Third Day headlines HeavenFest

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Mac Pow­ell and Third Day are back in town at Sat­ur­day’s Heav­en­Fest in Brighton. Tick­ets can be pur­chased at King Soop­ers or heavenfest.com. Pho­tos by Eliza Marie Somers

Gram­my Award win­ners Third Day will head­line this week­end’s Heav­en­Fest at North­ern Hills Church in Brighton. The fes­ti­val fea­tures 80 bands on eight stages along with inter­ac­tive areas. Below is a sto­ry on Third Day when it played a char­i­ty event for Cher­ry Hills Com­mu­ni­ty Church.

Faith and fame. That’s what Third Day has accu­mu­lat­ed in near­ly 18 years of per­form­ing in front of small church groups to large are­na and sta­di­um audi­ences. But it’s not the fame and mon­ey that has kept this three-time Gram­my-win­ning band togeth­er.

Friend­ships” is what acoustic gui­tarist Mike Lee says is the glue to this band that has its roots in Atlanta.

Lee and lead singer Mac Pow­ell went to high school togeth­er out­side Atlanta and start­ed a garage band — Nuclear Hoe­down — while in school. The duo lat­er added bassist Tai Ander­son and drum­mer David Carr.

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Third Day’s Mike Lee
We’ve had these friend­ships that to go way back to child­hood — it’s much deep­er than the music,” Lee explains. “We’ve grown even stronger because we have that. As opposed to when a record com­pa­ny puts musi­cians togeth­er to form a band, we have our friend­ships to fall back on. We have that deep­er bond. And that has helped us stay togeth­er.”

It’s a bond that sur­vived the Nuclear Hoe­down melt­down. When Pow­ell quit the garage band because of con­flicts with his Chris­t­ian beliefs, Lee sug­gest­ed the two start a Chris­t­ian rock band.

We both had sim­i­lar faith expe­ri­ences since we were kids — going to church ‚” Lee says. “We were over at Mac’s house about two weeks after he quit, and I said, ‘You don’t have to give up music because of your Chris­tian­i­ty. Let’s start a rock band and write songs about our faith.’

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We thought we were doing some­thing ground­break­ing,” Lee says, chuck­ling. “We did­n’t real­ize there were Chris­t­ian rock sta­tions, mag­a­zines ”

Influ­enced by home-state rock­ers such as R.E.M., The Black Crowes and dri­vin n cryin, the band brought a dis­tinct, new sound to the Chris­t­ian scene — scream­ing gui­tars, dri­ving drums and Pow­ell’s trade­mark vocals, a sound that has gar­nered the band 24 Dove Awards.

Since that first self-titled release in 1996, Third Day has bro­ken into the main­stream with appear­ances on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” the “Late, Late Show with Craig Fer­gu­son” and a Bill­board mag­a­zine cov­er last year and even an inter­view on “60 Min­utes.” Oh, and a song on the NASCAR 09 videogame.

When we start­ed, our goal was­n’t to be famous,” Lee says. “We were excit­ed about our faith and shar­ing songs.”

And the band’s mis­sion is still the major focus.

Our mis­sion has­n’t changed since then. We strive to make great music that shares our faith. Hope­ful­ly, we can draw the crowd clos­er to God. And that means dif­fer­ent things to dif­fer­ent peo­ple. From some­one who is not con­scious of their faith to some­one who is a Chris­t­ian who may have lost a fam­i­ly mem­ber or their house burned down. Through the music, if we can get them to embrace Christ and rely on God. We don’t have the answers, but we know God does.”

Lee says the band sees a trans­for­ma­tion when the guys per­form songs such as “Cry Out to Jesus,” which became a sort of anthem after Hur­ri­cane Kat­ri­na hit the South, and “Tun­nel” — songs that help heal and encour­age.

Lee says the band fights the pit­falls of suc­cess by approach­ing its music from a dif­fer­ent stand­point.

We see it almost like a mis­sion. That’s the type of approach we take,” Lee says. “We embrace every oppor­tu­ni­ty to share our faith. ‘The Tonight Show,’ Craig Fer­gu­son, ’60 Min­utes’, we had three min­utes and 30 sec­onds to hope­ful­ly put a lit­tle bit of hope and truth out there on the air­waves.”

But the real ground­ing takes place in just being human. When the band won its last Gram­my Award in 2006, Lee was in the bath­room while his band­mates were accept­ing the award for Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album.

When we got to the event, our man­ag­er said it would be about 45 min­utes before our cat­e­go­ry,” Lee explains. “So I step into the bath­room, and no more than 25 sec­onds lat­er I come out and the guys are up on stage. So I go run­ning out there in front of Car­los San­tana, Vince Gill … like some idiot. It’s fun­ny because our PR peo­ple tried to make a big deal out of us win­ning a Gram­my, but how can you make a big deal out of some­thing that 97 oth­er peo­ple win? Plus being caught in the bath­room … It makes for a good sto­ry, and it shows every­one we are just human.”

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Eliza Marie Somers: 303–954-1629 or lsomers@denverpost.com

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