this.’ So the more I prayed about it I was like, ‘Ok God, I thought that you wanted me to go overseas and do something like that. But if you have a different plan for me for right now then you just make it really clear to me cause I am not very smart so I just need you to make it really clear and I’ll go wherever you want me to go.’ And that’s when I came on staff at Harvest; I really felt God leading me there. But I was disappointed for a little bit because I was like, ‘I really love translation and I really believe it’s so important for God’s kingdom. There are people that have never heard God’s word.’ And I felt God reminding me that I could still translate God’s word into songs. I will not remember what a sermon’s about. I couldn’t remember on this day from three years ago what a sermon was about. But I will remember a song - everybody remembers songs and lyrics. If you hear the first couple notes of any of your favorite songs, you could sing the lyrics, because they stick in your heart. So I love that I get to, in a little sense of the word, translate the Bible. I think it has shown me the importance of words. The music part of a song helps us keep it in our heart because it’s the emotional side. How we say something is very important, one word can change a whole song. So, I want to be really careful with how I say things because it could be them hearing about Jesus for the first time or help them come back to Jesus or grow in their walk with the Lord. I feel a weight and a sense of responsibility for how I write. I was talking with Matt Hammitt from Sanctus Real and we were talking about how it’s kind of like we write sermons in our songs - but we don’t think of it that way. Songwriters aren’t considered pastor’s or preachers but if songs get stuck in people’s heads then it’s really important for us to have good theology in our songs - really important. We’re responsible for what people think about God and it’s a really serious thing. It’s cool to see all those other guys, all the songwriters we have on tour - they think it is very important to be careful. And I love that about them.
JK: You’re upcoming album, If It Leads Me Back, what’s the meaning behind the name?
LM: Well, I’m glad you asked that. I couldn’t decide on a name for the album for a long time. I was like, ‘What am I gonna call this thing?’ I had no idea. The last song on the album is called “If It Leads Me Back” and I wrote it with Cindy Morgan who is one of my songwriting heroes. I try to take different stories and truths from the Bible and put them in all my songs. So, “Come Rest” is about Mary and Martha. “Say My Name” is about Lot and his wife leaving Sodom and Gomorrah. “If It Leads Me Back” is about Job and how he was so surrendered to God. He basically said to God, ‘Whatever you have to bring me through, I trust you because I am confident that it will lead me closer to you. And I want that more than I want my health, more than I want my family, more than I want wealth, anything. If you take me through the valley; if you take me through the fire - as long as it leads me closer to you, I’m ok with it.’ I feel like all of the songs on my album are for different seasons of life and different situations or moments in my life anyways. So, it’s kind of been a snapshot of where I’ve been in different moments in my walk with God. So my hope is that each one of these songs will meet people at different points in their lives and where they are. My hope is that the combination of all these songs, and especially “If It Leads Me Back,” would be a reminder to whoever listens that whatever moment you’re in and wherever you are in your walk with God - as long as we are surrendered to Him it should just be our prayer that, ‘God whatever you want for me and wherever you have me, just let my heart be so surrendered to you that it brings me closer to you and it brings me back to you.’ Sorry, I didn’t say that very clearly. Do you know what I mean?
JK: I do!
LM: Ok good. You can interpret that. *Laughs*
JK: What was the recording process for the album?
LM: It was kind of funny, we kind of did it in chunks. We’d do like three songs at a time or two songs. One time I went down to Nashville to sing; I had never had allergies until I started going to Nashville and then all of a sudden there we just there and terrible. One time I went down to record vocals for some songs and I couldn’t record because my nose got stopped up and I couldn’t get it cleared out. It was a good process; it was very eye opening. I got to work with some really incredible musicians that made me want to be better at my musician side of things. I taught myself guitar and I can’t read music to save my life. So I don’t know very much about this whole thing. And to see them listen to my song for the first time and then go play it and record it and it sound awesome. I was like, ‘Ok, I have some work to do.’ So that was really challenging. It made me want to write more songs just so I can be continually in the creative - I want to be more creative. I think it’s challenged me a lot being in the recording process and also out with musicians that are so great. I feel like a kindergardener with a college student and I’m like, ‘Do you like my picture?’ and they’re like, ‘What?’ *Laughs* Yeah it was awesome. I have two producers, Jason Ingram and Rusty Varenkamp, and they were just so great to work with. They brought life into the songs. It’s hard when you write a song by yourself on the guitar and all of a sudden there’s a full band playing it and you’ve never heard it before. And you’re like, is that what I think it should sound like? They were so careful to make sure that each of the songs came alive in that. So I loved that part of it.
JK: Do you have other people transcribe the notes and all that?
LM: I guess a couple of my songs have actual sheet music and I definitely didn’t do that. I don’t even know where they came from. I’ve seen them online, and I’m like, ‘Somebody did that, oh that’s cool.’ When we record the musicians use, I think it’s called - Mark what’s it called, Nashville Numbers System or whatever?
Mark: Yeah.
LM: But they use like a one and a two - numbers. I don’t understand it. If they told me to play I would be in serious trouble. I just know how to play my songs and they figured it out. They’re geniuses.
JK: So you and Mark were married right before the tour. Correct?
LM: Yes!
JK: Has he been on the tour with you for the whole time?
LM: For the most part, not at the beginning. For most of the tour he’s been out with us and he’s been helping out with different stuff that they need help with. He has a job, fortunately, that he gets to come out and travel and he can work from his computer. So, that’s been really fun. I think that would have been really hard because we’ve been married for nine weeks and we’ve been tour for nine weeks.
JK: So is it hard for you to be away from your family when you’re on tour?
LM: We’ve been gone for a while. We do get to go home pretty often actually. The way that Casting Crowns runs their tours, which I love, they are very dedicated to being back at their church on Sundays. So they make it so that we are usually on tour from either Wednesday or Thursday night, through Saturday night. Then from Sunday, Monday, Tuesday we usually have those three days off, or one or two of those anyways. We’ve been up to Chicago a couple times, and then other times we’ll just stay in Nashville. I’m trying to write for my next album. So that’s been a nice thing to have little breaks. It hasn’t been too bad. We’re gonna go see my family - my parents are down in Merritt Island. We’re gonna drive down on Monday, so that’ll be fun for Thanksgiving.
JK: So what do you think is next for you as an artist?
LM: Well I’m going on tour with Casting Crowns in the Spring. So that’s my next immediate step I guess. I hope that I really continue to grow as a musician and as an artist, and especially as a songwriter. As long as God keeps the doors open, I just hope I get to keep getting better. I need to get better *Laughs* at writing and singing and playing. The Bible says do all things for the glory of God. I wanna just keep getting better at that so the music that we make can reach more people. I think that’s the whole aim of it, so that more people would hear the truths that are in the songs and respond to God from that. And I think that’s why Casting Crowns is so successful. Melanie Hall was saying that the other day, she said that she really believes that the reason God has allowed them to reach so many people - I mean they were like number two on Billboard. Like that’s crazy! What Christian artist does that? Nobody. She said, ‘I think it’s because people hear the word of God in these songs.’ They’re all written out of sermons, all of us write our songs off of scripture. It’s people responding to the truth, and they don’t even know it. Some people don’t even know why they like the music. They’re like, ‘Wait, what is this? Oh gosh, it’s the Bible...in a song.” So I love that. I just want to keep getting better at that and grow as an artist, and keep doing this. I would love to keep doing this for as long as I can.
JK: Are you going with them to Australia and all those other places?
LM: No, I wish! If you wanna ask them. If you wanna talk with them about that. *Laughs* No, we’ll start back up again in February, and instead of Sanctus Real and The Afters, we’re gonna have Matthew West and Royal Taylor out. That’ll be really fun. It’s a great tour, just because they’re so family oriented. I love that about them.
