Risk fuels creativity. When an artist steps away from their comfort zone, following their muse into fresh territory, it generally opens up an exciting new direction. Not everyone is willing to take chances, but Chris Rice isn’t your conventional artist. That maverick spirit and creative passion courses through every track of Rice’s new release “What A Heart is Beating For.”
After more than a decade in the music business that brought Dove Awards, sales success and a loyal fan base, the singer/songwriter could have become accustomed to the status quo. He might have continued down the same path, reaping the same rewards, but that’s not what a true artist chooses to do, and it’s not what Chris Rice did. Instead he took a chance with his last album, “Amusing.” He left the security of his longtime label home and partnered with friend/producer Monroe Jones to become co-owner in the innovative imprint Eb + Flo. Then joining forces with INO Records, Rice set out to expand his audience.
He shifted gears, tapped into the music bubbling inside him and created “Amusing,” a stylistic departure that changed and exceeded the already high expectations for a Chris Rice album. His risk paid off with the mainstream AC radio hit “When Did You Fall,” and the creative leap paved the way for Rice’s new effort “What a Heart is Beating For.”
“I’m more excited about these songs than ever,” says Rice. “I feel like they’ve taken me as a writer into new territory that allowed me to explore different aspects of my own writing and thinking. There aren’t constraints on it. There aren’t lines in the coloring book that I have to stay in. I get to put on the page whatever I want. It’s freedom I can’t describe. I still love God, but He’s given me a new coloring book.”
Well known for such hits as “Deep Enough to Dream,” “Clumsy” and “Untitled Hymn (Come to Jesus),” Rice has built a solid career penning literate, colorful lyrics then bringing them to life with his warm, compelling voice. Rice’s last album found him delving deeper into matters of the heart. What emerged was a surprisingly romantic soul with the ability to write songs that made women sigh and men smile knowingly. If “Amusing” revealed his ability to tap more broadly into the range of human experience, then “What a Heart is Beating For” takes that even further.
“So Much for My Sad Song” is a light-hearted number that began when Rice tried to write a pensive, moody tune in response to a fan’s request. “I had a guy stop me during a show,” recalls Rice. “He said, ‘When are you going write a song for us depressed people? Everything is so positive and happy.’”
Chris admits, “That’s who I am, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t pull it off. So I thought I’ll just write a song about that process of trying to write something sad, but everything just keeps turning out right. That was the first song I wrote for the new record.”
Rice has always had a love affair with words. Growing up just outside Washington DC, his parents owned a Christian bookstore and he developed an appreciation for authors and songwriters. He recalls belting out “Band on the Run” in the backseat of a station wagon with his brothers, and fondly remembers an elementary school music teacher using Jim Croce’s “I Have to Say I Love You in a Song” to illustrate a point in class. “Even as a third grader, I got it,” he says. “I got the way he used those words to express something and I could identity with it.”
These days, even high school English classes covering Shakespeare and the world’s great poets occasionally inspire something new in Rice. “I still to this day draw from the way they said things in their love sonnets to people. There’s a particular song on this record called ‘Let The Words Escape’ which is actually a combination of ideas from love sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning,” says Rice, who almost simply titled the song “Elizabeth.” “That song came from a 16-year-old kid being forced in an English class to read these things. It stuck with me this long and I’m still incorporating those things into writing. Influences have touched me in so many different directions.”
A myriad of influences have simmered together to spice the songs on Rice’s new album, his sixth studio record. “The variety I think is almost part of the thread that unites it,” he says of the diverse collection. “They way I say things, pulls them all together.”
“Sneakin’ Into Heaven” is quintessential Chris Rice. The song is musically engaging with an upbeat, impossible to resist melody, yet the lyric is deep and spiritually profound. “The whole song started with the concept of borrowing someone else’s halo. I just had this image stuck in my head of borrowing someone else’s halo and then just seeing kind of the universal truth behind that,” says Rice, noting we don’t get into heaven by our own deeds. “None of us are good enough to be there. We all get there by borrowing someone else’s perfection.”
Another meaty track on the album is “Tell Me The Story Again.” “It’s the one I deliberately wrote to state my faith,” says Rice. “It tells the whole story of the gospel, but it invites the listener to become a part of the story.”
One of the most compelling songs on the project is “Love is Gonna Break Through.” The first verse is filled with images of a newborn baby crying, a soldier giving his life, a farmer praying for rain and a homeless man begging for change as Rice ponders those moments in life that make us catch our breath. “There are four pictures in a row of pretty heavy duty stuff,” he admits. “Then it goes on to ask ‘What do we do with life’s surprises?’ The conclusion of the song is love is going to break through. It’s an encouragement to embrace love and to live love. It says there’s a need and whether I get anything back or get anything out of it or not, I want to give of myself.”
The songs on the album run the gamut from the quirky fun of “Sneakin’ Into Heaven” and the nostalgic romp “Kids Again” to the social commentary of “You Don’t Have to Yell.” “When I watch what reality TV is all about, it seems like the more conflict the longer you can stay on the show, the more conflict you have, it keeps viewers watching,” Rice observes. “You can’t even hear what people are saying because they are yelling over each other and I just click the channel and change it. The song says ‘Many things are worth the fight, but louder doesn’t make you right. You don’t have to yell.”
“Pardon My Dust,” inspired by a hotel renovation sign, is a snapshot of a life in process. “It says ‘I’m still figuring this out. I’m saying my prayers. I’m in process,’” says Rice. “It ends up with the last line of the song ‘Have patience with me, I’m still sweeping floors, so pardon my dust and I’ll pardon yours.’”
“What a Heart is Beating For” was produced by Monroe Jones whom Rice met when he moved to Nashville during college. “I think the strength that he brings to this are his history with music, the catalog in his mind of amazing music,” says Rice. “He knows me and my quirks. I’ve always done my vocals at his house with his kids are playing with their toys around my feet. Now he has a studio built onto his house, so I do them there. There’s that element that has always made it so casual and laid back and real life to me. It’s not walking into a big sterile studio and trying to pull off some very creative things.”
The title song is a prime example of their creative chemistry. The track soars and swells as the music underscores the poignancy in Rice’s lyric. “It says just take a deep breath and throw open the door, that’s what the heart is beating for,” Rice says. “You are alive and your heart is beating so you can take these risks. You can live and love this way. Whether it’s romantically and you are connected to somebody and give your whole self to them or whether it’s seeing someone in need. You may not get anything in return, but give your whole self anyway. That’s what your heart is beating for, that’s why you are alive.”
Life is risky. Love is risky. Music is at its best when it challenges us to take those risks. “The first time I played this for some of my friends, I heard a young college student friend say under his breath—not intended for me to hear—‘Wow, that makes me want to be a better person,’” recalls Chris, obviously humbled. “That’s why I do this, just hearing that reaction. I hope this song has that impact on a lot of people.”
His recent mainstream success has given Rice the opportunity to share his faith with a hungry world. Of course, believers will still be encouraged by his wit and intellect, but he’s now been blessed with a platform to do more. “I got some letters from people on the website asking ‘What’s wrong with my faith? Why are you doing that?’” he says. “It’s my faith that is compelling me to expand, grow and change. I’m doing this because of how vital and vibrant and important my faith is in affecting every area of my life and affecting how I live my life on the road. I’m living it out in a new way. The success of ‘When Did You Fall?’ has set me free to even more so to do that kind of writing, that kind of music without any hesitations. I have no hesitation in my mind, my heart or my gut.”
