MICAH L. JONES
On February 23rd we traveled to Off The Wagon in Montgomery, Alabama to interview Paul McCoy of 12 Stones. For over forty-five minutes he spoke with us. He is the most down to earth guy that can easily be your best buddy. He is one of the most genuine people we have been blessed to meet in our lifetimes. When he speaks of his family you just feel the love that is overflowing from him for his daughter who is the apple of his eye. To call his band Christian or Secular is just an unimportant point. He is a Christian in a Rock band that has a vast positive influence on people from all walks of life. His music is powerful with heart driven lyrics and a sound that can touch your soul or just make you want to get up and have some fun. 12 Stones put on a positive and electrifying performance. Paul McCoy is the real deal.
Prophet Newz: The current album that you’ve got out “Anthem For The Under Dog,” is it as successful as the first two so far?
Paul McCoy: For us we feel like it is going to be, but it’s still so young in the life of that record that we’re still just now getting to the second single and having all the conversations with the label. We find out that it’s a… that they have no idea of stopping anytime soon so, we have the idea that it’s gonna grow and be much bigger than the other two but, it’s definitely nice to have the first two out there to kind of get our name out there, it definitely helps.
Prophet Newz: On this new CD are there any songs that are particularly personal to you, that have a story behind it?
Paul McCoy: You know for some of these songs I just tried to write, I’ve always tried to write about experiences, not that I’ve just had but, that I’ve seen with other people and this record for me… the song on there would be “World So Cold”. It’s one of the songs we had the music for a little while but never really had the topic that seemed to fit the music. Then I was walking by the TV in Memphis one day while we were there making the record and I saw something about a guy that had shot about five people, and I was like “man, what does it take for somebody to be a normal husband, brother, father, whatever it is and somehow a switch gets flipped and all of a sudden now there taking life,” and it kind of made me question what makes a human lose all self respect… respect of life and so, I kind of just sat down went in the room, started singing along with the music we had and the first verse… and the first pre-chorus of that song, just one take came out, wrote it down and was like “ouhh” like, I felt drained because I finally got something out again that was really significant. So that would be the one for me.
Prophet Newz: Now, there are five members of your band right now? Are all the members Christians?
Paul McCoy: Uh, actually, to be completely honest with you I don’t think so. My drummer grew up in a pretty bizarre upbringing as far as spiritually. I grew up Southern Baptist so, I mean, I spent a lot of time in youth group, youth choir and all that. So, the same with Eric and I think Justin too.
Prophet Newz: So the one that is not a Christian, how does he fit in all that? Is he all right with—
Paul McCoy: Yeah, I mean he understands like, you know… I mean first and foremost— and this is something we’ve always said—we’re a rock band and we just happen to have really… like myself, I have a lot of my lyrics, a lot of my background and my beliefs come through in the music and uh… these guys genuinely believe in what we do and there’s people that come up to us that say you know “I was listening to your record, I was having a rough time, I listened to your record and it helped me spiritually.” And then you get the other side of the coin where there are people that come up and just say they don’t get the Christian message out of the music, they just get “hey man I was listening to this song it changed my life, I was about to kill myself and I didn’t”. So, the guys in the band realize that there’s two sides to it, there’s people that can take your music spiritually and it helps them grow spiritually, and it helps them understand a little bit spiritually. It’s a lot like questions in my music… in my music that I write about. It’s about things that I don’t understand and things that… so it kind of helps balance that out from people that are… Christians get a lot out of it and people that aren’t Christians seem to still get a lot out of it.
Prophet Newz: In our research in preparing for this interview we read a quote from you,—whether it’s true or not—it said that you did not want to be known as a Christian rock band. Can you explain that?
Paul McCoy: Uh, I don’t think I was saying that we did not want to be known as a Christian rock band. Our biggest problem is that people come and say, “Are you a Christian band or are you not a Christian band because if you are we are going to listen to you, if you’re not we are not going to listen to you.” It’s like man we’re a band and it’s not that we’re a Christian band or aren’t a Christian band, it’s like I said a minute ago, if there’s people on the Christian side of it that really relate and want to listen to it that’s… that’s what we want, you know. We definitely embrace that there’s people that aren’t Christian that listen to us and we definitely embrace that too so, I find a lot of times and this is just something I have seen over the years that a lot of times… that people come and you know, they’re very religious and they come and say “you guys are a Christian band,” you say “no, we are a rock band” then immediately everything they ever heard in our music, everything they ever thought of our music… goes out the window. They don’t want anything to do with us because now we’re not who they thought we were. It’s like “five minutes ago, before you asked me that question you were a fan and it meant something to you and it still touched you spiritually.” I grew up in the church so a lot of my lyrics are very, very spiritually oriented. As for the rest of the guys in the band who don’t necessarily do lyrics, don’t do all this, it’s not… it’s not their… you know, it’s not their forte, they don’t have the same ideas, so it just, just… it becomes frustrating when people base everything they think about you based on you know, what you believe. It’s like I always come up to them and say “do you only use Christian plumbers to fix your plumbing when something is wrong?” “Do you only use Christian gardeners,” I mean, I understand that we have a very valid voice and very valid point to be in front of people and say what we say so we… I don’t ever curse on stage I don’t ever… we try to be as positive and as open as real people as we can so it’s a very fine line for a lot of people and you know, it’s very tough when people come to you and like “oh well, you know you’re not doing praise and worship songs in the middle of the set so I’m not”…. We ended up headlining a Christian tour, us, Grits, Skillet, Pillar, and all the other bands come out and do their praise and worship set in the middle of their set and it’s like, all right cool, these kids are in to it. Well, we have never done that and it wasn’t… it’s not that we are stubborn or not, it’s just we’ve never done that, we just come out and do our rock show; we would come out every night and we would get all the questions, “well you know you didn’t say Jesus twenty times tonight, you didn’t do this” and it’s like man, I know cause I’m not going to come up just because I’m at a Christian show… I’m not going to come up and start raising my hands and singing hallelujah because the next time you see me and I’m not playing a Christian show I’m not going to do that so, I’m not going to come in here and be fake and say “oh yeah” you know, and do all the stuff that all the other bands do just because that’s the environment we are in cause that makes me a liar, that makes me feel like I’m not doing what I’m here to do.
Prophet Newz: Why do you think that a lot of your songs have been used by main stream media for films and the like?
Paul McCoy: I don’t know, I think they just see uh… I think the emotions of how we write kind of come across, I mean the new Rambo movie they wanted to use the “World So Cold” song at the end of the movie all the way up until the day before the movie came out, it was in the movie and the day before they said “you know what, it was the only song in the movie to begin with, there was really no need for it,” so they pulled it. We still got to go to the premiere…. The World’s Strongest Man on ESPN used one of our songs as their theme song. I just think that the emotions that we put into the song kind of carry over people, people in the movie industry and the… the TV industry, they see these songs, they hear them and it makes them think something like “okay, wow this can really emotionally connect to someone.” Actually, the title track from the album, “Anthem For The Underdog” that song is going to be used in the new movie Never Back Down, it’s kind of like a fight club movie, it’s kind of about the UFC training marshal arts; they’re going to use that in commercials and actually in the movie too so, that will… like our fifth or sixth movie to be a part of so, it’s going to be pretty cool.
Prophet Newz: With the success that you’ve had, do you consider yourself successful or if you don’t what’s it going to take for you to say “hey, we’re successful now?”
Paul McCoy: Umm, emotionally I feel like I’m very well invested in this band, very successful in that I’ve had several people come up to me and just shake my hand crying, saying “you saved my life and it’s all because I… maybe I had a rough day one day” and I sat with my guitar and put something down and then we’re fortunate enough to be in a position where I can take that music and go to a real studio and produce it and make it sound good and when people hear it a lot of times—so many occasions that I can’t even name them but—people come up just tears in hand, hugging you saying “I don’t know why I happened to turn the radio on at that time, I don’t know why I happened to hear the CD at a friends house, but what ever it was, that all… that lined up, I’m still here, I didn’t overdose, I didn’t do this, I didn’t, and a lot people… a lot of people that were drug addicts quit doing drugs because they got some kind of meaning so, for me that makes me feel successful. I won a Grammy in 2003. I can some how still keep my light bills on for my wife and daughter so that, that’s how I can judge success… is that I don’t have to go flip burgers and you know, if I have to be away from my family I want it to be worth something, I want to help people, I want to have a good time, I want everything to pay itself off and then that way when I’m done I mean, I’m only twenty-six and I’ve got three records out so, by the time I’m done I want to look back and just go “man, what a ride that was” you know. So far everything’s just been… I feel like I’ve been very, very successful you know, I travel with my best friends every day, see the country and meet a lot of cool people.
Prophet Newz: Well, actually you kind of touched on this earlier but, in your concerts do you ever mention God or do altar calls or anything like that?
Paul McCoy: No, we don’t do altar calls you know, I do… I do mention God here and there, not that I don’t want to just… that like I said before not everybody in the band is a Christian and as soon as you start doing that you start getting a lot of people coming up with “oh you’re a Christian band.” That subject for us becomes… becomes tough because I mean, that’s one of the main things we’ve dealt with from day one is Christian or non-Christian and I’ve always been like “listen to it, you have the ability as a person to listen to an album take what… take what you want from it” and you know, it kind of becomes frustrating and people overlook the fact that I said before like I said I touched on it a little bit before when someone comes to you as a fan and then says Christian or not Christian and you say what do you think and then they just… it’s like I shouldn’t have to tell you if you can take the message out of it and that’s for you to do and if you don’t hear a message in it then that’s…. Our songs are open for interpretation for you to take what you want, for one person it could be a song about a love song to his girlfriend, for the next person it could be a song about his relationship with God and one person it could be a relationship with a drug addiction, it could be… someone could take the words to the song and put the pieces together how they want, I feel like I rob people when I say a “well, the song is not about that this song is not about this it’s”… I want you to come in and listen to the record and say “well, I know what this songs about, I know what that song is about.” That’s one of the smartest things I ever heard Eddie Vetter say was “wasn’t to be a rock star or to be in Vegas,” it was… he just said “what’s the song about what’s it about to you” and that that one comment was like that’s what its about man I want you to come in and find out what the song means to you. If it has spiritual meaning that’s great, that’s what I want you to take from it and that’s obviously something you need to hear in your life cause that’s the first direction your mind goes. So you know we obviously don’t do altar calls cause we are not that type of band. We also have no problem with people coming up to us after the show and saying “hey man I want to talk to you about a couple of things” and they come up on their own on a need to come and talk, and we definitely don’t shut anybody out and we have those conversations.
Prophet Newz: What’s the most touching story you’ve heard from a fan as a result of your music?
Paul McCoy: Uh, so many of them….
Prophet Newz: I was going to say from the way you’ve already talked it sounds like you’ve got a lot.
Paul McCoy: There’s a guy… I’ll tell you this there’s a guy, an older guy, uh probably late fifties I would say okay, had a couple of boys… uh was a recovering heroine addict and was driving his car and had the radio off, crying, driving down the road ready to just pump himself full of it and be done and he said he just went to turn the radio on just to blare it so he could be numb to everything, and just shoot up… be over with it he turned it on and our song, “The Way I Feel” came on… which it’s a, it’s just a song about having a terrible day knowing that even though today is terrible, tomorrow has the potential to be a whole new, brand new, exciting thing. He said he was cranking it, he was going to crank it just to blast out and some of the lyrics started hitting him. You know and threw the syringe out the window! Last time he ever used, and comes to our shows anytime we are in his area. Clean, he got his weight back; he got back involved in church, back involved with his family. So it took a guy from the edge of just ready, ready to drive off a cliff for… for whatever reason, for whatever time that song got played on that radio when he flipped it on. He’s still here. He made a full recovery from what I’ve known from the times that I have talked to him afterwards. So it’s moments like that you really, you realize it’s not drugs, sex, and rock n’ roll man, it’s rock n’ roll… it’s, it’s…. I love what I do, I grew up singing in the church choir, I grew up singing. My mom is a phenomenal singer. I listened to her. My dad knew four or five songs on the guitar which when I was a little kid sounded like he knew everything about the guitar, so I watched my Dad and my Mom. I grew up… I love music. I love having the ability to look out in the crowd and see people sing stuff, and closing their eyes and just going with the song, and it’s a… those are the moments when people come up to you and just say “hey look, you really had a huge affect on me”; not because not… not some little kid going “you guys are hot, you guys are a cute band,” some legitimate life changing situation has happened because I have the ability to jump around and scream and throw water on people. They get something out of it.
Prophe Newz: So I guess you’re not the Jonas Brothers? (Vague laughter)
Paul McCoy: (Laughter) No, no. My daughter, my daughter jams to the Jonas Brothers and is singing Hannah Montana in her sleep now so….
(Laughter)
Prophet Newz: We have some of those at home too. Umm, when you started the band way back when did you have support from your family?
Paul McCoy: Still, it was bizarre, my Dad is a police officer and my mom is a stay at home mom and I did great in high school as far as making friends. I did great in high school as far as making friends with teachers and uh… did not do great in high school with my grades, not because I didn’t get it, I made straight A’s on every test and made great ACT scores. I’m a smart kid. I just, I never believed in repetition of learning like writing my spelling words fifty times. I just, I didn’t do it. So, I took the bad grade on that and all those little missed assignments from I’m not doing that, I’m not doing this, I’m writing lyrics, I’m doing all this kind of… kind of changed. So, when I got out of high school, I went and got my GED and decided to go to college. I went to about half a semester of college, then I went home one day and told my parents I’m going to drop out of school and join a rock band. My parents were obviously like “oh here we go the life…” and then eight months later I actually got a record deal and came home with my first $100,000 check! And I said “Is it cool now, is this a real job now?” And my Dad and my Mom are still on our message board everyday talking to fans. I mean, actually, at this very moment… I just called my mom. She is baby sitting my daughter. I just called her and they are at our number one fan’s house having a cookout right now. They’ve made all these friends from our web site and now there is this community of about thirty people that my parents invite over for dinner and they just hang out all the time. They all met on the 12 Stones web site. It’s like I’m making friends for my parents now… they’re going out, having a good time and as we speak right now they’re at a big 12 stones barbecue.
Prophet Newz: Your Mom doesn’t live in Florida does she?
Paul McCoy: Uh… no.
Prophet Newz: Ah, darn!
PROPHET NEWZ 2008
CONTINUE TO PART TWO
