Rebirth International

An Interview with Mo Leverett regarding his latest recording - Shards of Light

Posted on November 21st, 2009 by Mo Leverett.
Categories: ministry updates.

First Mo, thanks for granting this short interview.

Of course.  Thanks for being interested.

How are you doing?  After Katrina, for some of us you dropped off the radar.

I’m doing well.  Happy and healthy.

You’re pastoring a church in Tallahassee now?

Yes, I’m the lead pastor at Centerpoint Church - an intentionally center-city church which includes an urban ministry thrust.

How’s pastoring working out for you?

Good question.  Suffice it to say that I have a rather gracious group of people who are long-suffering with me.  I’m enjoying them immensely and the challenge that a vision like ours presents.

How did Katrina effect you personally?

Well, we don’t have time for that.  I’ll just say that as a result of the impact of Katrina - I’ll never be the same.

In what ways?

Well, I feel wounded, redirected, healed, loved, devastated, restored all at the same time.  I both revile the storm and receive her with thanksgiving.

Is Shards of Light a moving away from the theme of Katrina in your life and music?

No, not really.  At least in one sense I hope to never revisit Katrina again, but never to leave her either.  I believe that I am inextricably connected to her and that she has made an indelible deconstructive and redemptive mark on my life.

So Mo, another CD?  How does this recording compare and contrast with your other projects?

This is my ninth recording (not including the 3 or 4 other projects I contributed to and helped produce) and it was originally intended to be a hymn compliation.  Regularly persons visit me at my CD table after a concert and say, “I want the one with the hymns.”  Well the truth is that many of my CD’s have hymns on them - so I thought it would be wise to combine them all in a single project.  However, at some point in this process I decided that there was enough orginal and fresh material to warrant a totally new recording.

I’d say that the feel of this project is definitely lighter and more hopeful than my previous project - Orphans and Kings.  But it also is a good compliment to that work.  While Orphans and Kings was recorded during the time that I was processing, grieving and facing the losses of Katrina - Shards of Light on the other hand reflects healing from the storm and it’s aftermath in my life.

Musically though I’d say that this project stands out from the rest in its style and feel.  I produced this project myself with some assistance from my workship leader - Vance Watt.  With the instrumentalists we chose to perform on the project, it gradually became more and more soulful.  The project also features my beloved daughter Lindsay on two acoustic remakes of prior songs from the Tendermercies CD.

And while we made every effort to save money on the production, I feel that we achieved a level of performance I can be proud of and the listener will hopefully enjoy.

Your daughter has a beautiful voice. Is she trained?  Is she an aspiring artist?

Nope.  Just beautiful and gifted and nice enough to sprinkle her sweetness on my songs.

How do you do it?  How do you continue to write and record while also pastoring a church and running Rebirth International - while at the same time keeping up with one wife and four kids?

Oh it’s not as hard as it sounds.  It helps to have an amazingly supportive and organized wife - and four kids who enjoy being part of a family on a mission.  I would feel impoverished without the whole music thing in my life.  It helps to support the ministry we believe in so much.  And it fills the house with music - which the family doesn’t mind much of the time.  So when I’m inspired, I write.  When I’ve written enough, I record.  It also helps to have musician friends who believe in what I’m doing both artistically and missionally. 

Would you say that Shards of Light has a single or particular theme?

I’d say that the title is self-descriptive of the project as a whole.  I’d hate to reduce it to a single them.  The unifying theme is my life over the last 2 years or so.  How’s that for an answer?

Not much of one really, but it will suffice.

Sorry. Don’t want to give it away.

Don’t worry, you haven’t.  On a different subject, I’ve always wondered what musicians you listen to.  Who influences Mo Leverett?

Well the single most influential individual on my music is my close friend Greg Doles - a musical diamond in the rough.  Other persons that I like to listen to are Bruce Cockburn, Pierce Pettis, The Great Louis Armstrong, Van Morrison, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, Lionel Ritchie, Ray Charles, James Taylor, Earth, Wind and Fire and others in that ilk.  But I can’t say how much they influenced my music really.

Earth, Wind and Fire?

Oh yeah…I’ve bought their greatest hits project at least four times.

Funny, well…do you intend to do more recordings?  What should we expect in the future?

Well, I have two other projects in the works right now.  I just can’t afford yet to finish them.  I guess I’ll keep writing and recording as long as there are people willing to listen.

How would you classify your music?  What genre would you place it in?

I don’t know.  My favorite description of my music is an old one.  Cornerstone Magazine called it “a folksy-bluesy slice of real-life pie”.  Others have called it Americana.  It’s not blues, it’s not country, rock, pop, folk or jazz.  But you can hear parts of those streams flow into the larger body of my work. So I don’t know.  My friend Richard Johnson likes to call me the Tupac of folk music.  I have no idea what that means, but I like it nonetheless.

Would you consider it Christian?

Well, I consider myself a Christian - my art is an extension of who I am.  But I do not feel bound at all to write and sing perpetually about Christ or the gospel.  He frees me to write about whatever I feel.  I had a very short life in the Christian music industry.  But my sense is that they don’t know what to do with me.  I don’t fit the profile - but I don’t play in bars either.  So, I don’t know.  Whatever category persons want to put me in, I’m fine with that.

You have your own unique feel and style of guitar playing.  How did that develop?

In a closet.

No one taught you?

No.  Again, I’d say that Greg Doles was the most influential person in the early part of my development as a musician and writer.  But I never took lessons.  I just kind of figured it out on my own.  So I guess I have my own voice on the instrument - it’s certainly not sophisticated and I have a limited musical vocabulary, but when you hear it, for better or worse, you can typically identify it as mine.

Do you think you’ve had any influence on any other younger musicians out there?

Oh I doubt it.  I really don’t know very many people who have even heard my music.

I’m assuming that persons can still buy the project off of your justiceroad.com site?

Yes.  It should be up on the site within a week or two.

Well is there anything else you’d like to share with your fan base?

Ha! I have a fan base?

There’s one or two…maybe more.

Well, tell my Mom I love her and I’ll be home for Thanksgiving.  For the other fan out there, call me sometime.  If there are still any others?  Pray for me and the ministry to which God has called me and the communities to which I am sent. 

Thanks again, Mo.

You’re quite welcome.  Thank you.

2 comments.