LITTLE ROCK — Fans of contemporary Christian music, the exuberant, rockin’ kind, have had various opportunities through the years to see and hear TobyMac and Chris Tomlin, but never together. The two men, who became friends as they crossed paths during their careers, decided to make the summer of 2010 one in which they travel around, share the star billing and even do some songs together.
“I’ve seen Chris at some festivals and I love his show,” says Toby Mac (who was born Kevin Michael McKeehan in 1964). “So we designed a show for us to tour with our separate bands, where we have a lot of crowd participation, plus we do appear together.It’s kind of an active show. My kids have gone to his music school and they come back singing his songs, so I decided we might as well tour together.”
TobyMac released Tonight, his latest studio CD, on Feb. 9 and is already at work on his next project.
“I’ve been thinking of a Christmas record, and it’s kind of strange when you go to work on one of those in May and June,” he laughs. A resident of the Nashville, Tenn., area, he considers himself lucky to have not been seriously affected by the heavy flooding there a couple of months ago.
“We lost some cabinets, drums, staging and some props in the two lockers we had in that big warehouse a lot of musicians here use,” he says. “But most of our stuff was in the trailers behind our buses. We helped out as much as possible, playing some benefits and that sort of thing.”
Rather than worrying about instruments and equipment, he has joined his Jamaican-born wife in her concern for her parents back home during the recent gang violence that has claimed many nongang victims.
“We go there two or three times a year to that beautiful country,” he notes. “We hate that this is happening in a country whose people are so joyful in general.”
TobyMac and Amanda, his wife of 15 years, have five children, at least two of whom seem to be interested in following in their dad’s footsteps. Truett, 11, has appeared as “TruDog” on several Toby-Mac albums, while Judah, 4, makes an appearance on the song “Loud N’ Clear” on the recent Tonight album.
“I don’t know where that will all end up, but it’s good father/son time,” the doting dad says. “They don’t often go on the road since my wife kind of wants to keep our home life more like normal.”
TobyMac has logged almost a decade in his solo career, after first making a name for himself as a member of dcTalk, one of the first contemporary Christian bands to successfully mix elements of hip-hop and rap with rock music. In doing so, the group, formed in 1988, sold 8 million albums and won four Grammy Awards before disbanding in 2000.
Since going solo, he was nominated for Grammys for his first three albums (Momentum, Welcome to Diverse City and Portable Sounds) before winning the coveted award for his Alive and Transported, a CD/DVD package released in 2008.
Tomlin, like TobyMac a veteran of multiple appearances at a variety of venues in central Arkansas, released The Noise We Make, the first of his seven albums, in 2001 and has toured with Rebecca St. James, Steven Curtis Chapman, Casting Crowns and Matt Redman. He released his fourth studio album, Hello Love, in 2008.
Tomlin’s best-known song, “How Great Is Our God,” has been certified as the No. 1 modern-day hymn in contemporary Christian music chart history. In addition to his recording and touring work, Tomlin is also the worship leader at Passion City Church in Atlanta.
TobyMac and Chris Tomlin 7 p.m. Saturday, Verizon Arena, East Broadway and Interstate 30, North Little Rock Tickets: $26.75, $36.75 (501) 975-9000, (800) 745-3000 www.ticketmaster.com
Weekend, Pages 31 on 06/17/2010