Mike Rimmer spoke to RUSS LEE.

Russ Lee

The whole unedited interview with Mike Rimmer.

Mike: Tell me about your childhood.

Russ: I grew up in rural Tennessee where they call us "rednecks" and it was something to be proud of. I grew up in a very dysfunctional home. I had parents that loved me but their lives were out of control. My dad was drinking and my mother had a mental disease called a bipolar disorder that kept her in and out of mental institutions. By the time I was 15 I was working two jobs and very resentful towards my parents who were just trying to survive. By the time I was 17 years old I was a drug dealer, making money on the street. Not a drug addict but creating drug addicts. I was playing guitar in bar bands for drinks and hanging out with older people who were as lost and confused as I was. So I was headed absolutely in the wrong direction.

Mike: How did you become a Christian?

Russ: One night I was driving home and I was listening to Mick Jagger singing "I Can't Get No Satisfaction", God somehow miraculously used him to speak to my heart and I realised that I couldn't either. My whole life I wanted to be like Mick Jagger, when I grew up I wanted to be a rock star and make music and have beautiful girls around me and all the money you could stand! I was hearing him say with conviction, "I can't get no satisfaction - though I try and I try and I try and I try." I thought, "Man, if he can't then why am I trying to be like him?" So that night in my car I cried out and said, "God, I don't know who you are, or what you want, or how you can reach me.if you can? Or if I can reach you? I have no idea what I'm supposed to do next but if you'll show me what's missing from my life and how to find it, then I'll do whatever you tell me to do." That was a Thursday night and on Saturday, God sent a buddy of mine that I'd grown up with to my house, unsolicited, uninvited. He showed up and told me how he had become a Christian recently. Anyway, he invited me to go to church with him that Sunday. He said, "I felt like I was supposed to invite you," and he took me to go to church with him. I heard the message of the Gospel for the first time in my life, really, truly, deeply with my heart that Sunday and I've never looked back.

Mike: Coming from such a dysfunctional background, did you have much baggage that you had to deal with when you became a Christian?

Russ: It's funny because the moment I became a Christian it was like everything in my life that I had used to try to fill that void in my life with, I lost interest in it. I didn't really want to be involved in any of that. I really tried to push away from it. Over the years, I've realised that there are some issues that with God's help, I've just had to deal with. But thankfully by the grace of God I've been able to do that in the privacy of my own heart and in the privacy of my own altar before God, and ask God to help me deal with these feelings. I never really realised that a lot of these things can kind of crop up later in life as situations arise that stir those things.

Mike: You have quite a bit of history in Christian music haven't you?

Russ: I started with a group called Truth that really is a training ground for a lot of ministry. 4Him, Avalon, Natalie Grant and many others came through the ranks. It's a real full musical training ground for music and ministry and touring, really doing what I've ended up being called to do. But I started with that group after the 4Him guys left. So I joined the group Truth and travelled for three years and then joined the group Newsong. I was there for six years as a songwriter and contributor to that ministry. Then I left just about three years ago to pursue a solo calling and career.

Mike: Your first solo album felt like Newsong Part II but this one feels like you're breaking new ground.

Russ: I've tried to. While Newsong is a great heritage and legacy, when it's your first solo project, you have a lot of people that come alongside that really try to coach you through the process. It's almost like a cattle shoot at times, where they try to mould it. This time I didn't have that pressure. The people that were around me all spoke my language. It was almost like a big ballet really, or a dance, or a production where everyone around me was moving in sync. We knew it was a God thing. We have to give credit where it's due but everything sort of clicked and so I think this album is truer and more genuine. The record company has really given me freedom and showed me to the core that they really believed in who I am and in what I'm doing as a writer and an artist.

What are your musical influences? You seem to be a bit of a blue eyed soulboy at heart!
Well I am! As a matter of fact I was schooled in the musical Sunday school of folks like Al Green and Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin.the Queen of ALL music! That's the kind of music I love. I'm a mutt because I grew up where country music was born but somewhere along the journey I discovered soul music and Motown and the Philly sound, and some of that great English soul from early days! So I've been influenced by a lot of people.

Mike: What do you stand for in terms of your ministry?

Russ: I really want to display a thread of hope in every situation. I want to reach people who've never been touched by the Gospel because it's such a wonderful thing. I want them to know that I'm just a man that's been pulled into the lifeboat and he's trying to pull others in. At the same time, I want to encourage the Church to really get back to what ministry is supposed to be about and that's the giving of ourselves. That's where the song "The Second Mile" came from. It's really about doing what Jesus said and that's not just giving what's expected but going beyond the point of what's expected by those around us and really giving till it hurts.

Mike: One of the big songs on the album is "The Prodigal". Tell me about it.

Russ: A buddy of mine brought me a book that Ruth Bell Graham had written about her son Franklin Graham. It was a mother's account of a wayward son's journey and how she believed for great things and prayed for him and loved him unconditionally. Of course the "mother" was Ruth Graham, the "father" was Billy Graham and the "son" was Franklin Graham who is now the president of the Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. So the story has a happy ending! I read the book and I realised that there are a lot of people who have family members and friends and folks around them who know the truth but still reject it or refuse it or walk away from it and act like it has no affect on their lives. Everyone who's ever been in a relationship with Jesus Christ knows that you're never the same, you can never walk away from that truth. So this song was just written to the family members and the friends and to the prodigals out there who are living at a distance from the God who longs to be in a relationship with them.

Mike: Tell me about the song "Some Kind Of Power".

Russ: I used to love, in the early days of my new experiences with Jesus, watching Black Gospel Television and going to a church where people would stay all day and would work up a sweat and have church and have fun and the music was loud and everybody had a great time! I just wanted to put a song on the record that was reminiscent of that moment that I learned about only from history, of where people would set up a carnival tent and thousands of chairs and they would have a revival and throw sawdust on the ground and just wait on God to do something. I wanted to write a song that would of take us back to that place. So you of have to imagine the wooden folding chairs, the Hammond B3 organ, the big choir swaying on the stage and everybody having a great time and just loving being at church, even though it's 90 degrees outside!

Mike: It's very easy to write nice songs for Christians to listen to but shouldn't artists be doing more than that?

Russ: I read a quote that rattled me, Mother Theresa said, "Everyone wants to talk about the poor but no one wants to talk to the poor." I think Christianity and service to Jesus Christ is dirty work. It's not an opportunity for applause or a platform. The platform should really only be an opportunity to do ministry. If we're given a platform, that's really a place to work, that's all that is. It should be a workshop for a saint of God, it should not be an opportunity for fame and fortune. If God blesses you financially or lets people know who you are, then hopefully it will be for his greater glory anyway. You and I can't forget we're supposed to be on the decrease not the increase and Jesus is supposed to be on the increase. If that's truly happening then ministry is taking place at its core. I have always felt that Christianity is about doing something and actually letting your hands do the talking.