The hit that hurt

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next: A strong comeback album by an award-winning trio.

The South African CCM band Tree63 was by all outward signs a success when it disbanded in 2009. Its song “King” had been an ASCAP Song of the Year nominee, and its self-titled album Tree 63 had won a GMA Dove Award for Rock Album of the Year.

MAST: But disillusionment was growing behind the scenes. WORLD music critic Arsenio Orteza spoke with founder John Ellis about his decision to reboot the band.

ARSENIO ORTEZA: During its initial run, Tree63 developed a solid following among fans of contemporary Christian music. One of the singles from the trio’s fifth album has even become a contemporary worship classic.

MUSIC: [“Blessed Be the Name” by Tree63]

Billboard magazine ranked this cover of Matt Redman’s “Blessed Be the Name” the #1 Adult Contemporary Christian Radio Single of 2004. But John Ellis, Tree63’s founder, says the song’s popularity was not without its problems.

ELLIS: After that song was a hit, people would come to the shows, wait around for us to play it, and then they would leave as soon as we finished playing it.

Ellis has nothing against Redman’s song. In fact, he and Redman are friends. But Ellis didn’t think that the song represented the authentic Tree63 sound. To Ellis, Tree63’s calling was to create guitar-oriented, Jesus-focused music that could hold its own among the likes of U2 and the Police.

MUSIC: [“Turn for Home” by Tree63]

This is “Turn for Home,” the opening song on Tree63’s new album, Voyage. It’s certainly not another worship song.

ELLIS: I get the need for worship music. But there's another kind of music and a lyric that I wish other artists will also worry about, of what's it like to wake up today in your life with the day-to-day struggles of being a human being? What are you trusting God for in your life?

More than one song on Voyage concerns the nature of a faith that can survive the long haul. But none expresses this concern more eloquently than the title track.

MUSIC: [“Voyage” by Tree63]

Besides being the group’s first album in 11 years, Voyage is also the group’s first with the new lineup of Ellis, the drummer Angus Warden, and the bassist Deon Knipe. It’s also the first Tree63 album on the Just Music label. Tree63’s best-known albums appeared on InPop, the label co-founded by the Newsboys’ manager Wes Campbell. Ellis says news of the Michael Tait scandal did not surprise him. During his own years with InPop, he says, the label placed greater emphasis on commercial success than on spiritual accountability.

ELLIS: They really pushed on us this sense of American Christian music is a place where you can thrive—individually and corporately—financially if you do this and this and this. That was their focus from the get go.

Ellis said InPop pushed a materialistic “Win at all costs” attitude at odds with the biblical idea of losing one’s life to find it. And it exhausted him. It also took its toll on his marriage, which ended in divorce.

MUSIC: [“Seeker” by Tree63]

This is “Seeker.” It’s sung to the kind of person specified in the title. But its opening lines— “What was it you wanted? What is it you seek?”—could just as easily be Ellis singing to himself during his InPop years. But Ellis doesn’t want to come across as a victim.

ELLIS: God called me to be a person who spends his life writing and recording and performing music. If that functions well in the industry that's around, great. If it doesn't, that’s—it's up to God. I’m still a grateful guy, and I've recorded a new record of songs that are full of grateful sentiments, you know?

And fans of Tree63, old or new, will be grateful that he has.

MUSIC: [“Beatitude” by Tree63]

I’m Arsenio Orteza.

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