Christian band MercyMe faces the future with optimism as it plays in Wichita area
Christian band MercyMe entered mid-March 2020 in the midst of a tour and on the verge of releasing a new album.
Guitarist Barry Graul remembers a concert load-in at a hockey arena in Pensacola, Florida, hearing that NBA games were shutting down because of the pandemic, and the five-man band making a quick decision.
“We shouldn’t look stupid or have to get a call from the city,” he recalled. “We packed it up, went home that night, and the rest is history.”
The band kept apart for a few months, but by the time they got together in person that June to record, MercyMe came at it with renewed energy.
“We kind of wiped the slate a little bit clean and started over,” Grauf said, including hiring new producers. “We really needed someone to come in and kind of help us meander through everything we’d already started. We got rid of the bad stuff, kept the good stuff, and wrote a whole bunch more.”
MercyMe ended up with 40 songs they thought were album-worthy, and the result was “Inhale (Exhale),” released in February. Other songs may surface on future albums, Grauf said from his home in Nashville.
“We just started carving away,” he said. “The product at the end, I think, kind of displayed what we were feeling at the time, even though we never really addressed the pandemic, (because) it had gotten old for us.”
Grauf said the band wanted to counter the overly emotional and gloom-and-doom music it was constantly finding online.
“The record ended up being a ‘get caught dancing at a red light’ kind of record. Such gut-wrenching, emotional songs were happening on the internet, (and we thought), ‘Let’s make some happy music,’” he said. “There’s a few heart-tug moments on the record and thoughtful things, which you always get with us, but for the most part it’s a good happy record.”
MercyMe is about halfway through its fall tour, with a stop Friday night at Hartman Arena in Park City.
“Numbers are down a little bit, but I think they’re down for all the tours,” Grauf said. “We have people who’ve bought tickets who aren’t showing up. Everybody’s got their comfortable factor. But the people who are there are really, really glad to be there. It’s really great.”
The band “tested the waters,” he said, this summer with a series of concerts in minor-league ballparks, as well as a few shows in Florida, playing on hotel balconies for fans who gathered below.
“We were fairly confident we could get back out there in the fall,” Grauf said.
MercyMe is looking toward 2022 with optimism, including a big spring tour.
“Unless everything falls apart, we’re going to move ahead like things are as they are,” Grauf said. “Hopefully between now and then everything will get better.”
Mercy Me, with Micah Tyler
When: 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 29
Where: Hartman Arena, Park City
Tickets: $26.75 to $153, at hartmanarena.com