Michael and Carrie Hodge, better known as TWO HEARTS, make catchy R&B pop gospel. They also promote Bibles. They were interviewed by Jan Willem Vink.

Two Hearts

One of the exceptional CCM albums of 1993 has been 'Give 'Em The Word', the second album by American husband and wife team Two Hearts. The hook-laden, R&B-based pop gospel of Michael and Carrie Hodge has won them a growing American following. Talking about 'Give 'Em The Word' Carrie comments, "I'm really proud of it. I don't know yet how to describe it. There's something different about this one which wasn't there on 'Stand Your Ground'."

Carrie's musical background includes a lengthy spell with legendary record company Motown Records. It was a session with singer Rick Riso which was to lead to Carrie's conversion. "It just so happened that he went to pastor Jack Hayford's church, Church Of The Way, in California, which was about like maybe four or five blocks from my house. It was on opening night of a tour I did with Smokey Robinson and we were talking before the show. I had been going through a real bad relationship at that time and was really struggling with some things and he invited me. He said, 'How would you like to go to my church on Sunday with me?' I went with him and that was Church Of The Way and that was when I really started to get grounded in the word of God and really started focussing on the Lord and what he was going to do in my life. I knew I needed to get into some kind of church.

"At that time I was working on my second album and Michael was playing on it. He was in the worship band in Church Of The Way and we had met but we weren't really that interested in each other. His roommate invited me to his Bible study, before Michael was working on my album. Michael started working on the second album with producer Brian Tankersley, who also produced 'Stand Your Ground' and 'Give 'Em The Word' for us."

Carrie looks back on her time as a blue-eyed soul singer for Motown with fond memories. "It was a great time for me to be on Motown and having Berry Gordy be my manager and getting to work with people such as Smokey Robinson, the Temptations and getting to meet a lot of people. I stayed up at Berry Gordy's house and I kind of lived there a little bit and one day I was driving in and someone was driving out. When I got in Grace, Berry's wife, said, 'You just missed Michael Jackson.' It was really exciting. Loved what I did. One really good thing that I do have to say is even in my days at Motown, I never compromised. I never had any kind of weird lyrics. Motown is the kind of music that I grew up listening to Stevie Wonder, the Jacksons and Supremes. That was an exciting time in my life."

Despite the happiness of her Motown years Carrie doesn't pine for her years as an R&B singer. "I think the difference to that is right now I get to sing songs that Michael and I are actually living and breathing every day. There's a story to every song that we do and we can tell you where that song came from and how it happened and the big difference is that we're honouring God and we're singing about what God has done in our lives, personally and in our marriage, how he gives us strength to go on in the daily things in our lives. It is really the truth, whereas the other things on Motown, there was somebody that wrote them for me, they would say, 'Carrie, you will sound good on this.'"

A lot of the tracks on 'Give 'Em The Word' heavily feature funky guitar riffs, not surprising considering Michael's reputation as one of CCM's top session guitarists. Comments Michael, "On this album we've tried to write things even more from a guitar perspective because a lot of my background is as a studio guitar player is coming and playing on top of tracks that are already sequenced and of course recording live with the rhythm section on the recording date. On this album, on the songs that I wrote I had programmed a lot of the sequences. Brian Tankersley came in with his expertise and tweaked them a little bit, making them even better. But I think it is really important that you are able to sit down with a guitar and play through the song and have it make sense. When you can do that that makes it a really good song.

"I really enjoy playing just creative guitar parts. It's a real challenge to come up with a guitar part for the producer I'm working for.and for it to really make a difference with the song. To try to make the song more catchy, come up with something original. On this album, I used some cool things. I found this thing in an old music store called the 'zipper', which was made by electroharmonics. And it's a really cool, ancient, dinosaur, effects box, but it sounded really cool on 'Because Of You', then I also used a talk box on 'Wake Up'. It's the size of an American refrigerator and is computer controlled. I have a rack full of gear, a lot of different kinds of pre-amps and stuff."

On their last US tour the duo were asked by Tyndale House Publishers to promote the Life Application Bible for students. I asked Michael what role the Bible played in the couple's lives. "First of all, we're promoting Bible reading, but really what we're promoting is Bible study and application. They have a thing in the United States they call national Bible Week which promotes Bible reading. And it always kind of hits me flat, because I think, 'Well, it's really not going to do any good if people read the Bible. What's going to do them good is if they sit down, with prayer, seek the Lord, so that they can apply what God's word has to say to their lives. In the United States we have a real problem with people being wishy washy about the things in the Bible that are black and white. So, I'm really excited about promoting the Life Application Bible for students.

"Carrie and I are very much the kind of people who if the Bible says it we believe it. I think in the United States that's becoming more and more a rarity, but at the same time I feel that here and also in other places in the world, the Lord is raising up a people who are willing to take God's word as truth and not just as a suggestion. Like the Ten Commandments, some people call them the 10 suggestions. We don't live our lives that way. We believe the word of God, we have found that when we apply it to our lives, when we obey the word of God, there is incredible power, there is incredible peace and there's incredible joy of getting to know God through his word. I like to get up in the morning and read the word. Carrie likes to read at night. And I think that for any Christian it is a necessary part of your walk with the Lord, to spend time reading his word. In the United States, we're really into fast food, and in Europe you're getting more and more into that. I'm sorry we've influenced you that way. But a lot of people take the Bible the same way. Just like grab a Scripture over here, throw it down with a quick coke, and you're on your way. The word of God doesn't work that way. The word of God is something that needs to be meditated on, and to be taken into your heart and not just something that's supposed to go in one ear and out the other. I'm so thankful for God's word and how he's transformed Carrie and I through reading his word."

One of the outstanding songs on the duo's album is "This Could Be The Time". I asked Michael about it. "In high school I felt the Lord was coming back in the next couple of years. I had gotten a scholarship to go to a university and I turned that down to move into a house with my band and to go and play in colleges and prisons. What wound up happening was the Lord didn't come back. I realised that I needed to go on with my life. So I went to college myself. So the song is really special to me because I believe that the Lord could come back any time. There's a lot of events throughout the world that are going on. It seems like more and more each day is leading to the time that he comes back. And the word says to encourage each other that he is coming. The Lord really is going to come. This could be the time."

Another outstanding track is "Because Of You", a song with a definite Temptations-style groove to it, written by Carrie Hodge. "'Because Of You' was actually the first song that I've ever written," comments Carrie. "One night Michael and I were sitting on the couch flipping through the TV channels. We came across this one station and this woman started talking about how we evolved. It kind of hacked me off, I was in one of my moods. But Michael said, 'Why don't you put down on paper how you feel? Why don't you sit down and write your words down?' It got me starting to think like how can people not look around them and go outside and see the trees and hear the birds and flowers and not know that God created all of this. We live in Nashville, Tennessee and it's beautiful over here. It is so lush with greenery, it's just gorgeous. There's not a day in the summertime that I don't think, 'Oh Lord, thank you so much for all of this.' I came across a beautiful little flower in my neighbour's garden, it was just gorgeous. It really got me thinking again, if God took his time to make this tiny flower, what is he going to do with me? And I wanted 'Because Of You' to be a simple song that was really a thank you song to the Lord for what he has given us all. Sometimes we take it for granted. We take the outdoors for granted. That's how 'Because Of You' was birthed."