By Matt Conner
He’s a “New Artist of the Year” winner. He’s releasing his second album, What If We (Reunion), after his 2006 debut was a hit with critics and audiences alike. He’s written with Jars of Clay, Matt Wertz, Bebo Norman and many others. And all he cares about is making sure the listener is connecting with his/her Creator.
It’s refreshing to talk to an artist like Brandon Heath about his music because there’s no pretense—just an honest, ordinary guy offering his heart and reflections. In this interview, Heath gives us the lowdown on the meaning behind the new title, working with the Jars guys and what it means to define his sound.
CCM: What informed the new album title, What If We?
Brandon Heath: The slogan “What If We” came from a conversation with a mentor friend of mine. We were talking about what God was doing in our lives. That work has often been with other people; it’s never been alone. For me it was taking the risk and putting myself out there as an artist. For him, he was involved in this ministry and not-for-profit organization that pulls girls from brothels called Restore International (restoreinternational.org).
Both of us are just ordinary people, but it feels that God has done extraordinary things just by us trusting Him. I love the fact we’re able to dream as big as we want as long as we believe God can do great things. So the ‘What If’ part is all about those possibilities and the ‘We’ part is doing that together. So, we’re wanting people to be inspired by that sentence.
CCM: I’ve read where you said you didn’t want to stray too far from your sound on the first record…
Brandon: Yeah, that was really the goal. I think as a new artist, to be perfectly honest, I’m still trying to figure out what my sound is. And I think others are, too. So you don’t want to confuse people too much about who you are. I want my music to be accessible, but I don’t want to be so cookie-cutter that it’s predictable. As we [were] finding out what my sound [was], I didn’t want to be too crazy on the second record.
But I think what ended up happening is that it sounded different because we were into Western movies. Also, a lot of people are using the British sound a little too much these days so we wanted to move away from that, too. We used electrics that sounded like Americana—kind of a Springsteen, Tom Petty sound—that being more of the sound spectrum, or a lot of the instruments we used, rather than the same British rock deal.
CCM: What have you learned about your own sound to this point?