Garth: Workin' for a Living

The four-member, Toledo, Ohio-based rock band, Sanctus Real, is poised for
2008 to be its breakout year. While the band has only received Christian airplay
in recent years, their new album, We Need Each Other, will be released Feb.
12th and may find them gracing the secular charts as well.
“There are several songs that would be very well received by a top 40 audience,”
said frontman Matt Hammitt in a personal interview. “It’s one of those things we
haven’t pushed, but there are several songs that have that potential. I don’t
know if it will happen or not. We’ve been real happy making records for the
Christian market.”

The Dove-Award winning band (Modern Rock Album of the Year) has become a
household name in the Christian market. Sanctus Real has had five number one
hits on the Christian charts since 2004, and their new title release, We Need
Each Other, is currently climbing the charts. But the band hasn’t always been successful. Hammitt formed Sanctus Real when he was 16 – twelve years ago – and they didn’t emerge on the national scene until 2002. Up until that time, Hammitt
worked various jobs.

“I worked at a daycare with 4 and 5 year olds and did telemarketing for a glass
company,” Hammitt said. “I also worked at Chick-Fil-A. In fact, I got my 3 year
pin!”

But Hammitt never gave up on his songwriting or the band. And when Face of
Love was released in 2005, the band gained popularity with three hit songs
including their song Don’t Give Up which was Christian Hit Radio’s number six
most played song of 2007.

“In Face of Love, we were forced to expose all of our feelings – deep emotional
experiences. While we were recording, we were experiencing tough things,” Hammitt said. “Mark’s dad was passing away from cancer. My grandma passed away. Our bass player left the band. We were working with a brand new producer. Everything was chaos. It was a real stretching time. The cool
thing about that was we’ve taken that growth and we’ve carried it on and grown even more.”

Hammit says that their new album, We Need Each Other, marks a completion of that healing process and is a call for unity.
“There’s a longing for something bigger than oneself, a band, a song or a
crowd of concertgoers,” he said. “We need to come together as the body of Christ, unifying to see God’s work done through us. There’s so much
simple truth in the statement, ‘we need each other.’ We can accomplish so much more if we stand together as one.” We Need Each Other is available
in stores and on I-tunes Feb. 12th.

When you are Garth Brooks, the biggest selling individual artist
of all time, bringing out a new CD is a big risk. Expectations are high.
Garth has earned his reputation as a master marketer, and the release of Ultimate Hits did not disappoint. The Ultimate Hits is packed with not just the familiar Garth hits, "Friends In Low Places, The Dance, Unanswered Prayers," but includes four new cuts. In his first studio CD in 10 years, Garth also changed in the way he acquired songs for the CD, going to new writers in Nashville. The first single from the Ultimate Hits was by songwriter Lee Brice, who has been plugging away in Nashville for years. The song "More Than A Memory" made history by being the first and only song in Billboard Magazine, one of the industry trades, to debut at the number one spot on the country chart. Many fans wanted a full blown Garth concert tour, traveling all over the country. To date, Garth has only done a couple of targeted events, in Kansas City and Los Angeles. Garth maintains that he will not do a concert tour as long as his daughters are in school. The girls split time between their two parents homes (which are located across from each other) in Oklahoma. Brooks got a great start on his career playing at the old Toulies in Phoenix multiple times, thanks to the Owens family and KNIX. There was hope Garth may have chosen Phoenix as a place to do his performances. The Ultimate Hits is more than a music CD. Garth cut and included videos for each of the 34 songs that are in the collection.

Included are new videos for several hit songs that originally had no video. There's also an updated version of the Garth classic, "We Shall Be Free" originally written at the time of the Los Angeles racial unrest in the mid 90's. The second new song from the CD collection had Garth team with an old friend Huey Lewis to re-cut the classic "Working For A Livin''. Two more new songs remain on the CD and will possibly see radio airplay late in 2008 and early 2009. The sales of the CD/DVD combination in the Valley have been excellent, as you would expect from Garth. Times may change and delivery systems for getting music to listeners becomes more and more computer driven. There is one constant.