Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Great to be
with you. Jose running the program over there in Studio
one A. I am here sequestered in Studio one B.
This is kind of giggle and gush time for me
because our guest is Mike Schwitzer from mercy Me. Mike
is one of the guitarists with the band, has been
with Bart Millard for a long time. We're going to
(00:21):
talk about that. What's really exciting. They're coming to town
on October eleventh. It's a Friday night at the Tuckers Center.
I don't have to tell you what a big deal
it is to have a group like mercy Me coming
on a Friday. Let's face it, a lot of groups
hit Tallahassee on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday on their way
to bigger cities on the weekends, and so to have
(00:43):
them here is a really big deal. And I think
I was the first one to get tickets when this
concert was announced. Mike, Welcome to the show. How are you, sir?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
It is a joy to have you. Give me the
thumbnail scaled version. What's your story from a kid to
a guy making music in a band like mercy, me
take me through how you got there?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Wow. So I grew up actually in central Florida, surrounded
by Gator fans, and so I am, so I'm not
going to do this boy.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, like all the way you talk about having across
to bear, I know.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Right, it was horrible, horrible. No. I had a great childhood.
I was the only child. Mom and dad, you know, just
blue collar, but I don't know a lawnmower shop and
so I was in there at the age of seven,
learning the sharpened blades and and do whatever he needed
to help out. My mom worked there too, and then
also at the little elementary school I went to just
(01:49):
a great childhood, you know, riding bikes until the street
lights came on and all that, you know, drinking out
of the water hose. And I always had a love
of music, and my parents weren't really music, but they
always they kind of saw that in me and encouraged it.
And you know, my mom fought to make me take
piano lessons for a long time and that didn't really stick,
(02:10):
but I got inquired in junior high and then had
a buddy who what a youth group like weekend trip
with my church. Brought his guitar and all the girls
loved him, and I thought, man, if I learned guitar,
the girls loved me too. Turns out that wasn't why
they loved him. But I fell in love with the guitar.
(02:32):
You know, I already knew a couple of chords on it,
and I kind of pieced together some songs that I
really liked and like watching him play, and and that
was it. I was hooked from then on. And a
few years later, this guy moved from Texas to Florida
to become the intern for our youth group, and his
name was Bart, and we a few years later, when
(02:54):
I graduated high school, I started playing in our Wednesday
night worship band, kind of before every church had to
worship band. Our youth minister was kind of ahead of
the curve on that Bart was singing in it, and
we started daydreaming about writing songs together. And that was
I graduated in ninety three. We actually officially started the
band in ninety four. August twenty eighth of nineteen ninety four,
(03:17):
we pulled into Oklahoma City to join up with Jim Brison,
our original keyboard player and a couple other guys who
were no longer in the band, and yeah, we just
kind of threw caution to the wind and went for it.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
It's worked out pretty well, I think.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Now every year I keep thinking, well, maybe this is it,
and it just keeps happening. So who knows. All right,
it's been a lot of.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Fun Separate fact from fiction. A lot of people have
seen the movie, So mercy me, where's that come from?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
The name funny enough when we were still in Florida,
but we were really just kind of starting to realistic,
but we want to start a band. We were trying
to come up with a band name, and there were
some really really tolice ones in there. And Bart is
literally one of the funniest people I know. And he's
a complete smart now, Like well, you know, his father
(04:13):
had died in ninety one and his grandmother, who you know,
he lived with, she had moved in while his dad
was getting sicker to help out, and she would call
to check in on Bart and see how he's doing.
You know, he's moved all the way to Florida from Texas.
And she'd call in, you know, every couple of days
and seemed like every time she would call his house
(04:34):
because this is this predate cell phones, he would always
answer and she's like, Bart, what how came we are
always home when I call? And he said, well, you know,
just being a smart like my mom, I'm just taking
a lot of time off to come up with a
good band name. And she said, well, mercy me, Bart,
why don't you get a real job. And we're like, okay,
(04:55):
let's let's go with that. And to this day, we've
still yet to ask to get real jobs. So there's
some weird, weird prophetic moment.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
And some might say, and you've still yet to come
up with a name for the band.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, I was. If anybody has any better suggestions, we're open.
We can start a.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Sideband as somebody that has virtually no musical skill. I
think the Psalms covered it for me when it talks
about making a joyful noise. So that's sort of my
world that I live in. I am fascinated by how
you kind of put together your list for a concert date.
For example, I know from from being around music a
(05:38):
little bit, that you're going to play the stuff from
a new album, any album that's recent. You're gonna be
playing that stuff. But your band, Mike is a hit machine.
I mean in the secular world, that would be like
the underscored statement. You guys just put out one great
anointed song after another. So when you're hiling your list
(06:00):
for a show like the one coming up in October
in Tallahassee, how do you guys sit down and decide
what's going to make up that particular concert night.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Gosh, we try to. We try to, and on our
albums we kind of approach it the same way too.
We kind of wanted to be a roller coaster ride,
like ups and downs and emotional moments and fun moments,
and in a concert, we try to do something for everybody,
including ourselves. Like there are gonna be songs in there
(06:32):
that we're playing because we just want to play them
and hopefully the audience will come along with us for
the ride. But we always try to, you know, give
the people what they want. Actually got to see Paul
McCartney a couple of times, and that was something I
really picked up from him, Like he played a couple
of songs that were obviously once he wanted to play,
but most of the show he's playing beatles songs. He
(06:53):
walks out with that you know, that Hoffner bass that
he's famous for playing, sure, and he literally just walks
across the stage holding it up for the audience to to.
You know, it was technical and it was like he
knows exactly what the audience wants and he's gonna give
it to him. You know. It's like and for us,
it's like, these fans have supported us, you know, literally
for thirty years now, and you know, why would we
(07:14):
not thank them by playing what we think they really
want to hear. So, yeah, we try to do a
little bit of something for everybody and you know, make
it entertainment, but also you know, be able to share
our hearts and encourage people because we know that life
is not easy.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
No it's not. And I will get to social media
here eventually, because I'm I'm a follower of you on
social media and have been for a little bit. Oh no,
that's a very good thing, brother, No, it absolutely is.
But but on that same line of picking and choosing songs,
and I'm not going to ask you to give away
anything because I know there's an art to picking the
(07:54):
flow of what what you're describing. But for example, you know,
maybe the song of songs for you guys is the
name of the movie, right, I can only imagine, but
I will I will tell you I'm a big fan
of the uptempo version that you guys re released in
you know, kind of the together with the movie, the
(08:14):
movie version, if you will. And so what what determines
whether you might play that version or the original version?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
What scots? Do you want the spoiler or no, I
don't know, I don't. I let you be surprised.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
That's that's fair. But I guess my question is do
you do you have to sometimes almost flip a coin
in deciding whether you're gonna go this route or this route.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Gosh, that's a great question. So obviously we did the
original version for decades, and when the movie came out,
it was awesome for us to get to to rethake
the song and redream it and and the upbeat movie
version of it, I guess is what we can call it.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
It was almost like a completely different take on the song.
You know, before Bart had written it out of losing
his dad and just kind of imagining what his dad
was experiencing, you know, in heaven. The whole song is
just a bunch of questions like what will it be like? Ye,
the movie version is almost more like a celebration of like, man,
like we have so much to look forward to, you know,
(09:23):
for people to trust in Jesus, Like that's our hope,
that's our future. It's like death doesn't seem so scary.
And so it was kind of like this really joyful
twist on it to us, and so we started playing
it live all it would be a fun season and
it's been awesome, Like the crowd has just been all
in on it and it's been a great Like you know,
(09:46):
sometimes somebody takes your favorite song, A band will take
your favorite song and they want to reimagine it pun intended,
and it just ruins it for you. I saw one
of my favorite bands as the Food Fighters, and I
went to go see him in ever Long as like
one of the greatest songs, and Dave Grahl came out
and had this really special moment where it was him
just playing that song guitar at the edge of the
(10:07):
stage by himself. And while that was really neat to
get to see, man, I just wanted to see them
going off on that song. So it's like it's like
It could go either way, and it seems like people
have been in on it with us. Now there may
be some kind of hybrid version out there that could happen.
I don't know where. It's maybe a little bit of
the old, a little bit of the new. I guess
we'll just have to wait and see.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Mike Schweitzer with Me for Mercy Me at the Tuckers
Center in Tallahassee on October eleventh. Mike, is there a
song that you just you, Mike, really loved to play?
You don't play it all the time, but every now
and then it gets into the concert and you'll love it.
It may be a hit, it may not be a hit.
But is there one that really stands out and speaks
(10:52):
to you your heart or something you really enjoy musically playing?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, for sure. And I would say seasonally are different
songs that jump out like that. You know a lot
of times it's a new record and a new season,
And like even if was that for me for a
long time just playing that song live and seeing the
response from.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
The audience love all that song.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Well and you can almost see like in somebody's reaction
like that God's carrying them through something in some season
of life that's probably difficult, and so those songs are
really special. But I think if I had to pick
one song, it would be the song God with Us
from our record All That Is within Me. Just that
song I don't even remember. I kind of remember how
(11:35):
it started when we started writing it and just feeling
like from the get go like I think this song special.
And the first time we played it, Bart hadn't even
written the second verse yet. We literally we didn't have
like PowerPoint or image mag or anything that would have
the lyrics up on the screen. He sang the first verse,
you know, second verse thing is the first kind of thing.
But by the second time we were singing the chorus, the
(11:57):
crowd was singing it with us, like they just picked
it up, and it was just this really special moment.
And I don't know, something about that song has always
been special for me personally, And every now and then
we'll pull it out on the vault and slip it
back into the set, and yeah, it's always it. Always
that's my heart.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Good songwriting in general, is it lyrics then music, music
then lyrics, or do you guys kind of nail that
at the same time you kind of get a tune
in a melody and you go from there.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Gosh, if you could tell us how to do that properly,
it would be really helpful.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Why do you think I'm asking? I am clueing.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yes, it is different every time. There's a lot of
times when when Bart's got a concept that he wants
to write, and so the lyrics are kind of already
kind of formulating just in his in his head over time,
just based on what's going on in life usually, and
then you know, sometimes there will be some music that
(12:58):
maybe I've started, or very he started, or Nathan or
and we'll kind of bring a song start musically to
the band and he'll be like, oh, man, I think
that would have worked for this lyric idea. Sometimes he's
got a lyric idea that he can't let go up,
and he'll sit down with you know, the piano and
bang out the three courts he knows, so he can
work out a melody and he'll bring that to us.
We're like, yeah, we got to chase that. I mean,
(13:20):
that's how like Word of God Speak started and some
some of our bigger moments that that are really connected
with people through through just just him, you know, alone
and a piano, which is comical to say, because if
you know Bart, he can't play anything, any instrument. He's
(13:42):
an amazing singer, an amazing writer, and I'm so grateful
he can't because it keeps me employed. He can go
out on his own, we'd all be in trouble.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Hey, make sure if I hear the words, let me
see your license. I'll know I've distracted you too much.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I know you're good. I'm actually in the BUCkies part
be want waiting for my family to clime in the
car right now. They're everybody here now.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Oh well good if you got them out of the car,
out of BUCkies already, that's that's a that's an achievement.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
It was a pretty quick stop. Don't mind.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Did you get the beef brisket? What's your favorite? Do
you eat it? BUCkies? Do you ever get food there?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
I actually I have had the brisket and it's phenomenal.
The jerky bar was very simpy. I'm actually currently on
like this crazy carnivore diet where all I eat is
animal products. Yep. Honestly, the greatest experience of my life
is its steak and eggs every day. Okay, but actually
I didn't get anything. I'm a little sad. I'm kind
(14:40):
of regretting it.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, the beef brisket is is just next level to me.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
But it's really good. Yeah, And honestly we're here for
the bathroom, the cleanest bathroom on the planet.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Uh together again again, what's that about?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yes, So we have known David Crowder for oh gosh,
it's probably pushing twenty years at this point, and we
absolutely love him, love his band, his whole crew, everybody,
and so every time it's time to come up with
a tour, like there's this list of people who we've
toured with if anybody has ever paid attention, we end
(15:18):
up touring a lot with the same artists because we
just most of your day is backstage hanging out and
it's not playing music, and so you want to hang
with people who you just love and who feel like family.
And I would say the Crowder crew is absolutely the
greatest family members we have. We love those guys, and
so last fall we did about half of our fall
(15:41):
with them, and then half the fall with a tour
with Toby Mack and Zach Williams, and it was like
one of the greatest falls touring experiences of our lives,
like can we repeat this somehow? And so we're doing
it again. This is just going into different markets. So
the first half is with Prouder again and the last
(16:01):
one was called together again because it was like the
fourth time leave toward them, and so we're like, let's
just call it together again again, and just how many
egains can we add? I don't know, but to the
third power.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
You know, it's that the perfect segue to my next question,
and that is you as a group, mercy me. You
know when I watch your videos and I had a
really good time during COVID we were doing the shows.
It didn't affect us, but is we're locked in studios,
so it you know, we're fine, but you guys kind
of you still pushed out content and all that. But
(16:37):
it just seems like you all have a genuine not
just love because we're commanded to love each other, right,
that's a scripture says that. But as a parent, and
now for me as a grandparent, I love my kids,
I love my grandkids, but I don't always like them,
and I would imagine that one of the things that
stands out, at least to me, is that you guys
(16:59):
seem to not just love each other, but you do
seem to like each other a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Uh. Yeah, there's no question. It's it's it's gone beyond
friendship and then you become like quote unquote family and
then like something weird happens after thirty years. I actually
often like we'll kind of relate it to the military,
and not that we're doing anything as important as those
guys or dangerous, but there's this kinship. Like if you're
(17:24):
in the military, you have a kinship with other guys
in the military, if you're specifically in one branch of
the military, you have a tighter knit group. And then
when you're actually in a fox hall with somebody, you know,
you're lifelong friends. And yeah, it's just kind of in
some weird way, that's kind of what it feels like
to me. We've just had so many shared experiences, good
and bad over the years that it's like there's there's
(17:47):
no getting away from each other at this point, Like
we're in each other's lives and and and when we're
together we laugh ninety percent of the time. Like it's
just it's you're we're hanging out with our best friends,
you know, obviously, like you said, you always love your
kids and all like your kids. There are times, and
I would say of anybody in a band like bart
(18:09):
and I'll go at it more than anybody, but it's
always over in about thirty minutes, and you, like, you
just move on, you don't. It's not that important. Nothing
that you're upset about is ever as important as as
the good times we have. So it's yeah, it's it's been.
It's been a crazy thing that I never would have
(18:29):
guessed when I was nineteen and we started this band
that we would still be together and still be in
it and still be loving it and anyone still caring.
That's the craziest thing to me. People still show up,
and people still you know, send us messages, you know,
on social media or whatever about how a song you know,
carries them through something. And that's that's honestly why we
(18:53):
still do it and why we love doing it and
why it kind of feels important.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
How How did covid hit you? Guys? How weird?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Was that? It was just great? It was a great
time to be alive, wasn't it. It was? I think
we all took it differently, you know, just like everybody
everybody you know had different experiences with it. You know,
we you know, had massive disagreements of how it should
(19:22):
be handled within the five list, and and then again
realized that's not really what matters here, That's not the
most important thing, and so, uh, yeah, it was it
was hard, you know, having the thing that you love
doing being taken away from you. Uh and not that
(19:43):
it's our only purpose in life, but we do find
a lot of purpose in touring and in in that
part of being in band. You know, that was really hard.
I went through some I would say I dabbled in depression,
and that's not really ever been my m o. I'm
pretty uppy guy most of the time. But I think
I really struggled with it at times. My wife would sad,
(20:04):
became a big jerk for a while, for sure. But
you know, I think when I could stop and recognize that,
you know, we'd never promised an easy road in life,
you know, Jesus said there would be suffering, and all
we're called to do is perseverance, knowing that we don't
go through it alone. And that's I think that's when
(20:26):
that really when, when I was reminded of that, it
definitely made it a lot easier to get through that weird,
weird season.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Who came up with the idea of the quarantine grab bag.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Probably Bart He's uh, we call him the think tank.
He's always come up with ideas. Follow through is not
great on all of them, but his ideas are amazing. Yeah,
I think that's I think that's where I came from.
And you know, Robbie, our drummer, still lives in Dallas.
The rest of us are up in the National area,
so we were trying to figure out some way to
get together, to try to stay connected with our fans
(21:06):
and encourage people, and you know, yeah, so we just
those were literally like we would all set up our
iPhones and put in a click so that we're all
playing together and play through the song, and then we
send it to our buddy Ryan, who does all of
our video concept for live and everything, and we've known
him as long as we've been a band almost and
(21:28):
he would edit them all together, and we just throw
him out there for people, just you know, again, hopefully
just put him smile on somebody's faces. It's such a
weird time.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a crazy time. Same
question though, with the cover tune grab bag, and I'll
add an addendum to it. Do you collectively decide what
songs you're gonna pick? Because you're picking some pretty popular
secular stuff. Is it representative of everyone's musical tastes or
do y'all like vote? Do you talk about it over
(21:56):
lunch or what?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
No, it's funny. So those started forever ago, and it
was it was Phil Wickham's fault. He did some like
just just came and a guitar and I think he
covered Leonard Cohen Tyler Luja and it was beautiful. He's amazing,
like he's got the voice of an angel. And we
(22:19):
were all like, oh man, that's so cool. We got
to do something like that, I'd be awesome. And so
we huddle up in the backgrounds of our bus and
it was late after a show, it was probably two
in the morning when everything starts getting really goofy, and
we were playing through song ideas and what we could do,
and we somehow landed on girls just want to have
fun and it was the furthest thing from what Phil
(22:42):
had done, but we couldn't stop laughing, and so, oh,
let's just put it out there. And everybody's like, oh,
my gosh, that's really funny. You should do this song.
And so we're like, oh, man, Like, people were just
flooding us with like song requests for us to cover,
and so we kind of just started pulling songs out
of that list. And then it just became like whenever
(23:02):
we'd get together to rehearse or whatever, we'd be like
goofing off playing through a song and be like, oh,
we should do that one. And it just became this
this thing that got bigger than we ever would have expected,
you know, with the I think the Pinnacle was what
we did bla Bladah on tour with when we were
on a tour called the Rocket Worship Road Show. It
(23:24):
probably had fourteen or fifteen artists on it, and we
just got in this long hallway backstage at a venue
in Presno, California, and videoed us all in a line
filling this hallway and it was it was just hysterical
and it ended up going viral like La Cree was
in it, Jarsa Clay, Guys, Matt Maher and his band,
(23:45):
and it was it was just funny and silly and
it just kind of took off. And I would like
to just say we feel like Jimmy fallon solar idea
was his whole little classroom instrument gag he does on
this show. I think he stole that from us.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah, that's see, that's the way it works though. See
Christians borrow secular artists steel That's perfect, all right. Last question,
social media. You're out there a little bit, Mike, And
and I don't mean out there as in out there weird.
I mean out there. You're out on social media, which
(24:24):
is well, it's well, I mean it's a little risky
in this day and age because not only are you
kind of pushing a little bit against some of the
wokeness it's in our culture today, which I think is
straight from the pit of Hell, but you're also out
there because there are a lot of Christians that are
about as judgmental as a lot of illiberals are out there.
(24:47):
And how do you kind of walk that tightrope and
deciding when and what you're going to post?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
So there's a backspace, but I usually write a lot
of things that I don't need to post, just to
just to feel like I did. That's the legally, Okay,
don't don't just post. And I've tried to get out
of comments sections because it's a dark, dark place. But
every now and then there's there is I don't know
(25:18):
why I feel like I have to post something like
is if my opinion really matters to anybody? And I
don't ever expect to change anybody's mind, but some of
those like I gotta say it and I don't ever
do it. On like official mercy Med accounts, we kind
of like as a band just agreed like Nosamo mercy
Me is about we're going to be a political as
a band, we're gonna be about Jesus and music and enjoy.
(25:42):
But each of our own personal accounts like we do
whatever we want. And yeah, sometimes late at night, I
probably should just not be on my phone, but uh yeah,
I just I don't know. I agree with you on
on how a lot of the world has gotten just
completely insane crazy and critical thinking is out the window
(26:03):
and logic is out the window, and and I don't know,
I just it's it's hard to stand by and and
and let that just be on not speaking against it
at all. You know, I feel like we're supposed to
speak truth, and you know, I'm not going to get
(26:23):
it right all the time. For sure, but I know
my wife's over here cringing right now because she's like,
I wish you would never be on social media or
say anything.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Well, here, you can just maybe let your wife know
at least you're doing what you're doing and not doing
what I'm doing, which causes my wife to duck in
public all the time. So uh, it's it's all good, Mike.
Safe travel, safe travels to you and your family.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Our wives would probably be good friends.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Probably, so uh, safe travels to you and your family,
and enjoy your time, and I look forward to you,
you and the band coming on October eleventh here to Tallahassee.
Thanks so much for being generous with your time.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Oh man, Thanks so much again for having us and
spreading the word about the show. It's been a long
time since we played Dallahassee, so I'm pumped to be back.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Thanks so much, Mike, be well, God bless you.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Oh you too, Man, Thanks so much.