CCM RADIO MAGAZINE featuring WHITEHEART 
September 30, 1995
transcribed by Joan Slonecker
and printed here with permission

Mark: This is the CCM Radio Magazine, a look into the hearts and minds
of the people who make Christian music.  Our program is brought to
you by the same people who put CCM on your news stand each month. I'm
Mark Ryder. Todd Chapman is here now with page one of this week's
cover story on Whiteheart.

Todd: All right, thank you Mark.  I am joined in the studio by Mark
Gersmehl, Billy Smiley and Rick Florian, three of the six members of
Whiteheart.  They're here to talk about their new album _Inside_.
Guys, first of all, its been a couple of years since we've had
something new from you, what, two years now since the last album?

Billy: 4 1/2 (chuckle), oh it's not been ...  

Rick: It feels like five. We want to play, we want to play some new
stuff and I think people want us to play some new stuff and so we're
ready to play some new stuff.

Billy: It's actually been, what, a couple of years so we are really
looking forward to getting out on the road and hitting a major tour
.. so uh.. and for the album to be coming out. It should be coming
out in a month or so

Rick: And its been somewhat of an eternal wait, it feels, for us, and
them, I know too.  We're all looking forward to getting it out, so we
can do what we do.

Song: "Inside"

Todd: Now, Billy, during the two years between albums, you made a
transition to a new record label.  Can you tell us about that?

Billy: What happened was, just specifically, after we had done the
Highlands album, which was a couple of years ago, and we had signed
on to Curb, we had to fulfill a commitment with Star Song and it was
a real good situation there working with Daryl, you know, over at
Star Song, to do a "Best of" album because we've always had so called
best of albums come out but we were never really involved in them and
as artists and musicians, sometimes it is kind of neat to be part of
that situation because you want to kind of look back and see what you
have messed up on and what you've done good and just kind of reflect
on it a little and also to prepare for where we are going but that
just got us all the more prepared for, you know, really stepping up
to the plate and really challenging us in terms of direction and I
think Curb was great.  A gal there named Claire  Parr was a wonderful
liaison to encourage us from what we were feeling inside about our
music reaching a lot of areas where we had hoped it would in the
Christian market but it hadn't been able to and so their intentions
were mirrored with ours in what we had always hoped to become and so
that is a big part of why we are really looking forward to what can
happen in the next year and a half.

Song: "Silhouette"

Todd: "Silhouette" from Whiteheart and we went back a few years for
that one. Anybody who's seen Whiteheart perform knows that lead
singer Rick Florian has a whole lot of energy and, as a matter of
fact, he's even going at it, bouncing around the studio today.

Billy: He's spastic.

Mark: Most of your body is your medulla oblongata, the autonomic
nervous system is what Rick functions on ...

Rick: Which makes for interesting conversation in interviews at times

Mark: If some of your listeners were here, they could probably stick
pins in various portions of his body and see the reaction that is
has.  It would probably be the same reaction that you are seeing
right now.  Northern Indiana used to be heavily forested until as a
child his parents gave him an ax and now it is prairie.

Rick: Yes, it is prairie.  My brother, sister and I were all rather
animated individuals and ...

Billy: You were the greatest of those animated individuals.

Rick: More than likely but, I don't know, we lived out in the boonies
so it wasn't like we lived in a small little subdivision so we could
run around and vent all the time, climb trees and out at the barn and
trying to ride the pigs or something.  I don't think I would do well
and the only time I have ever been in the trunk of a car in college I
actually broke it because I just freaked out.

Billy: What were you doing in the trunk?

Rick: Well, we were goofing off and you know, I said O.K., we're done,
and they were just like laughing and I'm, no, we're done, and I'm
counting to 10 and, um, I counted to 10 and by the time I got to 2 he
started to pull the car over but I broke it by the time we got back
and he was kind of unhappy but he was in college so he could count to
10, he knows that when you get to zero that that's it and well, he
learned that me and the trunk just don't mix very long.

Billy: It is a miracle when you can see that God can use humans such
as Rick.

Rick: Yea, it is a testimony to his grace.

Todd: Rick Florian, Billy Smiley, and Mark Gersmehl of Whiteheart. 
And we'll hear more from them in just a bit.

Break

Todd: Time now for page two of this week's cover story on those
rockin' Nashvillians. I'm talking about Whiteheart.

Song: "You Can't Take What You Don't Have (You Don't Have Me)"

Todd: You can't take what you don't have and you don't have me. That's
Whiteheart, new music from their album _Inside_ on Curb Records. 
Three of the six members of Whiteheart in the studio with us today,
Billy Smiley, Mark Gersmehl, and Rick Florian.  Guys you have been on
the road for a long time.  You've got to have some juicy road
stories.  Tell me a road story about Rick.

Mark: For a lot of the people who may have guessed looking up at his
cherubic angelic-like countenance on stage, they would suspect that
he is a nice person, but I'm here to verify that in some ways he is a
nice person.  No, actually, he is a great guy, but he's a very polite
person and he is the only person I know that has polite nightmares.
There was one time I was on the bus and I heard this sound like a
knocking sound (knock, knock).  "Oh please, please, please let me
out. Oh, please, (knock, knock) please, please let me out."  I'm
thinking, what in the world, man, this is some kooky nightmare that I
am in. Man, I need to get out of this thing. "Oh, please let me out."
And I looked down.  Rick has got the bottom bunk across from me and
Rick is in his bunk tapping the roof of the bunk saying, "Oh, please,
please, please let me out." Even his demons at night are polite.
(laughing)  But it has escalated since then.  Now he's turned into
what one of our old road managers call it.  He's the rain man on the
bus because you'll hear him "unintelligible sounds of thrashing" and
sounds of "OHHH, OHHH".  He does. It's the rain man.  And I go "Rick"
and for some reason I am the only one who can break into his mantra
deep at night. And I would say, "Rick" and he would say "WHAAAAT" 
and I would say "You're on the bus" and he would say "OHHH, OHHH" and
I would say, "Just go back to bed.  Open your curtain."  "I CAN'T". 
Then he opens his curtain and he is fine. And for some reason I don't
know why I guide him into that, that dark netherland of dreams.

Billy: I've got a pillow around my head.  I don't hear any of it.

Mark: Bill doesn't hear anything.  He doesn't even hear the sound
of his own snoring.

Rick: Gersh and I room usually on the road together, Gersh and I, and
just general respiration can stir him from his slumber.  We need
something more than extreme than the thought of a light sleeper.  I
don't know that he actually truly does sleep or if he just rests all
night.

Billy: So we've had a lot of fun for about 10 - 12 years.

Rick: Oh, yes. Like an extended family.

Song Clips: "Sing Unto The Lamb" and "He's Returning"

Todd: All right, guys, it is time for a flashback session here. Let's
go way back in time. You actually got your start singing with Bill
and Gloria Gaither. Is that right?

Billy: Mark, actually played, let me see if we can get all these
instruments right.  George played, well, you played a mean clavinet
there too on the road with the Gaithers, you know that clavinet type
of music that they have.  No Mark played keyboards for the Gaithers
and trombone. I played trumpet and guitar. The guys in the backup
band for the Gaithers were Mark, myself, Steve Green, Sandi actually
was there too.

Rick: That would be Sandi Patty to you and me.  

Mark: Dan Clary who produced some Carman albums. Carman actually
played a little bit in the band with is for awhile.

Billy: Very little.  

Todd: What'd he play?

Billy: Guitar.

Mark: That was the mike that was off. (laughter) Just kidding.

Billy: Oh no, you're not kidding.  It was Carman and I on guitars and
he was off.  He was off and he will tell you he was off. (lots of
laughing)  But he looked good doing it. He did look good.

Song Clip: "Everyday"

Billy: Dann Huff was on guitars.  Gary Lunn was on bass so five of us
kind of became friends and Mark I were more of the writers.  I don't
know if we were good writers but we were writers and we called
ourselves that and we started sharing songs with each other and just
became friends

Rick: Oh, friends,  if you only heard some of the early writings of
some of the men from that era.  Its just a special thing.

Mark: Musical driftwood is what I would say.

Rick: (Chuckle) Musical driftwood ... well lyrical driftwood at
times too.

Song Clip: Black Is White

Billy: So we had just all met and we kind of, Mark and I wanted to
kind of record in a studio. Gaither had one so he was nice enough to
let some of us attempt our musical abilities there.  Mark and I
couldn't sing high enough so Steve was there and so he sang and
that's really how it all started.  We did that album and we hadn't
ever done a show or ever played together so we really started more
from just kind of wanting to hear what our stuff sounded like in a
studio.

Mark: Boy, our first shows, we should have really refunded the
tickets. (chuckle) Everybody that was in that band was either a
studio player or a staff writer or a producer. We've always been
really fortunate to have good musicianship but I'll tell you what, if
you want to get on stage and you want to communicate to people, there
is a whole lot more than just playing an instrument.  We used to call
Dan Huff  "the knee" because everything he did, he just had his knee
soaring out into the forefront.  But we were so bad at communicating.
Good intentions but we had a long way to go. The great part about
that was we spent so many years with the Gaithers and I don't think
there is anybody better at going anywhere in the world literally and
trying to communicate what they believe with all their hearts to the
people who need to hear it.  They know that the message is bigger
than themselves. It's not their egos they're trying to communicate. 
It's the Lord they are trying to communicate. I don't think there was
ever a better training ground than with those people.

Song: "Go Down Ninevah"

Todd: "Go Down Ninevah". We went back a few years for that one from
Whiteheart. Their latest album _Inside_ is available now on Curb
Records.

Break

Todd: We're with Whiteheart and guys, we've talked a little bit about
the changes that the group has gone through over the years and most
recently of course the change to a new label but also a little bit if
a musical stylistic change on this album.  But throughout all these
changes, has there ever been a time where you really questioned the
validity of the ministry of the group?

Billy: I think it is actually very healthy to question.  I think that
if you get on that just auto-pilot thing and you don't continually
assess, I think it's a situation with a family or with your church,
if you don't continually question, not that you're doubting it but
you question and you try to push forward.  Our band, that's why a lot
of times people are always interested in the next album. They want to
see where are we going, what are we doing, and I think _Inside_ is a
great example.

Song: "It Could Have Been You"

Billy: What hopefully came out on _Inside_ from a hard rock song to a
soft intimate moment is the feelings that we have inside and I think
that's where the whole title came from.  It's just really trying to
find where God is closest to us and what we're dealing with at that
time and how we react, and also, hopefully, much more positively, 
how we act upon it.  Gordon, who was in the band, used to always say
it's always lousy to react to something.  We should act upon things.
More so than waiting for a bad thing to happen and then we react to
it. I just am very encouraged because I hope that what we've said in
this album, it might not be all the exact answers, but the message
that we are trying to say out there is we want to be an alternative
to the alternative out there which is pretty apparent in all the
music in what the kids are listening to and we just want to say, hey,
you know what, it still comes down to that simple kind of thing.
Everybody has tried to put bandaids on problems and it still just
comes down to a simple fact that there is a missing part in all of
our hearts and that can be filled by Jesus on the inside.   It comes
down to that and this album is just a reflection with all the songs
with how we have dealt with that or not dealt with it.

Songs: "Come One Come All" and "Eighth Wonder"

Todd: "Eighth Wonder" from Whiteheart.  It's an oldie.  Rick, Mark and
 Billy will be back one more time today so don't run off yet.

Break

Todd: O.K. guys, lets talk a little bit more specifically about this
new album.  It seems to me, based on what I've heard, a little bit of
a stylistic change from what you have done in the past?  Is that
accurate?

Billy: Well, there's definitely going to be a bit of a new direction
just because, number one, Claire had really encouraged us to go to
back to what we initially just grew up enjoying and being part of and
wanted to express that maybe we hadn't on earlier albums.  And then
she had some suggestions for producers just to change it up and push
us in a few different directions that we hadn't been pushed.  So we
had started a relationship with a guy named Ken Scott.  Mark, you
might jump in because you kind of know specifics.  I can't remember
all of his credentials but the guy was a blast to work with just
because he came from a whole different area.

Mark: He was a mastering engineer.  If you look back at a lot of the
early Beatles projects, and he did more than just the mastering. Back
then, mastering they did continually, believe it or not, they would
do their eight tracks and go out and master it and hear how it
sounded over and over again so the mastering engineer was actually a
more critical part of the recording process even than he is right now
but his name is literally all over that book for being a part of what
the Beatles had done. But he also did Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild
Side", mixed Elton John's "Madman Across the Water", played the
synthesizer on "Daniel", produced "Crime of the Century" album for
Supertramp, David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust".  He was basically the
founder, manager, producer, everything of Missing Persons, that band,
with everybody's guru drummer Terry Bosio and just finished working
that Duran Duran cover album before he was working with us.  So he's
an older guy with a long memory but has always been courageously on
the front of a lot of the sonic revolutions that have happened in
music.

Song: "Even the Hardest Heart"

Mark: One of my fears I have about Christian music is that sometimes
we place it in its convenience box so much and I'm not sure who
that's really for.  We reel in the parameters and the emotional edges
and even the spiritual edges of what we talk about. And I know that
there are probably some people even listening to this show that are,
have been, are crackheads.  There is probably somebody out there
right now that feels so bad about their life.  They're wondering
whether they really want to spend the next day of their life alive. I
mean, that's the reality of what it is like living in this country,
living in this world, a world that is largely of our own making in
some ways.  We've created, in many ways, a technological nightmare, a
world where nobody really communicates even with all the tools that
we have made, our fiber optics, our modems, all the technology that
we have surrounded ourself with. I believe that people talk less to
each other now than they have in years.  We've kind of lost that
sense of community.  But I think also, then, our music needs to
reflect that we have some serious questions about this world we live
in.  I think God is big enough to hold all that.  I think that
artists and radio programmers and business people at record companies
need to overcome some of the fear they have of our own music and say,
you know, lets let the artists create, lets let the programmers
program, lets make it so that we know that this experience of life is
coming through.  I look at Jesus.  He wept.  He said, "My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?"  The honesty of His own heart was
apparent all over the pages of scripture.  He had hard moments on
this planet.  And if we, as Christians, deny that we have hard
moments, the believability of the other side becomes lessened. If you
have no need for a Savior, if life is always good, then why are we
all wasting our time?  That's not to say that we should be casting
dark shadows in all of our music.  But it is to say, let be honest
enough about what life on this planet is really like.  We do have
hard days.  Just as there are listeners out there now that are maybe
struggling with their wife or the relationship they are having with
their best friend.  Or maybe their fear of what they are going to do
this weekend.  Those are the people we need to be talking to because
those are the people that Jesus would be talking to.

Song: "Speak Softly"

Mark Ryder: "Speak Softly But Carry a Large Bazooka".  No, that's not
really the title but that is Whiteheart.   If you like what you've
heard, their new album is called _Inside_ and it's available on Curb
Records.