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| The Exclusive Interview with Shannon Cutts! |
| Q: Shannon, thank you very much for joining us here! I wanted to start off here by asking you about the basis of your music, your faith. How did Shannon Cutts get to the point she is at now in her life and music? A: I was singing, playing mandolin and piano, and writing songs from when I was 8 years old. When I was 11 I began to suffer from anorexia, and later on bulimia as well. In time the eating disorder began to take its toll on me mentally, emotionally, and physically, and it became harder and harder for me to commit to living each new day. Music became somewhat of a lifeline for me – it began to shape the way I interacted with and communicated with the world around me, the way I justified my existence, the way I proved to myself that I still had something of value to share with people. When I lost the use of my hands at 19 from a performance-related injury, I realized I would never get music back until I healed my body of the disease because by that time I was too weak health-wise to bounce back. That is when I turned to God, praying a really simple prayer “God if you’re up there (which I doubt) and if you’re listening to me (which I doubt), my way isn’t working anymore and I really need your help.” From that point on He began to heal and restore me, and my music also became about Him, His healing grace, His power to change every human life for the better and give us peace and hope through His love. So my songs are literally ‘musical journal entries’ – a continual stream of ‘a day in the life of Shannon-who-walks-with-God, and they are designed to show that ‘if Shannon can do it, anyone can!’ Q: How much has music enhanced your daily life and your worship? A: Music is the clearest and purest way I interact with God. It’s almost the only way God can capture my full and complete attention – He sends me a tune or a catchy phrase and I’m hooked in – I can’t look away from Him until I see where it is taking me. The Bible seems to suggest that we are literally made of His music – His Word – it tells us to ‘make a joyful noise’, it tells us to ‘worship God in spirit and in truth’, and in my favorite scripture, Psalm 108:1, it says, ‘My heart is steadfast, Oh God; I will sing and make music with all of my soul.” Sometimes I have trouble memorizing Bible passages, but I only had to read that passage once and I immediately remembered it perfectly. I think we all just have to find out what our ‘music’ is – what the unique ‘language’ is that God chooses to speak to us in that really grows and teaches us, and then we have to commit to learning that language faithfully so we can have deeper and deeper dialogues with God. That is what music is for me. It is first about letting God teach me the language of love through melody and words, and then it becomes about using what I’ve learned from Him to communicate with others who love Him too and want to know Him better. So now I say that music is worship, music = worship, because I literally cannot make music without being in worship. It is very beautiful – I love your question because it helps me to see that even more clearly and be very grateful to God for such a wonderful gift! Q: You musical career has taken a huge step forward with the release of your first full length CD entitled Modern Day Eve. How has recording and promoting your first album opened your eyes to the music industry? A: Well, that is an interesting question. My eyes have definitely been opened in terms of the inner mechanistic workings of the music industry, but I’m still learning to interpret what I ‘see.’ I’m finding that so much of what I think I see is really more of a combination of what I expect to see and what I dread seeing – sometimes it is hard for me to see what really is with all the preconceptions I carry around that cloud my vision. So let’s just say that the jury is still out on that side of things – the music ‘industry’ is like any other industry – it exists to turn a profit. So asking it to be other than what it is can only lead to frustration. But as one wise industry friend said to me, “Jesus’ plans for your ministry are much greater in scope than any earthly music executive’s could ever be – so don’t worry about where you and your music will end up and how you will succeed.” My friend is very wise and he helps a lot of indies stay focused on what is really important, and he always reminds us that there are a lot of ministry-minded industry people out there who will help truly ministry-minded indies to ‘stay in business’ so to speak, so we should just stay focused and not worry about the results – to us is the effort, to God, the fruits. And, having said all that, I will just say that from a creation/recording perspective, finding my producer, MD Thompson (www.ivory-tower-realizations.com), and creating Modern Day Eve was nothing short of miraculous, and any future success the CD has should and must be overshadowed by remembrance of that. Working with MD was the best experience I could ever have had – I grew so much on so many levels and the music literally came to life through that partnership – I still remember walking in one day and listening to his arrangement work on Isn’t Life Wonderful and just being blown away that he could ‘get’ out of my layperson ramblings exactly what I was hearing for that song and bring it to life. So that was definitely an anointed partnership. God did everything to get Modern Day Eve from a heart-prayer into its finished form – from giving me the songs, to finding MD, to providing the wonderful musicians, to giving me the funding, to finding me the right art director – absolutely everything. To me the CD should more rightly be called Modern Day Miracle, and since it is a CD chronicling my ‘recovery’ from worldly life and induction into truly living through God’s healing grace, I just hope it helps everyone it reaches to do the same. You can hear the music and order Modern Day Eve at www.shannoncutts.com or http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/439/shannon_cutts.html) Q: What is the most important message you want people to walk away with after listening to your new album? A: I pray people have the courage to let God love them. With an album entitled Modern Day Eve, it is impossible to avoid contemplating how on earth our society is at all improved from 5,000 years ago when our forbears, the infamous and unlamented Adam & Eve, made the decisions that led to the state of humanity today. But even back then we could see evidence of God’s love in that even as He was kicking the Adam & Eve out of Eden, He was sheltering and clothing and feeding and instructing them for their descent to earth. Such love! And then, 2,000 years ago, there was one event that changed the entire fate of the human race – the reintroduction of Hope into this world with the birth of God-with-skin – Jesus Christ. So the message of the CD is centered around Galatians 5:6 “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” All the evidence we will ever need of God’s undying, uncompromising, unconditional love for us is already made manifest through the birth of Jesus Christ. But now it is our turn. Are we going to accept His love? Are we going to admit that we don’t have to suffer the way we do and it is within our power to choose to accept another way – there is love available to us, life-changing, heart-healing love – and we do deserve it, because God Himself died to offer it to us. I hope every single listener can feel in the music the movement of God’s pure love in their own hearts and take the nourishment, shelter and instruction His love offers to find the courage to live the lives they were born to live. Q: Tell me a bit about the fine musicians that played on this album with you. A: I am just so lucky. Lucky, lucky, lucky. I’ve said a little about my producer, MD Thompson, already – from guitars to co-writing to programming/eBow to percussion to bgv’s to arrangements, he really helped each song reach its full potential. My little bro Adam did all the fiddle work – you can hear more of his masterful fiddle work at www.lonestarbluegrassband.com. Steve Allison, my ultra-gifted drummer and percussionist, is also the highly respected house drummer at Lakewood Church, Joel Osteen’s church here in Houston. Paul English, my pianist, is someone I’ve looked up to since my teenaged forays into jazz – while I handled some of the piano work on the CD, there is no one in Houston like Paul, and he is not only my piano teacher but also one of the most accomplished jazz musicians I’ve ever met. Chris Windham is a wonderful friend of mine who also holds a Masters degree in Music with a concentration in acoustic bass from the prestigious Rice University – he plays electric, fretless electric and acoustic bass on Modern Day Eve. I played mandolin and piano, did all the bgv’s with MD, and of course handled the lead vox and songwriting for the CD. But it was truly a collaborative effort, and we could not have done it without the help of Steve Christensen, our tireless sound engineer at Sugar Hill Studios (www.sugarhillstudios.com), and Essential Sound’s Rodney Meyers, who did such a great job mastering the songs. Q: Shannon, I want to sincerely thank you once again for being here with us, and I want to ask you what is on the agenda for this new year of 2003 and beyond for you? A: Well, my band and I are working up a lot of new songs, and we are looking forward to playing at such events as BlessFest 2003 and reaching out to youth and people of all ages with the music. Through a generous donation we are moving forward to shoot 2 music videos and a live-concert promotional video featuring songs from Modern Day Eve, and that should happen in late Spring 2003. So we are really excited about that. I filmed a segment for a TV Pilot that I hear is going to be pitched to MTV and VH-1, which is really cool. My website, www.shannoncutts.com, recently won my web-designer (www.blackpulp.com) a Golden Globe for best Design, and that was a wonderful gift to us all. I am at the moment moving forward to become a more active participant through music to raise awareness of the prevalence of eating disorders in men and women of all ages and serve as an example of how God’s grace can heal and restore lives broken by these diseases. But most of all, I plan to just ‘keep on keeping on’, staying faithful not just in the big and validating victorious moments but in the little quiet days and weeks and months in between, refining my songwriting and performance skills, praying for doors to open that will direct me towards God’s purpose for calling me into music ministry in the first place. That is really more what it is about for me – it is about learning not just to strive, but learning to truly live. And since music and my own heartbeat have always felt pretty much inseparable, I would imagine that 2003 and beyond would hold only more of the beautiful same! |