shane barnard web

musicforce interview with shane barnard (2003)

MUSICFORCE: Can you think of a passage of scripture that has recently spoken to you about worship?

BARNARD: I would say Psalm 73 in general. Asaph wrote that Psalm and at the end of it he said, “As for me, the nearness of God is my good.” Personally for me, that is very impacting, especially in worship. In my daily life, if I have anything good it’s the nearness of God. If anything, that has made me a lot more desperate - I find myself saying, “God, I don’t know Your nearness and I need to know it. Will you make sense of Your nearness to me, and make sense of Your commands to me?”

MUSICFORCE: Other than the Bible, are there any books that have influenced or expanded your understanding of worship?

BARNARD: Yes. I’m not a huge reader but John Piper wrote a book called The Pleasures of God, which spells out the things that God takes pleasure in. Discovering what God takes pleasure in and is glorified in always helps my worship life. It is His pure and utter joy to revive me, and His joy, target and delight to save me. John Piper in general has been a pretty awesome indirect mentor.

MUSICFORCE: What one piece of advice would you give to aspiring worship leaders?

BARNARD: We run into people like that all the time, and I don’t even know what to tell them anymore. Come to find out, I don’t really know what the term “worship leader” means. [Laughs.] One, it’s so diverse just in our culture. And secondly, I don’t read much about it in the New Testament. It’s not in there! People ask us all the time, “How can I do what you do?” The discouraging part about that is that most of those questions come from people who already do what we do. I’ll ask them, “So what are you up to?” They’ll respond, “Oh, you know… we lead worship for the youth group two or three times per week, and then we play in coffee shops.” Since they’re describing exactly what we do, it seems that what they’re really saying is that they want to do it in front of a lot of people. So that’s where it gets kind of discouraging.

MUSICFORCE: How so?

BARNARD: If there’s anything that the Lord has told me over the years, it’s that I should not be living to please man, but to please God. He’s the one that initiates platforms and takes away platforms. I’m scared to death of exalting anything over God - music or people or myself, because I know that biblically God opposes the prideful, and I know what it says happens to those who are humble. There’s something so special about the years that I spent in a basement with six guys and a guitar in the dark. There was no less of an impact being made in the Lord’s eyes. My advice is that if playing in front of a certain number of people gives you a better feeling, really make sure you’re being a bondservant of God rather than pleasing man.

MUSICFORCE: Are there any worship recordings that you’ve been enjoying lately?

BARNARD: I love Hillsongs, and I have two or three of their CDs. And I love Nathan and Christy Nockels, a.k.a. Watermark. The Lord put us in a place of receiving on their path many years ago when they were [still called] Sons & Daughters. I also really like Charlie Hall and David Crowder.

MUSICFORCE: What do you think is the number one thing that hinders a worship leader in being effective in the task of leading others to a meaningful worship experience?

BARNARD: I would think maybe a lack of genuineness. The Lord seems to be doing something with vulnerability and honesty and genuineness in worship leaders today. People are beginning to see that it’s okay to be vulnerable with God.

MUSICFORCE: Before leading others in worship, what are some things you do to prepare?

BARNARD: We don’t consider any kind of formula for getting up on a stage and leading people in an experience with God. If we have any prayer, it’s usually that God will take our time together and use it to give them an experience alone with Him - the next day! The last thing we want them to think is that this “experience” happened in a building. We want them to know that this experience has happened because there’s a personality behind the person that we’ve talked about inside the building. That personality is found in every moment of our days.

missouri baptist university interview with shane and shane (2002)

Did you begin doing independent records while in college at Texas A&M?

SB: It started my junior year and kinda surprised me a little bit… I didn’t really know I was a music person and I played with a guy named Caleb for about a year and a half and then Shane and I started playing together. We met down there and became good friends and he had just become a Christian, that was all right at the latter part of college.

Who are some of your musical influences?

SB: I don’t know. Well, I’d have to say that my musical influences have been more in the last three or four years, while we were already doing music. I love worship stuff, this is going to sound pretty cheesy but I love Hillsongs…I wasn’t a big music listener growing up, so I liked music and sounds and rhythms, but I didn’t buy anything. Now, I love these guys tonight, I love Nathan & Christy Nockels of Watermark, and Charlie Hall, David Crowder, our little circle that we run into and play with a lot.

Do you have a certain message you try to communicate to the college crowd?

SB: This is gonna sound like Sunday school, but…Jesus. (laughs) That’s about it. It’s been really cool the last couple of years because the Lord’s taking us from doing a lot of song leading to doing a lot of college campus concert stuff where we’re walking in our gifting which really has little to do with music and a whole lot to do with proclaiming Him and evangelizing, telling people about his glory and the pleasure of being in Him and living through Him. Jesus is the message.

Do people ever get the two of you confused?

SE: Occasionally, but not a whole lot. It’s fun when we’ll go places and they don’t know that I’m coming too.
SB: A lot of people want to call us brothers for some reason…which, uh, we’d be pretty angry with our mom if that was the case, just for naming us both Shane.
SE: George Foreman’s kids are all named George.
SB: They aren’t named George, though. They’re nicknamed.
SE: Oh.

What is the reason for focusing on the Psalms in your recent album?

SB: I don’t know. If you look at even the Psalms CD, five of them are from the Psalms, and the other ones are from other places in scripture. The Lord has taught me so much through Psalms, and probably just because anything that shouts more of Jesus is just good. So there’s really no in-depth answer except they’re good and God has spoken to me through them. A couple songs I wrote to memorize the verses, never intending them to end up on CD’s or anything.

How do you define worship?

SB: When I think of worship…I may loop around that because what we do is services and concerts and play music. The problem with that in itself is that I don’t read about it in the New Testament, which, um, I read about a lot of ways to edify the body, I just don’t read about what we do. So worship has to be defined by scripture, because you’re not going to find it out on the road doing what we do. If I could define worship in my season right now, it would just be drinking in and enjoying Jesus. That would be worship to me. A scripture that’s coming to mind is in Jeremiah when the Lord says, “My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken the one true living God who is the fountain of living water, and they’ve taken for themselves broken cisterns that hold no water.” It’s talking about being satisfied with created things rather than the Creator. In my opinion, worship is being satisfied with the Creator. That would pan out in a lot of people by saying it’s your lifestyle and what you do. Reading about the word “worship” in scripture, it’s little to do with music, and it all has to do with the heart – nothing to do with the mouth. When God confronts Israel in Amos 5 and says, “Away from me…your gatherings and your stringed instruments are noise to my ears. I want righteousness to run like a river, I want obedience, I want your life and your heart to be pure,” …so all that to say is that God is showing us to delight and enjoy the Lord, the same way a husband would be delighted in a wife…just honoring them and enjoying their presence.

Is there a favorite song of yours?

SB: Yeah, but it’s not on the CD right now, you’d have to go down to about six or seven to get to the CD. I like Psalm 145, though, it kind of says it all, that God is interested in saving people and that He holds all pleasure in His right hand. And so that’s a great one. I love the psalm, regardless of whether we sing it or not, it’s just awesome.

What do you like people to go away with after your concerts?

SB: Let me preface this by saying we are scared of even coming close to exalting ourselves and exalting music and exalting creative things. God has not only humbled me in my own life to force me to know that, and I scripturally know that He humbles the proud and exalts the meek It’s always our prayer for people to leave with a huge longing to be in His presence. So much more than buying the next CD or book, or going to the next concert, that God would use us to be at the feet of Jesus and He’s doing that regardless.

Do you have any difficulties with songwriting?

SB: I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it, so…just no.
SE: We’re not really big songwriters. I’m definitely not. It’s funny with us because music is not, like, our hobby or what we would really do for fun. Hopefully it’s becoming more of that but…
SB: There’s not too many times when I sit down and say what would people like and write it or what would people dislike and not write it. Maybe a song every three months comes out because God’s floored me with Isaiah 55 or Isaiah 53 or Hosea 6 or John 15, you name it, and it’s just cool. It’s more of a call to preach and evangelize and sing songs. Going place to place and saying, “God what do you want to say to these people?” Not to dump on any kind of writing, because we’re trying to water that gift. Hopefully there will be some times where – here’s my emotions and just let em rip – and I’ve written some songs like that. The first 3-4 songs I wrote were those songs. The theme of…I feel like my salvation’s gone, and if I was God I would have kicked myself outta here type songs… a lot of songs now are really the same message. Psalm 13 is David saying that exact thing. “How long will you hide your face from me, how long will my enemies trample over me, how long will my eyes not see you at all, how long will my ears not hear you,” but he ends it with hope in those times by saying, “You have been good to me.”

Do you ever find yourself focusing on the performance aspect rather than worship?

SB: Most of the time when we play we have a band and our own sound system so that puts loops into it. I don’t think those desires get in the way of God moving, that we can thwart Him from moving, but yes. If there’s feedback the majority of the night, it just drives me up the wall. The guys don’t screw up usually, so that’s not an issue, but tonight it’ll be me and a guitar and I won’t think one time about music. I just won’t. It’s more of technical difficulty things that get to me. A lot of the time I’m just trying to continually ask God where to go.

Where do you see yourself five years from now?

SB: Shane wants to be a governor or a senator. (laughter) Just kidding…
SE: No I don’t! Congressman, eventually president.
SB: That was a joke. We have no idea, and to tell you the truth, we just don’t care. (laughter) I can tell you this, God has given us a heart for community we have a ministry family that we see quite a bit, other than that we don’t have a whole lot of community and I think that will grow in the next five years. I know that your question is regarding our musical future, but we would absolutely love it to be over tomorrow. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have a problem…I’m not just saying that to be weird but I wouldn’t care if the guitar was put down. That’s not what we do in our free time. It’s just not. It never really has been and I think that’s the cool part of what God has done in my life. It’s all for Him and there’s no glory that can be taken for myself at all. It just can’t be. It would be really stupid to even try. We may be involved in the local church a lot, we may be touring Europe, we may be making four records a year, or no records a year. We don’t have a clue.

Any advice for young people who are interested in pursuing music?

SB: Every time we play a concert there are several of those questions…how do you do what you do, and I know people are built differently than me, so my response is less encouraging than they would want: don’t. Just don’t. Jesus is so much better than music and image and bands and Nashville. God uses that stuff. I’m not saying it’s bad. I’ve learned some things in the last few years, and for one, God just doesn’t need connections. So that’s encouraging for a person in those shoes. I’ve experienced that, and in scripture…nobody, not even Samuel thought David would be king. He just didn’t fit the mold. He had a lot of older brothers and people who were a lot more talented than him.
But God’s unthwarted commanded call would put him in that platform and take it away when it was time.

Not to say that you don’t take steps…the second main lesson is to be forced to be satisfied with him and being before him. There is something satisfying about being before man, and if that is more satisfying, there are all kinds of red flags that pop up. I don’t think it’s what we do that people want to be a part of, because less than 1% of our lives are on a stage playing songs for people. What we do is play music and write songs, and the people who are asking that question aren’t in front of the people yet. A lot of people have pure motives, but our whole idea of impact is jacked because God doesn’t need us and He never has needed us and can use someone just as powerfully as he used me in a basement with six guys worshipping him for three hours on a Sunday night so much more than he can use you leading worship in a football stadium. There are a lot of people who are seeking what looks like a great lifestyle, fun and cool. Some will take that path and God’s going to teach and mold them like he did me and will continue to do me. He hates evil and evil is liking that stage and those instruments more than you like God. Evil is liking the sounds or the feelings you get from the response from people more than you like him. He’ll do that. He’s more interested in teaching that more than I am.

What is the origin of the ‘Spam Song?’

SB: My ‘Spam Song’ came from my only speech class that I took in college. I gave a speech on spam and wrote a song for it. I had a big can of spam and wrote a song about it. Somebody got that mug on the Internet and now it’s haunting me.

What is your most embarrassing moment?

SB: It has been forever, I can’t remember. This isn’t the most embarrassing, but one time I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the concert. It’s the only time I’ve ever done that. It was really embarrassing, but I just went. It just feels weird to set your guitar down and just walk off stage, down the aisle, go to the bathroom and then come back while people are silent and enter. That definitely isn’t the most embarrassing, but it was pretty embarrassing.

What is in your CD player right now?

SB: Pat Brown is in one, Sons and Daughters is in two, and a couple of Hillsongs. I think David Crowder is in there. My brother’s album often enters my CD player too.

If you could be any character in the Wizard of Oz, who would you be?

SB: I would like to be Oz, rule the world!!! Just kidding, sorry. I don’t remember this character, is it Antie Em, Uncle Em? I really like their appearance, man. It’s humble, insignificant, but very significant. I’d like to do a study on their lives. They raised that girl! Dorothy, man, she’s hot. She’s a cool girl.

Do you have any lucky charms?

SB: I think I’m Golden Grahams right now. So, no I don’t have any Lucky Charms on me right now. We could probably go get some and eat them. I know, you probably didn’t mean the cereal, I’m sorry. I don’t have any lucky charms.

What is your favorite conspiracy theory?

SB: Those are good questions. I’ve never and can’t even scrounge one up. I’m an idiot though, man. Um…I’m an idiot. I don’t know.

michael herman of christianity today interviews shane and shane (09/2003)

What’s story behind the song “Be Near”?

Barnard: While we were tracking Carry Away, I wrote “Be Near” on a piano, and we just threw it on the album at the end of our time in the studio. It was just piano and vocals at that time. When our label, Inpop, heard it, they loved it. They asked if we could add a few things to it to make it more radio-friendly. So, we created another version that was more “stringy” than the album version. And a later version is stronger and more driving, which came out of [Inpop co-founder and Newsboys frontman] Peter Furler hearing it and loving it. He wanted to put even more of a radio stamp on it. We fought it for a few weeks because we didn’t feel it was necessary, and we certainly weren’t going to pay for it. We aren’t the Newsboys, and we liked our version.

But everything worked out. We threw down the vocals and some guitar, and they did the rest. It was good to hang out with Peter and to really get to know his heart. The rest was out of our hands. K-LOVE radio’s Jon Rivers got a hold of a copy through Peter and really liked it. Then he put it in their rotation within a few days of first hearing it. It helped to get the song out there in a big way.

We’ve heard the song on three different radio formats. Which is your favorite version?

Barnard: I like the album version. I think it captured the song best.

Everett: I agree. We don’t really have a vision for a song when we go into the studio. It just kind of unfolds as we complete the recording. That version of the song really captured the passion of it.

How intentional is the order of the songs on Carry Away? What path does it take the listener through?

Barnard: I don’t know that we had much of an intentional path we were going for. Lyrically, there are a couple of common themes, but we really didn’t take that into consideration when we thought about the song order. If there’s anything we considered, it was if someone wanted to have a devotional time with this album, we’d have songs No. 6 and on be more devotionally minded. So, those songs kind of flow together without a big loud song in the middle of an intimate time with the Lord.

Everett: Everybody wrote a list of the order we thought the songs should be in. Then we just read our lists and talked about why we thought certain songs made sense in relation to other songs. After that Shane told us how it was going to be (laughs). Actually, that was all we needed to complete the final order.

Are all the songs on Carry Away new, or did you write some of them years ago?

Barnard: One of them, “When I Think About the Lord,” was someone else’s song. Pretty much all of them came out in the last two or three years. Even though there are still some Psalms concepts on this project, the Lord is saying something through all these songs. What the album really says, from song to song, is that God is better—better than all of this “stuff” we have. We really need him to continually show us that, because we don’t always believe it.

If there’s one psalm that is really about our life and even about this album, it’s Psalm 73. “Song of Surrender” is pretty much that psalm set to music. That shows up throughout the album in that we see the world around us and we’re, at times, envious of it in different ways. We see the things that others indulge in that we can’t indulge in as Christians. We walk through those struggles. But the Lord reveals to the psalm-writer where that path leads—to destruction. The psalm includes the proclamation of, “Who have I in heaven but you? There’s nothing on earth I desire besides you.” Even though our heart and flesh sometimes fail, he is still our portion. There are a lot of shiny things here on earth, but the Lord shines greater than them all. God designed it so he would be our delight, not these other things. We declare this about God in our lives and in our music partly because we have tasted it, but also because we want to taste and understand it more.

You seemed to adapt Scripture to your lyrics more on your past projects, but a little less of it on Carry Away. It seems these lyrics include more of your personal thoughts.

Barnard: I think this album is a little more interpretative of Scripture, exploring what it means. I wanted to keep the truth behind it while exploring what it means to me personally. “Be Near” and some other songs near the end of the album work into the phrase, “As for me, the nearness of God is my good.” What does that look like in my life? The songs are personal meditations for me to better understand what that means, to better make sense of that nearness. So the songs tend to start with a sentence like that and explore that thought throughout.

Everett: Every song we wrote is on the record. We didn’t choose from dozens of songs. That’s just the way it worked this time.

How does the songwriting process come about for you?

Barnard: For me, it’s always very personal. I really haven’t found a formula, and we’ll never come up with an album because “it’s time for another album.” It’ll be done when the Lord gives us direction and the songs come. Not that developing a time of writing is bad, because I want to a lot more than I do now. But my history is weird because music was never my hobby or my passion, so it’s all pretty new for me.

Everett: You just won’t see us taking a theme and writing a song for it just because we want to.

Barnard: I can say that every song on the album was written in under an hour-words, music and everything. That’s just usually how they come.

How does all that translate into your concerts?

Barnard: I’d like to think people are leaving our concerts with a deeper desire to seek after God. I want that much more than them getting a CD on the way out or thinking about attending the next concert. I’m scared to death to exalt people or music over the Lord. Our hopes are that the Lord will clearly be bigger than the music at our concerts.

Everett: Each song is specific, and that’s awesome. Even though we are a band, it doesn’t feel like it. We were talking the other day and we feel more like a circus—a Christian circus. The tent goes up and we start up the revival atmosphere in a sense.

Barnard: We are proclaimers by nature. We try to seek after the Lord, hold the Scripture high and let it do what it does. It’s interactive and the Spirit lives through it.