Nathan Cochran of Christian rock band MercyMe talks about working with Gloria Gaynor, Gary LeVox

Isaac Hamlet, Des Moines Register
·3 min read
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Of all the touring bands that had to stay home during the height of the pandemic and are now coming through Des Moines, MercyMe may well have been the most prolific during the downtime.

"When everything shut down in March of 2020, we realized we needed to settle in at home a little bit," recalled Nathan Cochran, the bassist for the Christian rock band.

Though Cochran doesn't think COVID-19 affected the lyrics and songs the group wrote, it seems to have had an influence on the sheer number of songs created.

“Funny enough, probably about half the record that we’ve done — if it had 10 songs on it — we'd probably written about 13," he said. “(This time) we ended up writing somewhere between 40 and 50 songs."

At 7 p.m. on April 30, Cochran and the other members of MercyMe will play Des Moines' Wells Fargo Arena, 233 Center St., a stop that comes roughly a week after a 7 p.m., April 24 visit to Alliant Energy PowerHouse, 370 First Ave. NE, in Cedar Rapids.

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Special guests Rend Collective — a Christian folk-rock band — and pop-rock performer Andrew Ripp join the band.

MercyMe, originally formed in Oklahoma, has become famous over their long career for songs like "I Can Only Imagine" and "Homesick," as well as a variety of Christmas song covers.

Both Iowa appearances are part of MercyMe's "Inhale (Exhale)" tour, named for the group's latest album, which was released last year with 16 songs on it.

MercyMe
MercyMe

Cochran loves "Say I Won't," about Gary Miracle, a longtime friend of the band who supported the group early in its existence, selling merchandise and drive the tour bus. The song "Say I Won't" — which lyrically speaks to getting a new perspective on life following adversity while emphasizing achievements yet to be made — and its music video pay tribute to his struggle, which began on New Year's Eve of 2019 when he had to be airlifted to a hospital.

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"Miracle went into septic shock. That led to him having all four of his limbs amputated," Cochran said. In the video for the song, Miracles puts on his prosthetic arms for the first time, learns how to write again and says he will one day walk again.

"We were extremely grateful that Gary allowed us to tell this story in the video," Cochran said.

While the other songs on the album may not have been as emotional in origin as "Say I Won't," the band still has others to thank for making many of those pieces possible since guest artists such as disco icon Gloria Gaynor and Sam Wesley, the son of Bart Millard, MercyMe's lead singer. According to Cochran, Gary LeVox — of Rascal Flatts fame — was someone the group had wanted to work with for years. They sing "A Little Love" together on the new album.

Cochran said the songs MercyMe wrote for the collaborations gave the band an opportunity to create a sound that skewed more toward those artists' genres.

“We worked on a disco song and asked (Gaynor) to sing on it and she said yes," Cochran said. "What do you say to that? You’ve got the queen of disco on your album.”

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Tickets for MercyMe's Des Moines event range from $17 to $77.50 and can be found through iowaeventscenter.com. Tickets for the Cedar Rapids appearance range from $15 to $82.50 through ticketmaster.com.

More upcoming concerts in Des Moines

Isaac Hamlet covers arts, entertainment and culture at the Des Moines Register. Reach him at ihamlet@gannett.com or 319-600-2124, or follow him on Twitter @IsaacHamlet.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Christian rock band MercyMe performs in Des Moines at Wells Fargo