America's CCM superstar MICHAEL W SMITH talks to Mike Rimmer

Since her death, her parents have published a book outlining her testimony, and describing the events of the day of her death and her choice to make a stand for God, even " though it cost her everything. It's interesting the legacy that Cassie has left behind, with the memorial service touching millions, the book and now Michael's song. Her life is going to continue effecting this generation and generations to come. I wondered whether Michael ever thought about his own legacy?

He responds, "I think the legacy that I wanna leave is that I was a God fearing man who loved his wife and kids well. I'm not really necessarily trying to leave a musical legacy. The most important thing in my life is my wife and kids other than my relationship with the Lord. Honestly, these days I'm putting quite a bit more energy into my family. I've always just loved being a dad more than anything. I think when your kids get older, my oldest now is 16 and I've got five, and I don't wanna go anywhere. I just wanna stay here and hang out with them. All my energies are going into that, so if I want to be remembered for anything it sure would be that."

The children attend a local High School even though with the increase in violence, there is a growing tendency for Christians to home school their kids. Michael responds, "I can't sit around and think about that. You just have to pray that God protects your kids. I could sit here and worry all day and I would die of a heart attack next year. At some point you've just gotta release them into God's hands. The tragedy of the whole thing about these kids who committed the Columbine crime is somebody should have seen the warning signs. I'm sure they did and they didn't think it was a big deal, but somebody should just have recognised that and said these guys need help but nobody would confront it. They thought it was no big deal and kids go through that. Little did anybody know that they wanted to blow the school up and kill everybody. I have a heart for those kids too."

We talk for a while about gun control and the difference in culture between the UK and America. "I can't tell you where everybody else stands. I can tell you what I believe. I believe the biggest problem we have is a heart problem. It's all a matter of the heart. I think we've failed miserably by taking religion out of our schools, and you can't pray in school anymore. Yeah! I think we need to change the gun laws too. It's too easy for anybody to get a gun. That's not the number one priority in my opinion. The priority is deeper than that."

Michael is not an artist to simply speak out about these things and leave it to others to find solutions. His club venue Rocketown has been open in Nashville for a while, and he has also extended the work of the project by recruiting youth workers to meet the needs of kids in the area. He reflects, "The club has been a way to reach out to kids. It's a little haven for kids to hang out. We really cater especially to a kid who's probably from a dysfunctional family and really, really having a hard time. It's been extremely successful. It's all based on relationships."

He continues to share the vision, "We don't try to necessarily preach at kids. We've found out that there are a lot of kids that are really hurting and you gotta earn their trust, so for the first three or four months you're just sitting there listening to everything they wanna say, spilling their heart and telling you what they're really feeling. You earn their trust and then you're able to speak into their life and help them. That's what Rocketown is all about. You have the dance club, and the entertainment factor is very cool and it's a very hip place, but it all boils down to relationships. We do have youth workers working for us who are building those relationships, a lot of great people who have big hearts for kids. That does reflect my own heart. I think I'll be reaching out to kids when I'm 80, if I live that long. I think it's just a part of my make-up, a part of what I feel like I'm supposed to do."

If he keeps on making albums of the same quality as 'This Is Your Time', he'll still be selling millions when he is in his '80s! This new album seems musically less strident than the runaway breezy pop of live The Life'. Has he calmed down a bit? Smith reflects for a second, "Umm! A little bit," he ventures. "But I don't think it was intentional. I just think I end up being on different musical plateaux. I don't know necessarily how I end there, I've just got to go with my gut and this is what I'm writing at the time. It all just boils down to the songs I'm writing, and I'm always gonna gravitate towards what I think are the best songs that I've written. There were, probably, some other things I could've put on the record that were much more aggressive, but I didn't do that because I didn't feel like those were the best songs. Everything really boils down to the song. I think if you've got good songs you've got a good record."

One of the outstanding songs on the new album, "I Will Carry You" was actually written by eight people, and I comment that this seems a little excessive in the songwriting department. He laughs. "It was unbelievable, like pulling teeth. All of a sudden, the guy that ends up writing it is this 22-year old kid who I've never written with before. He's the one who came up with this incredible lyric and had, probably, some of the greatest singers in Nashville sing on this thing. Musically I wrote that song in five minutes, it just happened. For me I'm not tired of it yet and I've heard it a million times. There's a bit of a power to the song, something a little bit supernatural about it. It's one of my favourites on the record. There's a singer singing on it called Darwin Hobbs, he's very prominent on it. When you hear someone scatting in the background, it's him, and a bunch of his friends who sing together all the time here in Nashville. I think five of the singers are black and three are white. They sound huge." He laughs, "They're bigger than life. I think when you get that many great singers in one room with great ideas I think the possibilities are endless. I think they hit a home run!"

One of the most ear-catching tracks on the album is "I Still Have A Dream". Michael comments, "It's probably the most 'up' song on the record. I think lyrically what I'm trying to say is that I haven't lost the vision. I think all over the world, but particularly in America, you read a lot about the bad news and there's a lot of bad stuff going on. You just get really discouraged. I think the song is just saying, 'Hey! I think God has a plan for your life and I still have the dream and I haven't lost it. I'm gonna hang on to it and I'm not gonna let anybody take it away.'"

After selling millions of albums and ploughing his finances into starting a record company to encourage young artists, as well as a youth work programme to impact lives, what else is there that he dreams of doing? "I think the only other thing that I really wanna try to get into is to do some film work." He explains that it's not soundtracks he's talking about! "We've talked about the acting thing for so long and had chances to go to Hollywood and try to nurture some of that. But I never felt like I was really supposed to go do that because there was so much on my plate. I think a dream of mine would be to start some sort of film company in Nashville, because I think there's so much talent here in terms of film and screenwriters. There are great storytellers here. There's a lot of talent here. I'd love to be able to do some independent film work here in Nashville and take it to the film festivals and see what happens. That's something I would like to do within the next five years. I've grown up acting; I was in thespians in high school. I've always wanted to do it and I've been told that I could do it, so I might try to give it a shot."

Hmmm Michael W Smith as the new George Clooney? Somehow, it DOES seem possible.