Still, I'm waiting for the dawn...

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In The Studio
MATTHEW SMITH’S ‘RISING’ JOY IN THE MIDST OF THE FLOOD

When the floodwaters overtook Nashville in early May, no one anticipated the destruction that would sweep through the city. Matthew Smith explains, “A few days after the flood, I was driving down the highway and saw the U-Haul place I rent my touring trailer from still halfway underwater. It was surreal.”
     Friend and frequent touring guitarist Kenny Hutson helped Smith tear out some drywall on his property that had been ruined by the waters. A few weeks later, Hutson was in the studio, tearing up a pedal steel guitar. “Recording new music and doing flood cleanup back-to-back—the month of May was just a snapshot of creativity and destruction sitting side by side,” Smith says, sitting in his East Nashville home during a rare relaxing Saturday. Indeed, the second day of tracking had to be postponed because producer Cason Cooley’s studio took on water. “I’m just starting to realize how what we experienced echoes the themes of this record. It’s all about living in hope that God is in charge and will keep his promises, but being in the midst of chaos and brokenness.”
      The first proper follow-up to 2006’s All I Owe (also produced by Cooley), Smith’s new album, Watch The Rising Day, finds him once again gathering centuries-old hymn lyrics and writing new music to them. While the songs on All I Owe shared several general themes, Watch is closer to being a concept record. “When I looked at what hymns I had written, I was struck to see how almost all of them had the theme of longing, not only for heaven, but for the redemption of all things. It was striking to see that these different hymnwriters from different backgrounds and time periods were all filled with the same longing, because they lived – as we do – in the same broken world” Smith said.
     The tension between hope and despair is reflected in the music as well. The album’s title track presents a dark and brooding landscape made of programmed loops and sampled sounds. “Cason left me a voice mail one day saying “Um…’Watch’ has taken on a life of its own, and it wasn’t what I was expecting it to be…’” Smith laughs. “It was like getting a call from the lab of a mad scientist saying ‘It’s alive!’ But we both loved it. The track felt lonely and desperate, which fits the lyric.” Smith and Cooley brought Hutson in the next day to add more organic elements that infused some of the hope also found in the words.
      Not to say that the album is bleak. Other songs are bursting with joy, like the potential radio single “Redeemed, Restored, Forgiven” and the acoustic guitar-driven “Greater Than Our Hearts.” “I’ve heard [U2’s] Bono say that joy is the hardest thing for an artist to capture. But these hymns do capture it, because they’re rooted in a deep, abiding hope. Anyone can write a happy song, anyone can write a sad song, but these hymnwriters understood and experienced joy. If this album helps shape listeners’ hearts towards that joy, I’ll consider it a success. I at least want it to shape my own heart in that way.”
     Smith took new approaches to songwriting on this project, and is excited about the results. “I was talking to Kevin [Twit, Indelible Grace founder] about writing, and how my limitations as a guitar player seem to hold me back sometimes. He surprised me by saying that he often doesn’t write with a guitar—and he’s an amazing guitarist—but instead just sits down and sings into a handheld recorder.” The following evening, Smith tried the approach himself. “I ended up writing two songs in twenty minutes. And both of them ended up on the record.”
     One of those hymns, titled “Goodnight,” is told from the perspective of a Christian on his deathbed, saying goodbye to his loved ones and preparing himself for Heaven. The track is reminiscent of The National’s “Fake Empire,” with a pulsating beat by drummer Will Sayles (Mat Kearney, Norah Jones, Sixpence None the Richer) that builds throughout to a dramatic ending. The other song is a simple communion hymn (as yet untitled) that Smith says was a special moment in the studio. “It was the last song we did at the end of the first tracking day. It came together very quickly, in about an hour, and each of the musicians came up to me separately afterward asking about it. I think we all just sensed there was something unique happening, that we were a part of a holy moment bigger than ourselves.”
     Another new songwriting approach was co-writing with Jeff Pardo, who has previously contributed to the Indelible Grace projects as well as getting cuts on records by Josh Wilson and recent Female Vocalist of the Year Dove Award winner Francesca Battistelli. Smith describes their collaboration: “Jeff and I got together a couple of times, and two of the three tunes we came up with are ones we used on the record. He’s got a great pop sensibility, a real gift for melody. I think the ones we wrote together are going to resonate with a lot of people.” Smith cites one co-write titled “You Are The Light,” based on the Charles Wesley hymn “Christ Whose Glory Fills The Skies” as being one he’s particularly anxious for others to hear. “I hope this record reaches a lot of people who don’t listen to hymns, and that it opens them up to thinking about Jesus and His coming kingdom in a way they’ve never considered.”

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