Warren Smith: You've got two albums out and you're working on a third right now?

Nichole Nordeman: Yes.

WS: What was it like in putting the second album out? There's kind of a mythology around the sophomore jinx, that there's more pressure. Did you feel that?

NN: Absolutely. I definitely did, and as the old saying goes, you have 20 years to write your first album and eight months to write your second. I did struggle a lot, even on a real practical level, just finding time. I had to record my record sandwiched between two tours. That was really challenging and I'm not sure very conducive to creativity. Then I also struggled with content. I had said everything I needed to say, I thought, that was near and dear to my heart on my first record and so it was kind of like, "Okay, Lord, what's next?" I did a lot of soul-searching and a lot of reading that inspired me, and eventually, like anything, it was fine. It ended up being fine. But, boy, it was a struggle.

WS: Did you end up being happy with the album?

NN: Yes. Very happy with the album. It's certainly a departure. Maybe not a departure, but just a broadening of what the first record was. And the third album will be even more so, so I think it's really representative of where I was musically and spiritually.

WS: And what were you reading? What did you read to get you prepared for the other albums?

NN: I stumbled upon Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water, which is really a well-kept secret, but it's starting to surface in a lot of artistic circles. Just a brilliant book about faith and art-not just music at all. Just about art in general-sculpting and dancing and painting and how do we honor the Lord through our art and do it authentically and do it excellently. So it was just sort of really what I needed at the time.

A good friend recommended it and it was really interesting and very full circle, and about a year after that L'Engle's publishing house contacted me. They had heard about the influence that her writing had had on my writing, and I was able to do a foreword to a re-publication of her book, so that was a great honor. I have not met her to date, but I would love to. Just a brilliant writer.

WS: What else? Anything else that you were reading during those days?

NN: You know, I am just a complete book junkie, so I probably had three or four things going. That particular book sort of jumped out as one that most influential for sure, but I am constantly reading.

WS: That book and Madeleine L'Engle in general, and of course the title of your album, This Mystery, go against the grain of what we see in a lot of evangelicalism these days, which is to say, "I want an easy answer or at least I want an answer." There seems to be a difficulty with a lot of evangelicalism with coming to grips with the reality that the more you know, the less you know. That all you can do is approach mystery-you don't really understand it.

NN: That's right. That's exactly right. Coming from an evangelical background, I did not grow up feeling comfortable with a God of mystery and a God of question marks and a God of who knows? I was much more comfortable, as we all are, with some very easy and, at times, cliche answers. But I really had trouble at a couple points in my life reconciling what I knew to be an easy answer in Sunday school and what I was experiencing in real life, which just didn't just seem to be that easy, as my teachers made it sound to be. So, like any sort of crisis of faith, I think they call it growing pains for a reason. It is painful, but there is growth, and it's been really important for me to learn how to approach God with the sense of wonder and awe and not a sense of smug "been there, done that" thing that people who have grown from the church have.

WS: Do you find that the industry in general is moving in that direction or not? As the Christian music industry becomes more sophisticated and as the money gets bigger and therefore the stakes get higher, has there been more of a tendency or less of a tendency Christian music to be more formulaic, more sticking to the tried and true, more afraid to take risk? Or is there greater diversity because of that?

NN: Certainly without question there is great diversity. I don't think that I would have gotten a record deal five years ago, or ten years ago maybe. There is a whole lot of room now for a lot of different kinds of expression. Expression that's still really selling is the stuff that we're most familiar and comfortable with, if you're talking about numbers, and I'm totally okay with that. I mean, one of the things that I love about Christian music is that there is kind of something for everybody, and that wasn't the case for me growing up. Once I outgrew loving Sandy Patty and Michael W. Smith, I was pretty bored as an adolescent. There wasn't a whole lot to capture my interest, and so I just turned on pop radio and have been and top 40's fan every since, which isn't a bad thing. But the point is that there really is something for everybody, and if I had an eight year old little girl, I would be thrilled to death with some of the Christian music alternatives to Brittany Spears, and I would really appreciate that as a mother. If I had a 16-year-old kid, I would appreciate the other stuff, so I'm not critical of that at all, but I am appreciative that because of that there is a place for me to carve out a niche, whereas there really would not have been a while back.

WS: Well, I happen to have both an eight-year-old and a sixteen-year-old so I can appreciate what you're saying. On the other hand, since I've been around Christian music a long time I do miss a voice like Keith Green. In fact, I found it somewhat ironic that there was a tribute album that Keith Green put out recently and they repackaged all of his old stuff. It was pretty obviously a marketing driven decision, even though I don't doubt that the artists that were involved in that were sincere and wanted to honor Keith Green. There's also no doubt in my mind that there was some pretty sophisticated marketing applied to that as well, and of course Keith Green used to give his albums away and say, "Send money if they ministered to you, if they blessed you, send me some money and that would be fine." Just seems kind of ironic in a way. But he produced his own albums. Today, the sales pressure is there at every turn. But your albums are selling all right.

NN: Doing okay.

WS: Do you feel pressure from your record company that they have to perform at a certain level or we're going to have to have a conversation about this?

NN: I think in the back of every artist's mind that pressure exists, and it's not pressure from the label-a label is a business, and the realities of my business are I work for a fantastic label with a bunch of really inspired and committed people to happen to love the Lord. They answer to people in New York who hold stock in the company and may not even know the Lord. That's the reality of business, so if my numbers aren't performing, at some point the reality of that will be a parting of ways. I would never hold anybody responsible for that because that's just how it goes. But, no, I certainly do not feel pressure to outperform the next record. That's always the hope. It's my hope, it's my marketing director's hope, it's my label president's hope. But that's any business. You want to do well, you want to succeed, and I don't know that there's anything wrong with being motivated by success, and certainly by excellence. I think more than anything, I feel a commitment from my label to make excellent music. In fact, I've had several conversations recently with people over there who have said, "Nichole, take your time. We don't want the wrong record. If it's going to take you a little while longer if you just missed deadline A or deadline B, we'd so much rather you make the right record than turn in something just because it's time." I really appreciate that kind of support.

WS: When you said you got kind of bored for a while as an adolescent listening to some Christian music, what did you turn to? What did you listen to growing up?

NN: Just kind of what was there. I started as a little kid listening to The Imperials. We did not just listen to Christian music, but I learned how to harmonize with the Imperials and knew every single song of theirs. Sandy Patty was a big one, Russ Taff (post-Imperials) was a big one, Michael W. Smith, Amy Grant.

WS: What about outside of Christian music?

NN: Outside Christian music, I've always been a fan of pop radio. I've always loved the singles that were out, and I'm one of those people record companies count on because I do to this day rush right out and spend $15 on a CD just because I love that one stinking song on the radio. And generally, I'm disappointed in the rest of the record.

WS: What's the last CD that you bought?

NN: The last CD I bought was probably David Gray. I love it.

WS: You got a big award last year. How has that changed your life?

NN: It really hasn't. I know it sounds so cliché, but truly it was a shock, and I was a little bit nervous about "what does this do"? Because I happen to sort of like the pace at which my little ministry is plugging along and selling enough records to keep me happy, and the gigs that I have are relatively small and intimate, like tonight. I like the size of everything right now, and I was a little fearful that winning that award would in some way amplify everything, and it really didn't.

WS: You mean, force people to say we've got to capitalize on this?

NN: Yes. Maybe if I had a record coming out the week after. And I'm sure they will. That title-Female Vocalist of the Year-will certainly show up on many marketing things.

WS: And it won't disappear either. Twenty-five years from now you will still have been the Vocalist of the Year.

NN: Yes, but honestly, day to day it hasn't changed my creative process, it hasn't changed much about my traveling, gigging and touring. More than anything, it was just a really nice and very humbling affirmation from my peers. I'm really honored that somebody thinks this is worth listening to.

WS: Among the people in the industry right now-without going into a lot of detail about how the industry is splitting up or moving around-there's a group, shall we say, that is kind of into praise and worship music, and then there's a group that is kind of into music as art movement. Maybe Charlie Peacock a few years ago and guys like Bob Briner, whose "Roaring Lambs" was big in the industry a few years ago-there was kind of a thing going on around that. I'm not trying to ask you to put yourself in a box. But I'm also aware that these movements have been created out of some perceived need for an extra dose of depth, or extra nourishment, among Christian artists. Who do you look up to whenever you're in either a spiritual dry spot or creative dry spot, who within the industry do you feel has a lot of wisdom?

NN: That's a great question. To answer the first part of your question, I'm not sure about where I fit. I know where I don't fit-it's almost a process of elimination. I believe really strongly that some artists were genuinely called to be evangelistic and some were definitely called to be worship leaders. I always know where I don't fit because a pastor at some church will ask me to be worship leader, and it's just not where I'm comfortable. I'm not an evangelist either. My music, for the most part, I think just by default, is just about where I've been. I just write about where I've been and just hope that it connects with somebody who's been there, or is there, or might be headed there, so I don't know what genre that fits in, or where that goes.

But very definitely there are some people in the industry who inspire me. Margaret Becker has been a good friend to me, and just short of calling her a mentor, she really has mentored me through some pretty tough decisions and tough spots, and has made plenty of her own career mistakes and would own up to them right here. She's just really honest. I'm so drawn to authentic people, and she is such an authentic person. John Mayes who was in A & R [artist and repertoire] forever and is now starting his own thing. He's the guy who signed me. He remains just a real voice in my life. Darryl Harris, who was chaplain for GMA [Gospel Music Association] for a couple of years and started Star Song, is just another solid, real guy. Those are people that in a very personal way inspire me and have helped.

WS: What is your life like whenever you're making an album, like you are now. Because you're here tonight, you were in Washington, DC, last night. I imagine a lot of your concerts are kind of weekend gigs and then during the week you're working on the album, is that right?

NN: It's different every week, and this is a real time of transition for me because I just moved to Dallas, and I am finding out for the first time that is not nearly as easy as it looked on paper to live in Dallas and make a record in Nashville and still give time and attention to this brand new marriage. Then, to still be creative in the middle of all of those things. It's a real challenge. I definitely won't lie. Creatively, this is a difficult time for different, other reasons than it's been difficult before. Everybody has writer's block, everybody struggles, but even just logistically, how do you work on the weekends and still make money and still be home and be a wife. I don't even have kids! I can't even imagine introducing that into the equation right now. So, it's a challenge. Everybody's learning. My label's learning how to deal with some boundaries I've put up and I'm learning how to try to honor their deadlines with good music. It's just a learning process.

WS: How do you write? Do you close the door and write with a piano or guitar, do you write the lyrics first, or do you just kind of turn on the tape recorder on and start doodling on the piano? What do you do?

NN: Probably the way it happens the most is that I just sit down at the piano-I don't play anything else, just the piano. For whatever reason, for me driving is real therapeutic, not with any particular destination, but just kind of getting on the road and going. I've written entire songs before in the car and then gone home and tried to find melodies and tried to hammer out accompaniment and stuff. That's what I'm learning. You don't always have the luxury of writing the way you want to. There's not always a piano with a couple of candles in a quiet room that you can just sort of slip away to and get inspired. You've got the back of the tour bus and you've got airports, and you've got airplanes. You've got all kinds of places where you just have to be listening for ideas.

WS: When you write and you get a song to a place where you're pretty happy with it, do you then run it by other people that squeeze it down for you a little bit?

NN: Yes. Oh, absolutely. In fact, that's where we are right now. I've chosen a handful of songs that we know are "for sures" on the record and the rest are sort of unwritten, so every time I write something now, the next step is sending it to my producer.

WS: Who's producing this? Is there one guy producing the new one?

NN: Mark Hammond is producing half of it. Charlie Peacock's doing the second half, which I'm totally excited about.

WS: Have you actually been in the studio with Charlie yet?

NN: No, next week is the first time. We've had a lot of talk, but next week is the first actual time together.

WS: Some people have a reputation. I know Michelle Tumes, for example, has a reputation of really blocking out all the pre-production stuff so that whenever she goes into the studio she knows exactly what she's going for and exactly how to get there. Where are you in that process? You've got a guy like Charlie Peacock. He is like the "producer of the millennium," so you want a guy like Charlie Peacock involved in the creative process, right? And yet on the other hand, you must have some ideas about what you want the song to sound like.

NN: I really don't. I know artists like Michelle, they hear so much production, and she could just produce in her head. A lot of people are like that. A lot of people go into the studios with very definite ideas. "Okay, Charlie, here's what I'm thinking on this song". And honestly, for me, I can't get past the song. It is so about the song for me that I don't ever hear, unless it's an obvious thing. I just don't hear arrangements and I don't hear production, and I'm always so excited and delighted to take a song that's just a rough piano vocal, hand it over to a producer, and hear what they hear at the end-it just blows my mind. Because all I can hear is this little piano thing.

WS: Is that typically the way it is with you? You will go in with pianos and vocals?

NN: That is it. That is the extent of my pre-production. My ear has grown and developed a little bit, and so I'm at least able to hear what I don't like. And that's a lot of it for me. When Mark comes to the table with something-I've given him a piano/vocal, he's taken it in a direction. Sometimes I can't even articulate what it is that I like or don't like about it, but I know when it's not where it needs to be, and I know when he nails it too. It's finding the vocabulary to attach to that that's so hard. I think like a songwriter and not like a producer.

WS: What do you want your career to look like? If you could fast forward five, ten years from now and you have a body of work, what message are you crafting, or what do you want the legacy of that body of work to say?

NN: I want the legacy to be something that can be something you'll want to put on in ten or fifteen years. If I never sell one more record than I have on these last two records, I would be fine with that. I really would. And I probably won't sell more than that unless the industry shifts dramatically, and suddenly-like the Sarah McLachlan story where she's been doing her stuff for 15 years and suddenly her stuff got cool. She didn't change a thing about it. If that happens, that would be great. That would just sort of luck of the draw, but that can't be a goal. And there are days when you sort of start to move in that direction. You've had just a few too many business meetings and suddenly you're speaking in stats and that's just not a good place for me to be in, so I have to come back to that very question. What is this really about? It's about making great music. It's about at the end of the day feeling like you've done something excellent that honors God and that hopefully has connected with some other people and that can stand on it's own merit down the road. I would so much rather leave that kind of a legacy than some sort of giant impression flash in the pan, trendy thing.

WS: I know you've only got two albums out, and you've probably got in your head some of the stuff that you're writing now. What have you done so far that, in your opinion, would fit that category? That when you listen to it today, you say, "boy, I really am proud of that. It hasn't been a long time, but at least so far it holds up" and that you think will hold up over time.

NN: I think Every Season is probably the best song I've ever written. I don't know if I could ever write a better one. And I say that with as much humility as I can and as much objectivity as I can, but that's the work that I'm most proud of. I can't use that as a barometer, I don't think; I can't hold that up to everything. I don't think I could hit that again. But I felt that same way about some stuff on the first record, too, so I don't know. There's such a delicate balance of raising the bar on yourself all of the time but not beating yourself up if you don't hit it. Sometimes there is just meant to be a moment just once in a lifetime, and that may have been my moment. That may have been the best thing I ever do. If that's the case, then that's fine, but I should keep trying.