The 'Power House' album by WHITE HEART has stormed its way up America's CCM sales charts. Tony Cummings met the band and records the achievements and disasters experienced by the cast-of-hundreds baring the White Heart name.

Utterly shell-shocked White Heart decided however to keep going. A new lead singer Ric Florian was brought in and the band signed to Sparrow Records. But the effect of the Scott Douglas departure and subsequent trial and imprisonment was shattering. After the release of 'Don't Wait For The Movie' Billy Smiley told CCM magazine.

"It has given the group a real awareness of that what we do as artists up on stage has eternal value. This has given a lot more seriousness to what we do. We've learned a lot about being accountable and being right with Cod. We're aware of that every minute we're on stage because it's Him through us. Just being a rock group and going out and singing and jamming and being on the edge musically doesn't cut it for us anymore."

Mark Gersmehl added."It has really shown us, the need to be accountable to one another, to sometimes ask the difficult questions when things aren't right."

The band were very straightforward in dealing with the problem from the stage. "I think we owe that to the audience," states Mark emphatically. "If we walked out on stage like nothing had ever happened, that isn't being honest - plus it's cheating God out of a victory. Part of it is just being vulnerable as artists, making sure that we crawl above the clamour of the music and he iridescence of the lights so that people who are no better or worse off than they are. I think that there is a real danger in portraying too much of a well-scrubbed image."

White Heart

"If they leave the concert not knowing us any better or if all they see are glossy people who don't have any problems...,' adds Billy, not completing his thought but communicating just the same.

Musically as well as spiritually the band were maturing. Both 'Don't Wait For The Movie' and 'Emergency Broadcast' showed a band with a tougher, heavier sound than of old while the songs (as evidenced in the recent 'Souvenirs' compilation) showed an ever-increasing willingness to move beyond simple evangelical sloganeering.
Several of the band began moonlighting as writers, players and producers for any number of other Christian music projects. But in 1989 the band came up with possibly their finest, and certainly their most successful album so far. For 'Freedom' there was an unusual choice of producer, the man responsible for the smooth pop gospel sounds of Amy Grant, Brown Bannister.

The results are impressive. The concepts represented on tunes like "Eighth Wonder," "Power Tools" and "The River Will Flow" are admirable and mature, the result of six men in search of liberation. Smiley explains, "We did not go into the studio thinking, 'What do we need to write that people want to hear?' With what we've been through, we needed to express ourselves with a freedom in the creative process, not only in the writing, but in the playing, arranging production, recording - every step along the way. That's really what this album is all about, and why we titled it that way."

But despite 'Freedom's huge success in the US Christian music market, and eyebrow raised interest from several secular majors, the personnel of White Heart was changing again.

Comments Gersmehl, to explain the departure of longtime White Heart players Tommy Sims, Chris McHugh, and Gordon Kennedy. "The changes came for a reason." "The thing about it is that there are seasons in all our lives, and when we start having havoc in the way we think and the way we feel, is when we're out of sync with those seasons; when it's time to go someplace, but we don't because we're afraid to move out,"

After 'Freedom' McHugh and Sims went on with Brown Bannister to work on recording projects with Charlie Peacock and Twila Paris. A band with such multi-talented producers and players found that individual commitments to the band entity had diminished as other opportunities arose. Billy Smiley shares how difficult it is to be in a band.

"In Christian music when you get that number one song, its' not like say in pop music, where a number one sets you up to where you don't have to worry about finances and taking care of your family."

Florian, who has managed to spell his name differently on each successive album since joining the band for the 1986 release 'Don't Wait For The Movie' -Ric, Rik, and now Riq - adds that a factor in the personnel change was the high technical quality in the band. "One of the strengths of White Heart, I think, is the level of professionalism we've been able to have as the players. But then the drawback is that if someone wants to go do something else they can."

Smiley affirms however, that the break was very amiable. "It's really neat to remain friends, coming out of that situation. It was fragmented in White Heart at that time, in that everybody was searching to make sure where they wanted to be with their future. They knew they would be leaving, and we all just agreed that to do Freedom and to tour that album as much as possible was an important milestone for us to accomplish together."

In March of '90 auditions were held, and by its summer performance at the Creation festival the new White Heart was in place. Anthony Sallee, the bassist, is a 21-year-old studio session player from Fort Smith, Arkansas, while Mark Nemer, who toured on drums with BeBe and CeCe Winans, has also worked with Margaret Becker, Kim Boyce, and briefly Bryan Duncan.