Jesus Meets You ...

'Wherever You Are'

By Buzz Trexler
for The (Maryville, TN) Daily Times, Winter 2006

Mark Lee sounded a bit harried.

He was calling from Merrillville, Ind., where the band was preparing to play at the Star Plaza Theatre, a small venue just outside Chicago.

"I’m sorry, it’s just been crazy," Third Day’s longtime guitarist and founding member said. "My total apologies. We were in the middle of having a little discussion about getting our set list worked out for tonight and Jan, our tour manager, came in and, like, I totally forgot."

It’s not like Lee hasn’t got other things on his mind.

The spring leg of Third Day’s "Wherever You Are" tour with The David Crowder Band is on its sixth stop, having played to three sold-out crowds. Three future dates have already sold out: Louisville, Ky., Sacramento, Calif., and Atlanta — the latter of which sold out in 40 minutes.

The tour comes to Knoxville Coliseum on March 30 and will likely encounter an enthusiastic reception. Third Day has made six previous stops, including a 1998 visit to Farragut High School auditorium for the "Conspiracy No. 5" tour.

But even Third Day "Gomers" — the band’s hard-core fans — will notice a new face this time around: Scotty Wilbanks, a longtime pianist for Newsong, has filled a tour void left by Geoff Barkley.

"(Barkley) came to us about six months and he had been offered a position at his church in Louisiana and he just really felt like it was God’s time," Lee said, noting that Barkley had been on the road for some 16 years, much of it with Geoff Moore & The Distance, which broke up in 1998.

"He just felt like it was the right thing to do, so we were really supportive of that," Lee said.

Wilbanks has played on every Third Day album since "Time."

"He’s been with us a few months now," Lee said. He really comes with this Southern Gospel kinda background, so he can really just tear it up playing that straight-up Gospel piano."

Lee thinks Wilbanks will eventually add a new twist to an old crowd favorite during this tour.

"We’re really talking about working up ‘Come Together’ again on this tour, because it’s a song people love," he said. "We were just talking about that right before I called you. But we’ve just been playing it, and just running it into the ground, and we’re trying to make it interesting for us."

Lee said Wilbanks and the rest of the band have been working on an arrangement that adds to the song’s already upbeat sound.

"It feels really churchy like, in a fun, joyful kinda sense," he said. "So, the first time we played it, I thought, ‘I don’t even know what to do on this.’ And then I remembered about Robert Randolph."

Randolph is a practioner of a tradition known as "Sacred Steel," which is part of the African-American Gospel music tradition, most notably in the House of God church.

Writing for the Web site About.com, Blues musician John "J.B." Babich notes that the steel guitar has long had a place in such churches. "The instruments were played in concert with the minister's message to whip the congregation into a tumultuous uproar, much as the organ player does in a more common gospel setting."

"I’ve been kind of a fan of (Randolph’s) and known about his stuff," Lee said. "I thought maybe I could kinda do that kind of steel guitar on it. That was what kind of got me going."

Lee played a steel guitar on the band’s first album, as well as on "Conspiracy No. 5," "Offerings" and "Offerings II," as well as occasionally during live shows.

As it happens, his wife Stephanie bought him a steel guitar for Christmas.

"It was awesome," he recalled. "Like, we were just down at the store and I saw it, and I went, ‘Man, that would be pretty cool to have it.’ She just filed it away and totally surprised me at Christmas. It was cool."

Lee and Third Day front man Mac Powell started Third Day in 1991. 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 thus band an incredible journey — began, much of it on the road.

Today, Lee and his wife Stephanie are proud parents of a 2-year-old girl, Abigail.

"Man, she’s awesome. It totally rocks my world, but in a really good way," Lee said about his parental role.

"I’ve been trying to indoctrinate her," Lee confesses. "We’ve been listening to a lot of Bob Dylan’s stuff lately, and she’s just all about Bob Dylan:

"‘Abbie, what do you want to listen to?’"

"Bob Dylan."

"We’re all talking about Bob Dylan, and then I ask her, ‘Who’s your favorite singer?’ And I expect her to say, ‘Bob Dylan,’ and she goes, ‘Mac.’"

Must be the youngest "Gomer" in the crowd.

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