Of course, busyness was the first subject broached.
"We're still pretty busy," he laughingly admitted. "We play a lot, and right now have a lot of things going on in Dallas. I guess we're still trying to find a happy medium between our road lives and our home lives. But I think we're at a place right now where we're a little more sane." I comment that this could only be explained by their obvious enjoyment of the ministry, and Shane is honest enough to clarify.
"We're both built that way, we're doers by nature. It's actually hard sometimes for us to stop and rest a bit, but we're finding that it's not just a luxury. It's a necessity, so that's where we're landing on that right now. We need to make time to rest and spend time with the Lord in that quiet place."
Their last project was "An Evening with Shane and Shane," but our discussion leads into their work on their newest project, due out May 1. Having read about their albums as "journals," I ask about their process. Shane's answer is, once again, quite truthful. "We're not as intentional as we probably should be about revealing things. But it does end up manifesting itself; wherever you are comes out in the writing. We don't sit around and say, 'Let's make a song say this or that.' Most of the time it's more of an outpouring of our souls."
"We have more songs than we've ever had before going into a record, but we're still honing it. Nothing's set yet. "Clean" was simply the gospel put to music, but this new one seems to be themed around friendship with God. Again, it's just happening that way."
I ask Shane what encourages him as he's in his creative process and his voice rings with enthusiasm. "Being on the road so much we meet a lot of people so willing to serve that it is mind-boggling. People come out and give of their time and their energy, for nothing, just to be a part of what the Lord is doing. It's such a huge testimony to see what He can do when you're not even around." Shane's awe is apparent as he shares, "It's always so amazing when people come up, whether it's an older individual or a high school kid, and say, "I felt like giving up and then I heard one of your songs. . . .' There are a bunch of stories, but somehow there is a situation where the Word of God was translated into a song that was then played through a little CD player, and it made something wonderful happen. It's so crazy." Shane's gratitude is clear as he continues, "It's pretty awesome. I mean, we're just people so it's just weird that something we did in a room, in the course of a month or so, can then go out into the world and the Lord can use it to encourage people?! It's just crazy!"
Yeah, crazy love from above. And big thanks to Shane and Shane for letting Him shine through them so nicely.
