The weirdness of radio

Well, I'm tired. Really. Really. Tired. I don't really know why...maybe just the last 6 months of work finally catching up to me. Maybe the fact that even when I'm home, I'm working too hard on demos and new songs and cowriting. I keep telling myself that I have to strike while the iron is hot. I need to work my tail off while I'm at home. Then I realize that I'm slowly burning myself out with 11 hour drives to Traverse City, MI and a week later getting in the car and driving 10 hours back up to Lifest in Wisconsin. Those trips in a packed SUV with 4 men is fun...but tiring.

I'm trying to find a balance. Every person that I'm working with right now says I'm the hardest working artist they've worked with. Ever. I can't figure out if that's sad or awesome. I don't feel like I work that hard. I feel like I do what I need to do to make a living and to try and build something that on the other end of this career will be worthwhile. But literally every time we get together my team breathlessly talks about how hard I work. Artists must be pretty freaking lazy, I guess.

By the way, Lifest and the Cherry Festival were GREAT shows. The band is starting to gel. Well, we still haven't settled on a full-time bass player. Walt, our main guy, is playing with Jeremy Camp right now. Jeremy is big right now...it's a big gig. I'd love for Walt to play with us, but from a financial standpoint, it makes more sense for him to play with Jeremy right now. Down the road, Walt will be my guy again. But we've had a revolving door of bass players. You guys met Tommy. Besides the two of them, we also played a few shows with a guy named Scott...an amazing bass player out of Dallas who played with Jon for Nichole Nordeman. It looks like we've settled on Tommy, though for the Back to School Tour, which is in August and September.

You need to find a way to come to a Back to School date. The show is going to be incindiery. Your face will melt off and your heart will be melted. We've got some big plans

By the way, I put up a bunch of dates for the Back to School tour on myspace. I'll announce the opening act very soon!

Anyway, back to the weirdness of radio.

So, we released "Empty Me" back in February. February 11, actually. We went for adds and have something like 40 stations in the first 3 weeks add the song to their rotation. Then we slowly worked our way among the Third Day's, MercyMe's, and Casting Crowns' releasing big ballad singles. Then in April, the adds just stopped coming. We knew we were connecting in a big way in the markets that were playing the song, but KLove hadn't added and we could not get stations to add the song. It was amazing.

Suddenly the song that we all thought was a top 5 was stuck at number 18 for 8 straight weeks. On top of that, we went 7 of those 8 weeks without receiving a new add from a station. Then, the kicker. In major markets, we were kicking butt in testing, but 1-2 stations nationally had mediocre testing. We only had 70 or so stations spinning the song, so mediocre numbers from a couple were schewing the national testing number down. We were in the top 20-25 in testing, but in order for a lot of radio stations to take a chance on a new artist over an established artist, they have to see at least top 10 testing and usually top 5 or top 3. So, while I was out at the finale for Idol in May, my radio guy and I had a sad conversation talking about giving up on "Empty Me".

I was pretty sad. When we released that single, a lot of people thought it was a top 5. Maybe a number 1. Hearing all these long-time pros get so excited about a song got my hopes up...only to be dashed. I was sad. Not because I want a top 5 or a number 1...but because of what those numbers mean...when you have a top 5, 3 times as many people are hearing your song than where I was at number 18. I just wanted the song to have a chance to connect. I was getting testimonies almost daily on myspace and elsewhere from radio station guys and from listeners whose lives were being touched by the song.

But slowly over a couple of weeks, I gave it up. Without sounding cheesy, I simply gave it over to God and realized that the places where the song was playing, it was connecting. We were selling extremely consistently when other new artists weren't. We were selling tons of downloads of the single. We were connecting. And that was all that mattered.

Then...the weirdness of radio happened.

Klove finally added. And when they added, their however many stations started testing. And started testing very very well. And suddenly, the numbers were schewed their way. 3 weeks ago, national testing came out and I was #2 behind Chris Tomlin's "Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)" for women 35-54 and women 35-44. And BOOM!! Six months late, the song has new energy. I don't think we'll have a top 5 (because stations that added 6 months ago are coming off of heavy rotation to what they call recurrent - that means we lose 5-15 plays per station that does that), but stations that have not added the song for 6 months are suddenly jumping on the band wagon and being excited about the song!

It is looking like "Empty Me" may be one of the most played songs of the year, whether or not it ever reaches higher on the chart. However, it looks like we'll debut in the top 10 this week, though. It really is amazing. I finally give up and let go of "Empty Me", we decide on a release date for "Arise" and all the plans are moving forward and boom! everything changes.

So..."Arise" is going to CHR (more rock oriented) radio August 1. We're looking at August 29 or September 5 for AC...but if "Empty Me" continues to explode, it may be later than that. It is possible (and this sounds so freaking crazy) that it could be after Christmas before we go for adds on "Arise" at AC.

Ah...radio is so weird.