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Third Day's Mark Lee speaks
of solitude, BBQ, the road

Frank "Buzz" Trexler
for The (Maryville, TN) Daily Times, Fall  2004

But you will also become aware of a great deal of creativity.

``Does not all creativity ask for a certain encounter with our loneliness, and does not the fear of this encounter severely limit our possible self expression?'' asks contemporary theologian Henri Nouwen in his book ``Reaching Out.''

From its inception in the early 1990s, when lead vocalist Mac Powell and guitarist Mark Lee first began working together, creativity has run unhindered in Third Day's music. Bassist Tai Anderson and drummer David Carr joined in 1993, while guitarist Brad Avery came on board in 1995. It was in 1995 that the band's self-titled debut project was released -- and an incredible journey began, much of it on the road.

During a recent telephone interview from Columbus, Ohio, Lee is asked about encounters with loneliness on the road even in the midst of a crowd. In answering, he reveals something of a secret.

``There's actually a song on our new record `Wire' called `San Angelo,' and it's sort of a deep song and it's one that we -- I don't know, maybe we shouldn't have done it -- we've been sort of intentional in not really saying what it's about.

``I think if you listen to it, you kind of get it,'' he says. ``There's even a line that says, `When you're surrounded you can still feel so alone.'''

Even with all of the people around them on tour, Lee said, ``It is really like kind of a lonely place to be, just because you're away from your family.

``I think a lot of times when you are away from home and you start to feel lonely like that that, you can just start to doubt yourself and I think that's when the enemy a lot of times is able to gain strongholds.'' Lee said.

In combating loneliness, Lee agrees there is a need to discover what Nouwen would call the ``solitude of the heart'' and he talks about some personal practices that he engages in while on the road.

``Something that I do personally is I'm a real avid journaler,'' he said, also noting that a life of prayer is a part of that journaling process. ``I just love journaling and you know sometimes I'll phrase it as a prayer, but I usually don't. But what I'm really doing is it's almost like I'm just praying out loud and I just write out all of this stuff that I'm going through.

``Sometimes I may write for two minutes and it's like a paragraph, and sometimes it may be a few pages,'' he said. ``It's really a neat way of seeing God work in your life.''

Lee said he believes God works less as the ``big voice from the sky,'' or clouds lining up to ``spell stuff out for you,'' but more in the subtle things of life, and journaling helps to pinpoint those signposts.

``I think by looking back a lot of times you can see these small things that happen and you go, `You know what? That there, that's God working in my life.'''

But a stranger wouldn't likely pick up on those things if he happened across Lee's journal. The guitarist often does his journaling in the solitude of the bunk on the bus, traveling down the road, which leads to what he calls ``atrocious'' handwriting.

``I don't have any fear of anyone ever going and reading what I wrote, because even if they tried they couldn't read it'' he said, laughing.

Journeying with others

The 31-year-old Lee and his wife, Stephanie, live in Nashville with their 1-year-old daughter Abigail where they attend The People's Church

``There's quite a few artists that actually go to the church,'' Lee said. ``That's actually a cool thing that you can go there and they understand what we're going through. Just the fact that even in my Sunday school class ? there are other artists, so like it's just no big deal for my wife to go there and them to understand that if I'm not there that's because I'm out doing shows and stuff.''

Lee meets weekly with a mentoring group of other artists that came through his association with The People's Church in Nashville.

``We meet on Tuesdays because it works out with the traveling schedules and stuff, so I'm able to hook up with some other guys that are artists who are going through a lot of the same things,'' he said. ``We just kinda, you know, grab coffee, just hang out, talk about things.''

The underdog

Another theme that the listener may find in the title cut from ``Wire'' is that of taking risks for God ? and how sometimes people are waiting for you to fall. Lee said the idea is that anytime you step out and take a risk, you have people who, while applauding you, are sometimes secretly hoping that you ``stumble a little bit.''

``Because if you succeed, then that points back to them (asking) why are they not doing something different,'' he said. ``That's a lot of what I was thinking about as I wrote it.''

Third Day has taken its share of risks.

In the 1990s, the Atlanta-based band -- whom Billboard once called ``not only one of the best Christian bands of the '90s but one of the best rock bands period -- would play neutral venues that ranged from Atlanta's Roxy Theater to college campuses. Billboard turned out to be right, as Third Day has risen from the South to rack up four gold albums, a platinum album, a Grammy and 21 Dove Awards.

``With this tour, even with ourselves, we're trying to encourage people to step out of their comfort zone and maybe take God's message to places that it wouldn't normally go.'' Lee said. ``We wouldn't encourage people to do anything that we're not gonna do ourselves. So, we sought and actually gotten a lot of really cool opportunities this year just with a lot of press and media things that for years we always wanted to try to do, but would never really come through. So, it's been an interesting season for us ...''

Likely a season where it can sometimes be difficult to transition from loneliness to solitude.

THE BOOK ON MARK LEE

Favorite guitars: "Aw, man, that’s such a tough question. For the last couple of years I’ve been playing Paul Reed Smith guitars. Those guys over at Paul Reed Smith have been really good to me. They actually built for me this new model they just call the ‘Hollow Body.’ It’s just a beautiful guitar. It sounds just amazing and my favorite thing about it is it’s got an acoustic pickup and an electric pickup on it , so I can in one song — and I do this alot, actually — I can play an acoustic part of a verse, and then just switch over to electric and play it on the chords. ... That would probably be my favorite if you made me pick one."

Guitar nicknames: "The only one that I really do have a pet name, and I really don’t call it this that much —I have to give you a little bit of the background on it — when I was about 13 years old, I went with a friend of mine to a baseball card convention. And while I was there this was this guy that was selling Michael Jordan rookie cards for like 5 bucks. It was kind of expensive at the time, but I was like, ‘You know what. I bet this is a good investment,’ in my 13-year-old mind. So, for like $5 I bought this Michael Jordan basketball card. And then I sold it in 1999, or 2000, whenever he retired the second time ... and I sold it for like $1,100, this massive profit. It was probably the only good financial decision I ever made in my life was buying that card. So, I turned around and bought a guitar with that money. It’s a smart thing, right? I’m a gui... It’s a Gretch, I always wanted to have a Gretch. So, I bought this guitar and I kinda call it my ‘Michael Jordan guitar,’ my ‘MJ.’ That would be the only one that I kinda have a little name for and it’s a got a little history there."

Favorite guitarist: Peter Buck of REM. He’s not a flashy guy at all, but he just writes amazing guitar parts; just simple. That’s what I’m a big fan of. Yeah, there’s the flashy ‘Ooo, wow, look at that guy, he’s so technical’ kinda solo. Then’s there the simple melody you can still hum a day later. That’s the stuff that I love, stuff I kinda strive to do myself.

Favorite spiritual reading other than Scripture: Madelyn L’Engle. "Like, I started reading her books when I was a little kid. She’s kinda like C.S. Lewis in that she has kids books, she also writes some nonfiction books about Scripture and about different things. She just has such an interesting mind and honestly I disagree with her a lot. Theologically, she comes from a different background than I do, but she’s just so sharp. ... There’s a book called ‘Walking on Water’ in particular that’s directed toward artists. Being a musician, that book in particular really spoke to me.

Blogging: "It’s a totally different kind of thing than journaling to me," he said, noting that he will sometimes use it as a place to review a book or link to an article. "When I started out, I tried to be a lot cuter, and it’s evolved into more of a focus thing. I don’t post in it as much as I used to."

Touring with Toby Mac: "I think it just makes for a really diverse and really interesting evening of music. Man, he puts on such a great show and it’s just top-notch and so much energy there. We’ve got to be on our game every night. We’ve got to bring the A game because he and his band they just bring it every night. So, we’ve got to be ready from the get-go to come out blazin’. … It’s been really cool and really an honor for us to have him out with us and get to know him a little bit."

Ancient-Future Third Day: Comparing first CD and "Wire." "There’s a lot of facets to what we do. You know we had the worship-type thing going, and something that’s more the straight-ahead rock, or maybe the modern rock kind of thing. Then we had that kind of raw, like Southern rock thing, and there’s on this new record called ‘I’ve Got A Feelin’’ that probably would tap into that same thing."

BBQ and Third Day: Third Day visited Knoxville April 18, 2002, as part of the "Come Together Tour" and bassist Tai Anderson and lead vocalist Mac Powell decided to trek to West Knoxville for BBQ, which caused them to run a little bit late getting to the concert. Asked if the band really liked barbecue, Lee replied, "Oh, oh, man, let me tell you, yes. We love barbecue. … For a while there, we were trying to find the ultimate barbecue experience when we were on tour. Not to say that we’ve abandoned that, but we just sort of found that barbecue is such a regional thing that once you get outside of Memphis, you’ve got Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, maybe a little bit of Mississippi. But you get outside of that, and like the word barbecue means something different. You go out to Texas, you go to Kansas City, New Mexico, they make this really good tasting meat product with barbecue sauce, but that’s not barbecue. Barbecue to me is the pulled pork — you know, you can do the dry, you can do the other with the sauce, either way, that’s fine, but to me it’s that, and I guess this would be more the Carolina style of barbecue, that’s barbecue to me. So, really like if you get outside of that Southeastern area, you just really can’t do it.

The Rev. Frank "Buzz" Trexler is managing editor at The Daily Times and pastor of Green Meadow United Methodist Church, wwwthemeadow.org. You can e-mail him at PastorBuzz@nxs.net.