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| Back at My Heart: An Interview with Natalie Grant |
By Kristen Ramaseur [BREATHEcast Reporter]
Fri, Apr 25, 2008 @ 12:00 PM PST |
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Female vocalist of the year : Natalie Grant at 39th Dove Awards
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Female vocalist of the year : Natalie Grant at 39th Dove Awards
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As Dove Awards 2008 female vocalist of the year, a new mother of twins, and with her latest album Relentless on the market, Natalie Grant is having quite an eventful year. Surrounded by all the buzz and excitement of GMA week and the 2008 Dove Awards in Nashville, TN we had a chance to talk all about the music, family, and passions that are keeping her going.
Even with six previous nominations and multiple wins for female vocalist of the year it never gets old or expected she said, “Every time…they read the list of the other people I am thinking what I am doing here? These are all such amazing artists… I always am blown away that I get to do what I love everyday and that the people I respect …stamp it with approval…It’s an honor, a huge honor!” Perhaps this is true with her song, ‘In Better Hands’ the lead single on Relentless, which was nominated for song of the year. This and other songs came out of her desire to really seek God’s face and to continue to write songs she was invested in. “Instead of just putting out a song that I thought would sound good on the radio, would be an easy hit…I wanted a song that I knew would connect with people’s lives”, she said.
As we talked more about the album and her lyrical approach she shared the message behind ‘Back at My Heart’, as song that is very personal and one that she described was like a page out of her journal. Written alongside her husband Bernie Herms, and friend Matthew West, she was able to convey her heart in the melodies and lyrics. “I think that the first verse… I feel like it’s the story of my life, constantly. I’m really good at putting on a show, putting on an act of [I] got it all together, but most time I’m falling apart on the inside”, she said. Yet, as she grows older she realizes that, “It’s for you to return to the simplistic things of our faith that hunger for God, that deep desire for God”, she said. “In the last few years it’s been just to walk that in my own life, the truth…to know him more and to have everything about him just permeate every aspect of my life”, she said.
The openness and honesty seen through her music as well as when she talks to young women during the Revolve tour, for girls in the 7th through 12th grade, is what makes her stand out and impact lives. The song ‘Make a Way’ was written for one of the conference attendees, Brittany, who was touched as Grant talked about her personal experience, being delivered from bulimia and ‘what it means to have your real life meet a real God’, Grant says. After hearing her story, Brittany contacted her via MySpace, telling her that it was when Grant talked about the broken things in her life and the poor choices she made, she was touched and got saved. Brittany had given up on God or the church after she was rapped by a guy she met when she moved to NY, trying to make it in the modeling industry. It was during the time Grant gave her testimony when she decided to reconnect with God. Grant said that reading her story and hearing what she said showed her that, “God’s grace knows no age or no race. It’s not defined by any of those things. Regardless of if you are black or white or tan …five of fifteen or fifty, God can make a way for you if you just allow you heart to be open to it”, Grant stated. “Loved her story so I wrote a song for her”, she said with a smile.
Another way for fans to connect with Grand is through her new interactive blogs, “I wanted to find a way to continue to connect with the people that enable me to do what I love…I don’t want to be the kind of artist that gets up and has a flashy show… and hits the high notes and has this mystique around her. I want to be the kind of artist that’s vulnerable and transparent…” she said. However, she admits she was little intimated by it because she has see other’s blogs and noted how impressive they were. She laughs and says, “I’m not clever or funny, but I’m real”!
Putting her passions into more than just her music, Grant created the Hope Foundation, whose mission is to be evolved in the rescue and restoration of the young women enslaved by human trafficking, as well as raise awareness. Watching a TV show called Law and Order Grant said she “…didn’t expect to have my life changed”, but was made aware of the severity of human trafficking and how “ young girls are being rapped and ravaged twenty to thirty times as day, at as little as five years of age…”, she stated. This led her to travel to India where she saw little girls on the street for sale even a girl in a cage. “I saw thing that I never imagined I would see in my life”, she said. She came back to America and started the Hope Foundation which not only raises money and supports other organizations, but is recently starting an intern program which sends college students overseas to become involved in the cause.
Impacting this generation through many of her ventures is something Grant feels strongly about she even has taken new artist under her wings and is helping with their development, “I want to be a part of breathing into the new crop of talent, she says”. Her twin baby girls Grace and Bella are motivating her rather than slowing her down, giving her an even greater passion. “Right now God has given me this moment… to impact this culture and this generation. This generation is going to be the one that grows up and are the role models that my two daughters are going to look up to so why wouldn’t I have that passion like never before? To speak into it and help shape it for the Kingdom of God” she said.
In closing she reassured fans that, “I’m not going anywhere”, she says, “I just hope that whether… making more music or helping other people make music that whatever it is that I do that it will be done with incredible excellence, [be] intentional, that most of all that it will…impact the Kingdom of God…however many minutes we have on this planet that really what it’s all about”. |
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| Fri, Apr 25, 2008 @ 12:00 PM |
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