TRUE TUNES: The tour started in Australia
and New Zealand and is about 3 weeks long?
PHIL JOEL: Yes. It's not super long, it's
pretty compact. Our crew are pretty much worn out
right now. They're worn thin. Yeah, it's been bang,
bang, bang, show after show and it's been really good.
Especially quite good doing it this way. It's kind of
like you just get into the groove of it and it's been
fun. Especially good for me because every night, I'm
still getting used to being a front man, so every
night I learn a new thing, so the next night I just
apply that. Then I'll learn something that night or do
something wrong and I'll figure it out. So every night
I think we're getting better, which is really good. If
there's a few days in between, you might lapse back
into bad old habits or something like that. This way
it's really kind of educational, if you will.
TRUE TUNES: How has it been touring without the
Newsboys? Has it been different touring without them?
PHIL JOEL: Yeah, I'm the chief. I'm the boss
out here, which is kind of cool. It's nice in it's own
way. Not that I've always wanted to be the boss or
anything, but it's like even with these TV's...see
these things standing up looking like coffins on their
ends? There's three 19" TVs, two 55" TVs in those
ones, 13" TVs in those ones and the big round one is
going to have the same image projected on that, and
then there's two screens with the same image projected
on that. I've been...putting together all of this
footage to synch up to the show. So the point is it's
been really creative, and even being out on the road,
it's still creative and it's still kind of exciting
seeing the stage and thinking and deciding "where are
we going to put things to give us a good depth of
field to make it look as good as we can?" So it's nice
to be able to have some of the creative freedom to do
exactly what I want, which is really fun and
liberating.
TRUE TUNES: Tell me about the band you have with
you on this tour?
JOEL: Actually, we've got different guys now
(Derek Wyatt and Tony Lucido from Jennifer Knapp's
band were originally scheduled to tour with Joel).
We've got this guy over here, Barry Graul; you might
have heard his name (from DC Talk). He's probably
going to get back with them in the summer. This guy in
the red shirt is Aaron Redfield, he would be replacing
Derek. Derek and Tony, they're out with Jennifer
Knapp. They were supposed to have February off so they
could do this for me, but Jennifer booked a few more
shows, so they couldn't come out and do it. As soon as
Aaron finishes this, he goes straight to Broadway and
plays on a show in Broadway. Wade Jaynes, he's been
playing for a lot of people, (Chagall Guevara, Rick
Elias, Over The Rhine,) but he was primarily Steve
Taylor's bass player. Justin York, (listed on the tour
roster as a 17-year-old guitar prodigy), he's awesome.
He's really cool and he's really great on stage, too.
If I had 8 X 10's made up of him, I'd sell tons of
them because girls always want his autograph. It's
hilarious. He's enjoying it immensely- he's having a
blast! I don't know what he's going to do when he
finishes out this tour. He's having so much fun. He's
in high school. Part of his year's studies is this
tour. He has to document it, journal write, take
photos and collect press clippings and that's going
towards his studies. He goes to a performing arts high
school or some sort of high school for talented
people.
TRUE TUNES: You've had Heather and Phynley with
you on this tour?
JOEL: Yes, actually we've been away a long
time. We went up to Detroit to Jeff Frankenstein's
wedding, on the 15th of December. We left on the 13th
to go up there and then we went to his place, his
parents' for Christmas and then we've been in New
Zealand and Australia. Then we came back straightaway
to do the tour. So we've been busy and Phyn's been on
the road the whole time... But she's been really good.
She's right on this whole schedule thing and she just
eats and sleeps and plays at the exact same times
every day, which is really good.
TRUE TUNES: How were the destinations chosen for
this tour?
JOEL: I don't know how they were chosen, but
it seems like someone's just been throwing darts at a
dartboard. I think some of them were chosen because
they were strong Newsboys markets. Others have been
chosen just because certain promoters have been
excited about the idea... We're kind of going with it.
It's really been up to the promoters as to who's been
the most excited about it.
At this point, it's really building relationships
with these people that are just excited about what I'm
doing. It's not like I really need thousands of people
to turn up to make it work. I don't need this to
financially pay off or anything...if it can take care
of itself, cool, but I've got a day job and that takes
care of me. It's not like I need to be out here at
all. It's really just something I want to do and I
want to just continue developing my performance skills
and just being able to be creative with the visual
element of things as well, and just musically. It's
just really challenging, so it's a lot of fun.
I mean, there is a question, "Why are you
bothering, why are you doing this? You've got a job,
you know?" Why not! I've got the time here to do it; I
may as well do it. It's a wonderful opportunity, so
let's go for it, you know? One of the biggest things
someone ever said to me was, "you know, you need to
dare to fail." I always think that. Just dive on in
there sometimes and if you fail, then it's okay. We
get so scared of failure you know, and so I just feel
like I'm just going to dive on in there and do this
tour and this album and just have a shot at some stuff
while I can and it seems to be going well. People seem
to be enjoying the results, I think. I hope!
TRUE TUNES: How has your life changed since
you've become a father?
JOEL: Well, I'm getting a lot less sleep,
that's for sure! But I think it's been a real calming.
She's had a real calming effect on me and a completing
sort of effect. I really feel like, it's almost like a
lot of the petty things in life don't really irk me
like they have before. Sometimes you just can't help
it, but, it's really great. Because of her, it's like
I don't....I'm even going to continue just doing
things and realizing that, you know what? If I fail
and no one likes my music or no one likes the show or
people just think I'm goofy, then it doesn't matter,
you know? My little girl is at home and my wife loves
me and it's really cool and that's all good. So it's
kind of...it has this completing, affirming, sort of
calming effect on me, which is really good. It's
really great.
TRUE TUNES: Since you've become a father, has
that changed your perspective on being adopted?
JOEL: Yeah. I think when you're adopted you
definitely, due to that fact that you do feel a little
bit, um...it's just undeniable. You do feel a
disconnection with everyone, even the ones that love
you most and express that love. You still don't feel
100% sort of trust in that love, you know, you're not
sure. You experience that at an early age when you're
adopted. So I think that breeds some pretty serious
sort of selfishness. You know, I think I've really
been quite a selfish person and I think having a child
has illuminated that a lot, and in turn, with the
whole adoption experience, it's sort of made seeking
out answers a little less valuable, you know? Because
it's about here and it's about now and it's about
taking care of my little baby and making sure that she
grows up feeling connected and feeling like she can
trust me. So, it's about now, you know, not so much
about the past. I wish that could have happened a
little earlier, maybe, but it's all good. It's all in
the right timing.
TRUE TUNES: You met your birth mother a while
back?
JOEL: I met her when Heather and I flew down
to Australia, to Perth. (Joel first met his birth
mother shortly after he got married.) She flew over to
the states last year with my little half sister and I
spent a bit more time with her.
TRUE TUNES: What was that like for you?
JOEL: The first time (I had met her) was
when I was 23, but it was very brief. But this time we
spent a bit of time together. Yeah, it was good. It
was really great! It was a bunch of things. I guess it
was a highly concentrated time of learning about each
other and observing each other and like any other
relationship, and especially because it was so
intense, it had sort of immense highs and immense lows
on a very short amount of time. It was really
interesting and continues to be. It's something that
we've together sort of entered into and we write and
talk on the phone and keep in touch and sort of
continue to discover more about each other and in turn
about ourselves, which is kind of really neat. I find
it's one of those things where people expect birth
parents and adopted children to meet and have some
sort of instant, completing, finalizing, comforting
feeling to it all, and yeah, there is a little bit of
that. But it's really just the beginning of a journey.
It's really just the beginning of a lifetime of
rediscovery and self-discovery and it sounds kind of
new age, but that's just life.
I'd like to put the whole adoption thing into a
little, succinct little sound bite, tie it up with a
little bow and say that's that and this is how it
functions, but it's just like any human relationship
experience, it's all mixed up with a bunch of
different emotions and feelings and lessons. So it's
an ongoing story I guess, is what I'm saying.
TRUE TUNES: Last time I interviewed you, you
told me that you had the very un-rock `n roll pastime
of gardening. What type of gardening do you do?
JOEL: At this point I'm going to go home and
do some damage control, because I haven't been home
for a long time and everything's going to be dead and
you know it. But really, Heather and I are finishing
up doing up our second old house. The house we live in
now is like 130-something years old and so we've been
doing it up for the last 2 years, and so the gardening
is really kind of like landscape gardening I guess.
Just actually creating flowerbeds and moving things
and getting pots put in and that sort of thing. I do a
little bit of the getting down in there and getting
dirt under my fingernails, but it's more...designing
the garden at this point and getting everything right.
I love it, it's great fun, it's tons of fun!
Maintenance...I'm not so big on the maintenance, you
know. I'm real big on getting everything in the right
place and getting it all designed and layed out and
looking good.
TRUE TUNES: The creative aspect of it...
JOEL: Yeah, exactly. Then I just wait for
the weeds to appear.
TRUE TUNES: What do you feel is the most
poignant message from your album, "Watching Over You?"
JOEL: I was originally going to call it
Strangely Normal. This tour is the "Strangely Normal
Tour" and I was going to call the album "Strangely
Normal." Then we thought, no, "Watching Over You" is
probably going to be the strongest single, so we'll
call it "Watching Over You." So, just that, I think,
in reference to the title and that title track, that
God is watching over you, that's probably the
strongest theme and is a constant theme throughout
life really, of figuring out that God is there and He
cares and He's watching out for us and that's faith.
That's essentially what faith is. Just believing in an
unseen God that does care about us and wants the best
for us, and so I always look back, you know? It's
always a retrospect thing. You look back and you see
God's provision in times when you thought He wasn't
providing and that He'd left you and He was perhaps
working over here on the left when you were looking to
the right, and so I think that's the lesson for today,
still, that's what I have to keep telling myself. Even
when I feel like I'm in the dark sometimes, it's
really down in the shadow of God's hand I guess. At
least that's how I choose to (look at it).
TRUE TUNES: Is "Watching Over You" your favorite
song off the album or do you have a favorite?
JOEL: It's easy to despise the singles, the
radio songs. "Oh, they're fluffy or they're not
meaningful enough or something," but that song, I'm
pleased with that and I'm quite proud of it and I'm
really glad that it's actually been encouraging to a
lot of people. Me, in particular. Because essentially
I write songs for me, you know? I choose to look at
songwriting like maybe how David looked at writing the
Psalms. It's almost like a journal. You know, he
wasn't thinking about how necessarily his writings
were going to affect future generations. He was
writing them because he could (laughter) and just
because he wanted to and I think when you write things
down, we write our prayers down to God, they somehow
become stronger and become embedded within us and we
can see God's answers a little clearer when we have
the prayer written down a little clearer. So that's
what I kind of do, I write things down. When I write
songs, that's what I'm doing, just journaling.
I want to become a better songwriter and so from a
songwriting point of view, I think "El Salvador" may
be my strongest written song. It's quite a strong song
(from a) structural, musical, melodical, lyrical
sense, all those. So I'm kind of leaning towards that
as being a favorite. But it's hard to choose one over
all the rest because they're like your babies and if
you choose one as your favorite child, then the others
will get mad and leave home.
TRUE TUNES: Can you give me a brief synopsis of
the meaning behind a few of your songs on the album?
JOEL: "Together" which is the last song on
the album, was written on a day when I felt a little
homesick, being from New Zealand. Every now and then I
get a little homesick. Even though I'm very, very
happy where I am, sometimes I want to go home. But,
it's funny. There's always lessons to learn from these
sort of different times, and maybe it's because I
choose to be an optimist. I think I'm pretty positive
about things and hopefully wanting to turn negatives
into positives. But honestly the lesson I do learn
from that is that you know, life is short, and it
won't be long before, you know, I'm gone, and so it
doesn't really matter where I live necessarily, here
or there, honestly, if heaven is our real home. If we
put our faith in Jesus, heaven is our real home and so
that's kind of what that song's about. I kind of like
writing songs like that where they sort of start off
from a place of maybe pain or confusion or need and
then by the end of the song reach a conclusion, which
is kind of fun.
But some other songs don't reach conclusions and
"Fragile" would probably be one of those. It does in a
certain sense, but it still doesn't. It's a song about
an experience I had when I learned that a friend of
mine was terminally ill and how it made me sort of
feel and how it still makes me feel. Really quite
angry and confused and not really sure how to react.
But in the midst of it, knowing that God is sovereign
and that He knows what's going on, understands and
sees it all and He's in control. But sometimes it
doesn't offer a lot of emotional consolation, you
know? But that's okay. It's okay to feel all those
things and not be conclusive about certain things in
life because I don't think we are supposed to be. I
don't think we're supposed to understand everything
and that's what faith is about. So as much as I love
songs that do conclude and have pointed sort of
endings I guess, I don't mind writing a song that
doesn't, too.
Another song, "Author of Life" is one of those
songs about just messing things up, just jacking
things up and having things go wrong in life because
I've gone wrong in life. It's kind of easy to point
the finger and say this is what's happened to me, but
most of the times if I'm in trouble...I can trace it
back to something I've done or said that's been wrong.
I need to just bring it all back again and realize
that I need to let God be in control a lot more and be
listening to what He wants and how He wants me to
react in certain situations rather than me just taking
the reigns and running ahead bull-headedly. So that's
kind of what that song's about, just swallowing my
pride.
TRUE TUNES: What are your plans for the future
as a solo artist?
JOEL: I'll continue to make solo records as
long as they're good experiences and as long as I have
songs worth writing. I don't want to turn out pulp
just because I can. I'll just keep doing it and keep
touring, because I really enjoyed this. Because it's
kind of a low-pressure thing for me in that I don't
need to make money out of this, it's fun. It really is
fun. Not to say Newsboys isn't. Newsboys is a ton of
fun, but this allows me extra creative license, which
is really good. Newsboys, you've got 5 guys. You've
got to spread things out and there's a lot of
compromise, which in the end makes for a great result.
But this is quite nice to be able to express things
that I want to express, the way I feel...
I'm a Newsboy, so I like to bring out the toys. I
can't just stand there on stage and wiggle my toes,
that wouldn't really make sense. One element, see with
all these TVs and all this stuff, I really am excited
about is that I'm going to continue this and expand
this and just make it bigger and better and brighter
and more bold and beautiful.
I was at a film school yesterday in Grand Rapids.
I'm going to take some classes there and I might
partner with them in a certain way....because I really
love the whole visual element of the live show. I
think it's really important and it's not enough now.
It's not enough just to write songs, do a few lights
and rock and roll, you know? Kids' attention spans and
levels of stimulus expectancy, I guess, are a lot
higher than they were when we were kids. Even my
record is short comparatively to what records were
when we were buying them in the mid-80's. When I
started writing songs, I'd sit there and write a song
with my friends and we'd time it. We'd finish up and
(hitting the timer, exclaim), "Oooh, 5 minutes, great,
perfect!" you know? Now, if I write a song that's over
3 minutes, I'm questioning, "where can I chop it and
paste it a little bit" because our attention spans are
short. You want to get in, you want to pop, you want
to get out, and that's how kids are. So it's the same
with the show. My show isn't super long. It's like 45
minutes long maybe. You get in, you get out and
everybody has a good time rather than getting bored.
(Kids) expect a lot more now because everything's at
our fingertips, the entertainment, the internet and
everything is just so over the top with stimulus, we
need to just keep up, which excites me because I've
got a lot of ideas, which is really cool, you know? So
do the Newsboys, we have a ton of ideas. How to do
this so we keep this exciting. So I guess that's where
I'm going.
SOME FINAL THOUGHTS...
JOEL: Every day I still freak out, just
going "Wow, look what I get to do for a job! I still
get jazzed about being able to be on stage and play
music and it's just too cool. It's too cool! It's a
bit of an out-of-body experience at times, you know?
You sort of, just, can't believe you're actually doing
this and that it's working out okay.
It's really neat. Not to say I'm not realistic
about it because it's seasonal, you know? I don't
expect to be 60-years-old on this stage. So I'm still
trying to figure out what I'm gonna do when I grow up.
But it is great.
TRUE TUNES: You're on the last leg of the tour
right now, correct?
JOEL: Yes. Sleep, glorious sleep in my own
bed. Woo-hoo!
