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Bebo Norman

It’s hard to believe that it’s been fourteen years since Bebo Norman eased onto the scene, bringing his signature vocals and compelling lyricism to the singer/songwriter fold. A number of albums and changes of life have occurred in that time period and the artist finds himself at a far different phase of life than when he began, now a husband and father.

We recently sat down with Bebo to talk about the importance of an artistic sabbath and to reflect on the artist’s past and plans for the future.

Soul-Audio: So what’s going on with you right now?

Bebo Norman: I feel like I’m coasting right now. I know that sounds random, but springtime is always such a nice time for me. The fall is always run, run, run every year and usually in the spring I get to step back and let things go. I still play a handful of shows of 20 to 30 shows over the course of the spring, but this spring I decided to take it light. The last two years have even been busy and now I’m also coasting into the summer. I’m also taking that off.

SA: Really? No festivals or anything?

Bebo: No. Nothing. I did that last year for the first time and it was the most glorious thing. It gave me so much energy to go back out in the fall and doing this for as long as I have – and not that it’s been forever, but it has been 14 years – so I knew I had to start getting some breathing time in between, especially with the wife and kids. So I’m coasting right into the summer now.

SA: Do you have to fight for that artistic sabbath?

Bebo: Oh, no question. I do. But for me, it’s more than that. An artistic sabbath is a subset of just my own personal family sabbath and spiritual sabbath. You pour and pour and pour in this industry. Instead of having a work week, you have a work season. So having a sabbath season is really important. You have to have time with your wife and time to be at home with your family and time with our community here in Nashville and even with my family in Georgia. My family has a little river cabin down there in Georgia and we’ll spend two months down there being quiet and being lazy and letting my mom keep the kids for a few days at a time. But that really does refill me in a pretty big way. Time at home fills me.

So what I have to battle is sometimes this feeling of resenting the music because it’s the thing that takes me away from the things that I love. But then you go and play a show like I did two nights ago in Ohio and I was thanking the audience at the end of reminding why I love to get to do this. You realize that there’s a push and a pull whenever there’s any kind of calling. And the push and the pull is to both. I’m called to my family and to call and play these songs. So my wife and my family understand that and so they support it. The audience or the label won’t understand that, so that’s my job to say, ‘Okay, I’m going to do this but then I need some sabbath time in place so that I can be with my family again.’ So that’s how it works for me.

SA: How do you tend to the family when the machine is in full operation?

Bebo: My wife is an extremely independent woman anyway, which that helps. She’s strong that way. But she’s also involved in what we do. She does all of the business management. So she doesn’t feel that I leave and then she’s off in some other world. She’s in on every show because she’s budgeted everything for the whole tour. And she’s doing payroll for all the people out on the road with us. She’s getting merch money in and putting that in the bank. So she feels like she’s very much a part of that team, so that’s on the business side of things.

On the personal side, I think she knows that we just have to gear into that mode. We’ve been doing this for a while being married for about six years, so she knows this mode. She knows what we have to do. We both feel that I’m supposed to be doing this. We both feel called to that. So her cross to bear is being alone while I’m gone and being a single mom while I’m gone for months at a time. But she sees her cross to bear as a way to allow that ministry to get done – what we both feel like I’m called to do, which means what we’re called to do as a family. So it tends to work that way for us.

SA: Is that ever hard for her? Because you’re the one with the spotlight and the one tangibly receiving, ‘Thank you, that was so great.’

Bebo: Again, it’s a perfect match because she has no desire for that. She has that desire for me and it’s a very important thing in our marriage for me to verbally affirm who she is and what she does and how she does it. That’s a part of what my focus is when I am home. Also, my focus when I come home is to take all of that from her. When I have a big chunk of time, I try to give her days or even weeks to not have to mess with the kids. A big deal for us is just staying on the same page. If we can keep things spoken and leave short accounts, it leaves little times for resentment to build. Even though it breaks her heart sometimes and she will cry sometimes when she knows that I have to leave, she’s never made me feel like I’m choosing music over her. So it’s one of those nice balances that makes sense.

SA: Tell me about “short accounts.” What does that mean?

Bebo: Someone told me a long time ago that the things that are unspoken in marriage are the breeding ground for resentment. It might be something small and it might be something minor – and don’t get me wrong, it’s not like every small and minor thing needs to be said – but if something questionable is happening and there’s a thought in my mind that is doubtful toward my wife wondering why she did that. If I let that go a few days and I still have that feeling, then I probably need to go ahead and ask her and engage that feeling with her. If it goes away, then I probably don’t need to bring it up.

But finding some wisdom and balance in terms of when and how to communicate the things you need to communicate is so important. What can happen is that I let it go a few days and then it builds even more resentment. But then I’m afraid to say it because now I’m really fearful that something’s going on. Then I wait even longer to not say it because of this fear and a wall is being built between us. She starts to notice that I’m being a little different and she starts to do the same thing on the other side and build her own wall. Then I’m being different because I thought she was being a little different. Pretty soon, it’s been a year and there’s a huge wall of resentment that explodes into some huge fight.

I’ve seen more than my share of marriages without a level of communication on that level blow up. They look up at two years into this thing and they hate each other because they never communicated about these little things that build resentment. So that’s the short account things. It’s really important to keep short accounts of anger, short accounts of distrust, short accounts of irresponsibility when you see those things take place.

SA: Early on, it was the single singer/songwriter career and now it’s been married Bebo for a while. You’re about at the half and half point I believe. So I’m wondering about the artistry before and after that and if you had reflections on that?

Bebo: I will say this. Each season of playing music, and I can see a clear dividing line between those two points, I certainly feel more comfortable in my own skin than I ever have. I think some of that comes with age and getting older and living life and realizing that I’m not that concerned like I thought I was of what a bunch of strangers think of me. I’m a lot more concerned with what my wife thinks of me and what my son thinks of me and what my community of friends think of me who really know me. Not to say that I don’t think it’s important to present myself to strangers and listeners, but the progression has seemed really natural.

The things I was writing about at 19, which were the first songs on the first independent record, I couldn’t write those songs now. I’m in such a different place. The strange thing is that the themes really aren’t that different. They were themes of longing and doubt and feeling out of control and wanting to be in control, but the cast and characters are all different. Not to mention that the things that influence and excite me musically have changed over all of these years. It’s been 14 years of playing music for a living, so a lot changes in those seasons. If things don’t change, then you’re holding onto something that worked because it worked. Or maybe it’s all you know. But my hope as an artist is to really ebb and flow with what’s influencing me and where I’m at in life at any given time.

SA: You say you’re comfortable now, but do you look back at someone who was uncomfortable on Fabric of Verse or Ten Thousand Days?

Bebo: Oh, for sure. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I know the person who wrote the songs. [Laughs] I know his mindset. Don’t get me wrong, there was something really pure about the way those songs were written. The first handful of songs I wrote were never intended for others to hear, so there was a purity there. But as soon as someone hears a song for the first time and responds favorably, there’s no way to write a song and not think about others. The writing instantly becomes more and more tainted. So I can see a lot in those early songs that is immature, at least songwriting wise. I can see a lot of insecurity. I can tell I was trying to be like somebody else or be more clever than I needed to be or trying to be cool.

Sometimes the best songs just say it. Sometimes the best songs create an image and you have to find out what it means, but I really went too far down that road. I would create an image and say, ‘Well, it might mean this for you and something else to another.’ There’s a beauty to that sometimes, but I really didn’t know what I thought entirely so I left it to be interpreted however.

SA: As you talk about that, is there a song you’re thinking of?

Bebo: Not off of the top of my head. [Pause] I mean there are songs like “The Hammer Holds,” an old, old song of mine. That song has really changed meaning for me over the years. In a weird way, when I first wrote that song, it was an analogy about this nail being shaped that eventually nailed Jesus to the cross. But I think it was more about the nail than it was about me at the time. I was just imagining that if the nail had a soul… but the song is really clearly plain as day about me. You look back at a line like ‘my dreams are not the issue here’ that’s really about me…

SA: Wait, you really didn’t know that back then?

Bebo: Well, I knew it could be about a person, but no I didn’t think it was me. And yet it was what I was struggling with myself during that time. So that’s what I mean. It was a random chain of events that led to writing that song. I’ve had people come up asking, ‘Did you mean this when you wrote this line?’ and you think, ‘Oh, yeah! Sure. That’s exactly what I meant.’ So I love that it can ebb and flow like that.

SA: Song that’s the most embarrassing for you to look back on?

Bebo: There’s plenty of those.

SA: Really?

Bebo: Yeah. There’s a song called “Curtis Creek” that I really like the lyrics, but it sounds like freakin’ Heathcliff. [Starts humming theme from Heathcliff]

SA: [Singing along] ‘Heathcliff, Heathcliff, no one should terrify your neighborhood…”

Bebo: Yeah, that’s it. [Laughs]

SA: Oh, man, I’m sorry but that’s hilarious. [Laughs]

Bebo: It is. Those kinds of things are hugely humiliating. [Laughs] But I love that moment the song was written about. It was perfectly captured. But I hate the Heathcliff thing. [Laughs]

SA: Someone came up to you and showed you that, didn’t they?

Bebo: Yeah, they did later. I was like, ‘Oh, no.’ I hung my head low. It was a friend who showed me. The songs that I’m the most proud about are the ones that relate to family or those close to me and they’d never make it on the radio. There’s one “Long Way Home” about a friend on the verge of divorce that I wrote. They didn’t get a divorce and they’re doing well, so that’s great. But the imagery in that song just knocks me out. Another one is “Deeper Still” along those same lines.

Sometimes I look back at those songs and wonder where those words even came from. I’m not saying they’re the best in the world, but you will listen and they’ll strike me as so beautiful and you wonder how you’re brain was even there. I love how God gives us words that way. Another one that I feel very proud of was “All That I Have Sown.” That one is about my grandfather. “Deeper Still” is about a divorce and “Long Way Home” and near divorce. Those are ones I always go back to. “Where The Trees Stand Still” perfectly describes what life felt like as a single man on the road with a lot of people that I didn’t know. So imagery-wise and musically, that’s one that I really like.

SA: All of those musically come out in this slower, plaintive tone.

Bebo: Hence the reason they’d never make it to radio. But they are definitely some of my favorites. I had one on the new record called “One Bright Hour” and that song really strikes me as well. So there are some random ones. I don’t play them live very much but that would be it.

SA: So how much do you write when you’re coasting or is that the point is to not write?

Bebo: Well, that is some of the point, but then again you want to write when it happens. I wrote two songs a couple of weeks ago just out of nowhere. I don’t know if I will end up using them or not. This is the season I want to collect ideas is when I’m coasting. On my iPhone I have messages to myself and those are just song ideas or just continuations of one idea. They might not become anything at all, but that’s what I do. Then when it’s time to get intensive about it, I grab all of the ideas and that becomes the discipline phase of writing. It becomes my 9 to 5. Right now, my 9 to 5 is hanging out with my friends and speaking into their lives and vice versa and hanging out with my family.

SA: Fourteen years as a professional musician means you’ve seen the industry walls crumble. I’m watching a lot of your contemporaries and other singer/songwriters navigate the industry by cloistering together on Noisetrade, on Ten Out of Tenn, on Brite Revolution, etc. I’m wondering if you’ve thought about those?

Bebo: Yeah, I’ve thought of it all. I don’t know where I fit into it yet. I’ve talked a lot with Billy Cerveny from Brite Revolution. He’s a really good friend of mine and I’ve known him for a long time. I really respect their proposed outlook on how it could all work. There’s just a lot that is good there. But I’m not sure where I fit in yet. And that’s because I don’t know where I fit into the long-term artist wise. I never set out to play music. I know a dozen singer/songwriters who started when I did who are 10 times more talented than I am who can’t make a living playing music. Some did for a while, some tried for a bit, etc. But my ride has purely been because God has said, for whatever reason, I’m supposed to be doing this. For whatever reasons, the ones more talented aren’t doing it but God had a different journey for them. That’s part of their story. And I’m convinced that our stories are ultimately all about redemption, it’s just a matter of how to get there and when the redemption comes.

With that said, I don’t look up and think, ‘Man, 10 years from now, I’ve got to still be doing this.’ That’s not where my brain goes. I think I will always want to be writing songs, but I know for sure I don’t want to be on the road non-stop and there’s a lot of the artist side that I’m uncomfortable with, especially the way that people are perceived and marketing yourself. Those things have always made me uncomfortable. I’m sure there’s a healthy way to do it, but I don’t know what that is. So maybe to my detriment, I have no idea what’s in the future. But I think there’s also something to just doing what I’m doing right now while I can. If I’m making music for 20 more years, then it’s ‘Thank you, Jesus.’ But if that’s only 20 more minutes, then it’s still, ‘Thank you, Jesus.’