Links...
Did You Know?
Shaun Groves has toured with Jars of Clay, Jennifer Knapp, Bebo Norman and Avalon.
"I hope Twilight can encourage each person who hears it to look at every facet of their life and choose sunlight over darkness, choose to follow Christs way of thinking and not their own." - Shaun Groves
Shaun Groves
We got to meet Shaun Groves recently and chatted about music, culture, and theology...
MQ: Can you tell us a little bit about your musical background?
Shaun: We didn't ever really listen to music in my house. It's kind of weird. We had a Bill Cosby record and an Elvis record and that's it! (laughing) Oh, we had Buddy Holly 'cause we're from Texas so you've got to listen to Buddy Holly. I didn't come from a musical background at all. I never sang as a kid. I never dreamed of standing on the stage with a guitar. It just sort of snuck up on me. In middle school, I started playing the saxophone just cause I had to have an elective. And we had an old saxophone in the attic that an aunt or uncle would play. So, I did that. In high school, Chicago, Richard Marx, and all these love song guys started happening and they were all playing piano so I thought, 'You know, I bet my date life would improve if I could play the piano.' So I started playing piano by ear and of course it didn't work at all for me. I still had a hard time on Friday nights. And in college I studied music composition and religion and started picking up a little bit of guitar here and there. After that, I moved to Nashville and worked for a publishing company for a while and did all kinds of things. I sold electronics at night - worked for free at this publishing company - basically just a gopher - and I was a janitor at my church. I did all kinds of jobs. I was trying to write songs for other people. I felt like I was writing pretty decent songs - they eventually made it on my records - but people weren't interested in recording them. Finally, someone said, 'We'd like to help you do this on your own - we'd like you to sing it,' which was weird because no one ever told me I had a good voice. Even when I sang in church they'd tell me, 'That was a good song,' and I'd go, 'Okay'...(laughing) So, that's what I do. I don't consider myself a great musician. I write songs and that is what I'm good at. No one else will record them so it's kind of left up to me...you know? (laughing)
MQ: Talking about song writing, where do you go to to find inspiration?
Shaun: Man, I get that question a lot - like from young songwriters. I know I asked that question a lot too. But, when I asked it I was sort of looking for a formula...'If you can tell me how to make it easier becaus it's so hard.' And there are some writers that have those formulas like, 'I'm going to write every day for an hour and do this or that and I'm going to keep a journal.' I haven't found anything that works. It's just kind of sporadic. I'll go for months and not write. Like, I haven't written anything in probably - four or five months. Then all of a sudden like this week - and it's probably because I'm busy and it always happens at the worst time - I've got all these ideas. It's just really strange. It just happens that way for me. Inspiration comes at the weirdest time. 'Welcome Home' came
while I was redecorating a bathroom and just realizing that that is a great analogy for what it means to grow in our understanding of God - that God replaces my thoughts with His thoughts and sort of 'redecorates' the inside of me in a way. It came from that. It comes from personal struggles. 'Should I Tell Them' came from me feeling completely flawed and just knowing that people I know in my life - who don't believe what I believe - one of their biggest problems with God is the people that follow God...not acting like they believe in God. I just kind of feel, like you know, if the people in my life that aren't Christians hang out with me long enough, I'm going to disappoint them and I'm gonna make God look bad.
So, it's sort of my prayer to God, 'Are you sure you want to work things this way? 
Are you sure you just don't want to talk through a burning bush or something - because I'm going to mess up'...you know? I'm a faulty person. So, it came from that struggle in me, that insecurity. Some of it just comes from different places. A lot of it - songwriting - just comes from being aware, when you just walk
through life. One day when I sit in my front yard and seeing that the sun and the moon were out at the same time and my daughter being freaked out by that fact because that is just not natural. She didn't understand that. That just sparked me to thinking...that's a lot like my life. I'm kind of caught between where I used to be and where I want to be. I'm in between the person I used to be who only wanted to please me. Even when I did good things, it was pretty much so you'd be impressed with me so it still came back to me. And I'm torn between that and who I will be which is someone who only wants to please God...and doesn't care what anyone else thinks. I'm kind of in between those two extremes - like twilight - that time of day that's really not day or night. So, it's just kind of like walking through life being aware and being willing to learn from everything - every person you meet, every struggle you encounter, everything you see in life is a possible lesson.
Songwriting comes from that.