Fluke begins MercyMe’s journey

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Mer­cyMe found main­stream suc­cess with its song, “I Can Only Imag­ine.” The band brought and its Rock & Wor­ship Road­show — to the Den­ver Col­i­se­um on Thurs­day April 9.

Can you imag­ine after liv­ing in an aban­don day-care cen­ter eking out a liv­ing, you are now at the top of your pro­fes­sion?

That’s exact­ly what hap­pened to Mer­cyMe after the main­stream suc­cess of “I Can Only Imag­ine,” a song writ­ten 10 years ago. To cel­e­brate the anniver­sary and to help out a cause, the band launched the Rock & Wor­ship Road­show, which played at the Den­ver Col­i­se­um on Thurs­day, April 9 (tick­ets $10), and released a new CD “10,” a great­est hits with extras.

But it was by a fluke that the band’s found­ing mem­bers first came togeth­er on stage. Lead singer Bart Mil­lard was work­ing the video and sound sys­tems while Jim Bryson was play­ing key­boards for a friend who was lead­ing wor­ship ser­vices. As Bryson explained the young woman start­ed get­ting busy with oth­er projects and asked a friend to fill in for her.

This girl didn’t think she need­ed to prac­tice,” Bryson explained, “and she locks up on stage. So we jok­ing­ly say, ‘Does any­one want to give it a shot?’ And Bart comes run­ning from the side of the stage and grabs the mike. We knew he could sing because he would mess around in sound­check. … Then we did this camp in Switzer­land. And after­ward we both thought how can we do this full-time?”

Mil­lard along with a friend, gui­tarist Mike Scheuchz­er, moved to Okla­homa City, where Bryson was based. The trio found an aban­doned day-care cen­ter and set up a stu­dio on one side and a “liv­ing area” on the oth­er.

It was a mess…,” Bryson said. “And wow have things changed. Our min­istry has got­ten big­ger. The suc­cess of ‘I Can Only Imag­ine’ has opened up so many doors for us and oth­er Chris­t­ian bands.”

With the suc­cess has come fame, for­tune and ado­ra­tion from fans, but the band stays ground­ed by donat­ing time and mon­ey to var­i­ous caus­es – this tour is help­ing juve­nile dia­betes via the “Imag­ine a Cure” foun­da­tion.

We’ve been togeth­er 15 years and we are like broth­ers, and we keep each oth­er in check,” Bryson said. “We all have the same vision and we sur­round our­selves with great crew, man­age­ment and agents. Plus we are all have wives now, and they put us in our places real quick,” he said with a laugh.

The band also works with Com­pas­sion Inter­na­tion­al, which is based in Col­orado Springs. Com­pas­sion match­es chil­dren in pover­ish coun­tries with donors, who pledge to adopt the chil­dren and a rela­tion­ship ensues via let­ters, pho­tos and draw­ings. Two months ago the band went to the Domini­can Repub­lic with Com­pas­sion and as Bryson said, “It was some­thing straight out of the movies.

Slum areas, peo­ple liv­ing out of card­board box­es,” Bryson added. “We met this one fam­i­ly that lives in a 8 by 10 foot house and they have two daugh­ters. They have basic elec­tric­i­ty, no bath, a small fridge like you see in dorm rooms, stove with one burn­er and two lit­tle beds on the floor. They have to go to a friend’s house to use the bath­room. Things like that keep you ground­ed.”

After win­ning the Dove Award in 2002 for song of the year, it wasn’t until about three years lat­er that the song hit main­stream radio and took the bank on roller-coast­er ride.

We were stunned when we won the Dove Award for the song,” Bryson said. “We knew it was spe­cial. Then three years lat­er this radio sta­tion in Dal­las played the song and their phones lines were jammed from peo­ple want­i­ng to know who did the song. And it just took off from there.”

Tak­ing off from there includ­ed appear­ances with Jay Leno, ABC News, CNN, Enter­tain­ment Week­ly – the list goes on. And for Bryson, who used to race sports cars, a spe­cial appear­ance at a NASCAR event to sing the nation­al anthem.

“I’m a huge rac­ing fan,” Bryson said. “I’m a fanat­ic. We have a barn in the back and I have one room just for my mem­o­ra­bil­ia. I have hel­mets, a wing from an Indy­Car, hoods, dri­vers’ uni­forms…. It’s def­i­nite­ly a man cave.”

The band, a sev­en-time Dove Award win­ner, is cur­rent­ly nom­i­nat­ed for Song of the Year, “He Reigns” by the Gospel Music Asso­ci­a­tion, which will hand out this year’s Doves on April 23 in Nashville, Tenn. The band also has Gram­my nom­i­na­tions, includ­ing this past year for Gospel Song of the Year.

We’re 0‑for‑2 at the Gram­mys,” Bryson said chuck­ling. “It was great. To be around peo­ple in the indus­try that we aren’t nor­mal­ly around is great. It gets us out of our com­fort zone and to be around so many inspi­ra­tional peo­ple. It’s also a great place to show who we are and what we do.”

And the show, which includ­ed live per­for­mances from U2 and Paul McCart­ney?

If I could play with a main­stream band it would be U2, no doubt,” Bryson said. “Then Paul McCart­ney. We saw a ton of stuff that night at the Gram­mys. It was great, but some acts I just don’t get. Rap and hip-hop, I just don’t get it. I’m not putting it down. It’s just a dif­fer­ent lifestyle and cul­ture.”

It’s kind of fun­ny because it’s the band’s lifestyle and cul­ture that is bring­ing Mer­cyMe its suc­cess both in the Chris­t­ian music world and the so-called main­stream soci­ety.

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