I realize this is a bit old.. but better to archive it here anyways!

Thursday, February 19, 2004
Lowdown: Exclusive Canadian music news

Winnipeg band signs worship deal
By KAREN BLISS -- For JAM! Music

Winnipeg's Starfield has completed its debut album for one of America's biggest worship labels, Sparrow, a division of EMI Christian Music Group. The self-titled disc, produced by Matt Bronleewe (Natalie Imbruglia, Jars Of Clay), is due out May 18.

Last year, the band earned a Juno nomination in the contemporary Christian/gospel album category; won five Vibe Awards (Canada's Christian music awards) and one for outstanding Christian recording at the Western Canadian Music Awards --- all for its independent album, Tumbling After, which sold more than 15,000 copies.

Like Christian acts P.O.D., Switchfoot, and Sixpence None The Richer, the harmony-driven pop/rock band has the potential to crossover into the mainstream, but, for now, has opted to tackle one market at a time. The decision was made over dinner last January, when Sparrow's senior director of A&R Brad O'Donnell flew Starfield to Nashville to showcase for the label and invited EMI Music Canada's A&R team, Jody Mitchell and Fraser Hill, down as well.

"At that point, we were all talking about a joint venture," says O'Donnell. "But as we talked about it -- and these are my boss's words, Peter York, president of Sparrow -- he was like, 'The problem, and what we should all be frank about, is we're talking about taking on four markets -- the American Christian market; the American mainstream market; the Canadian Christian market; the Canadian mainstream market.' And he said, 'I think these guys can win in all four markets, but they need to start somewhere.'"

That somewhere is the American Christian market. Sparrow has selected "Filled With Your Glory" as the first single. It will be serviced to Christian radio stations in March. The band's cover of "40" will also be on the label's U2 tribute album, In The Name Of Love: Artists United For Africa, to be released in late February.

Meanwhile, the plan is to send the finished Starfield album to Mitchell to determine EMI Music Canada's role. Regardless, Niagara-based Canadian Christian music distributor CMC will pick up the album for Canada.

O'Donnell says it took several Christian albums before Switchfoot broke into the mainstream. "I hope the same way Starfield got a Christian record deal will be the same way they get a mainstream record deal -- Somebody like me will stumble on the music and really believe and just go, 'I have to work with these guys.'"

Starfield is one of the hardest working acts in Canada. Formed by songwriting brothers Tim (lead vocals, guitar) and Jon Neufeld (guitar, vocals), the band performed 150 shows behind its 1999 self-titled debut, which cost just $500 to record and sold 5000 copies off the stage, at church concerts and faith-based events.

With a different rhythm section, it hit the road for another 200 dates behind 2002's "Tumbling After." The album, produced by Eldon Winter and Steven Rendall at a cost of $25,000, sold 15,000 copies, a few thousand of which through CMC and the rest off the stage. The band sold an assortment of merchandise and even had visa and debit machines at the table.

Just prior to releasing "Tumbling After" on its own, for the first time Tim Neufeld did the rounds of the Canadian industry in summer 2002, meeting with a couple of record labels, two publishers, an agent and a lawyer, just to introduce the band, and get some feedback.

"It was totally surprising that they were interested on a music level, content and religious equation aside. It was really educational," says Neufeld. "I know that music is music, and at the end of the day it's good music that's going to make it up the ranks and into the hands of purchasers." The most interest came from a meeting at EMI Music Canada with Jody Mitchell. EMI president Deane Cameron gave his friend and colleague, EMI CMG president Bill Hearn, a ring in Nashville and mentioned Starfield.

Unbeknownst to Hearn, O'Donnell was already on the band. He had been given a Canadian music sampler three years ago by his friend Eric Nordoff from the international department of Word Records, where he also worked at the time. It contained the song "From Now On," by Starfield.

"I loved it," O'Donnell recalls. "I phoned Eric and said, 'Can you get me the record?' He did and I liked it, but 'From Now On' was the strongest thing on the record."

When O'Donnell left Word to work for EMI, a manager, Mike Smith, brought Starfield up as well and mentioned he had heard roughs of the new album ("Tumbling After"). O'Connell phoned the co-producer, Steve Rendall, to make contact and get a copy.

During his first conversation with Tim Neufeld, O'Donnell name-checked the six songs he would re-record for an album. Neufeld agreed. "It felt like there was a bond and kindred spirit creatively," O'Donnell says, adding that some musicians might recoil at negative feedback. He told Neufeld he wanted to come up to Canada to see a show.

As fate would have it, Hearn, with whom O'Donnell doesn't have day to day contact, came to his office and asked if he was talking to a band Virgin/EMI Music Canada was interested in? O'Donnell said, "No."

Fifteen-minutes later, he returned. "'I think you are -- Starfield,'" O'Donnell says Hearn told him. "'I want you to get on the phone with Jody Mitchell because I think you guys are talking about the same band.'"

After determining it was, indeed, the same band, O'Donnell followed through with his plan to fly to Toronto where Starfield was performing outside the city at a small church in Brantford. Mitchell went too. In the new year, Sparrow flew the band to Nashville to talk about a deal.

Starfield, which now included a new rhythm section, John Andrews (drums) and Shawn Huberts (bass), both from Victoria, B.C., did meet with a handful of other Christian labels on another visit to Nashville, but liked Sparrow (home to Switchfoot and Stacey Orrico) the best.

"They were the biggest and they didn't blow sunshine," says Tim Neufeld, frankly. "All the other labels were like, 'Oh, you're going to do great. You're going to have a No. 1 hit. The other bands that we have were a priority, but now you're a priority.' So will we be the band that will be pushed aside when the next flavour of the month comes along?

"Sparrow's whole philosophy is under promise and over deliver. The industry is in a bad enough place as it is, the more stability the better. On top of that, Brad came off as the most honest and the most genuine."

They also both felt "Tumbling After" sounded dated. With the new line-up, the band went into Masterlinks Records Studio in Nashville with Matt Bronleewe to re-record the first five songs from that album -- "Alive In This Moment," "Filled With Your Glory," "Tumbling After," "Over My Head," "Can I Stay Here Forever," plus the last track, "Cry In My Heart." The other five songs are brand new, and fall into two groups, some that "really rock," and some with a "British" sound with lots of space and reverb, according to O'Donnell's description.

"We wanted to keep it very honest and organic," says Neufeld. "So we tried to keep it as a four-piece band, so all the bells and whistles, all the interesting after production is done with an electric guitar. We didn't dive into sequencing. We tried to make it a little more rock and a little less pop." Neufeld adds that "Ordinary Life," a cross between U2's "Beautiful Day" with the minor haunting melody of the Cure, has been bandied about as a potential single for the general market, if the band goes that route.

"It's something we would be open to if it fit our vision," says Neufeld. "For Canada and for the States, we feel right now that we're supposed to be playing for the church and get people to wake up and realize there's a lot of irrelevance. People outside the church don't look at the church and say, 'That's something cool I want to be part of.'

"Honestly, if I looked at Christianity from the outside and see how it's represented with televangelists and churches, I would be like, 'Man, this is retarded,'" admits Neufeld, whose father works for a parachurch organization that addresses problems on native reserves, and his mother is employed by a Christian book store.

"I would never ever want to buy into it ---- the whole being weak-minded and hypocrisy thing. I would be deterred by it too. Why would I ever want to be a Christian? The church is the most unforgiving, graceless place on earth."

While artists from all genres, most noticeably hip hop, R&B and country, thank God at award shows and even sing about their faith (Mary J Blige, R Kelly, Brian McKnight), Neufeld recognizes that being billed specifically as a Christian band does have a stigma attached. "I'm looking at it not as propaganda but just two guys writing about life and they happen to write about more positive stuff, and God.

"I think this record is about faith, but it's about wanting to be a person that's real and genuine. A quarter of it is explicitly Christian and then half is ambiguous, then a quarter could be love."

Starfield has signed a management deal with Norman Miller, and also has a publishing deal with EMI Christian Music Publishing. It has also acquired booking agent John Huie at CAA in the United States, which has confirmed appearances into the summer, including the Acquire The Fire conferences. For now, the band still handles its own bookings in Canada, and is currently on a national tour through to mid-March.