Producer and composer PHIL BAGGALEY was interviewed by Mike Rimmer.

Phil Baggaley

Mike: Tell me about the concept for 'Still Small Voice'. How did that come about?

Phil: The 'Still Small Voice' project is for us very much a separate and different thing to our previous more 'concept' albums 'City Of Gold' and 'Shipwrecks & Islands'. We would do a City Of Gold gig in our home town and found this was a great opportunity to invite our non-Christian friends along, then a year would slip by before we did the next big S & I concert where we would invite them again, but there was nothing happening in-between. We decided to launch a regular event in our home town to try and share our faith with our friends. The event was called Still Small Voice to try and assure people that it wasn't going to be an aggressive 'hard sell' but a more gentle presentation of the Christian message. The three CD collection was material written for these events along with extended sleevenotes which contain some of the poetry readings and prayers that were also part of these evenings -definitely not a plan for world domination but just trying to address a need in our own town.

Mike: From the Proust quote on the sleeve, is it simply that you're trying to inspire people to see with fresh eyes of hope, faith and love?

Phil: I first came across the quote from Proust emblazoned on the side of the Natural History Museum. It just struck me as profound and at the time we were putting stuff together for the 'Still Small Voice' project I thought it encapsulated in a few words what we were trying to achieve. For people outside the Church, that they may take a look beyond the religious facade to find the real Jesus. For those of us in the Church that we might break through this religious facade so people can begin to see the real Jesus.

Mike: Do you think that the Church can sometimes suffer from faith fatigue and we really need God to speak softly and intimately into our hearts?

Phil: I can only speak on a personal level - I am in constant need of the still small voice of God to speak intimately into my life, which is probably where a lot of these songs have come from.

Mike: Is there one particular song that really sums up the whole album for you?

Phil: I love all the songs for different reasons. If I had to choose one I think it would be "Let The People Know". It was the first song written for the project along with Jon and proved to be the catalyst for the whole thing and the first couple of lines seem to sum up what we've tried to set out to do: "Let the people know there's a smile upon God's face/For every tribe and every nation, every colour, every race..."

Mike: Interesting idea to split the tracks into three sections and three CDs. Why not place them on one single CD?

Phil: Because there were 15 songs sung by three different singers - Mai Pope, Julie Costello and Jon Bowen - on three different subjects we thought it would be a smart and different way of dividing them up. The idea was along with the extended sleevenotes to make each CD an entity in itself which could be enjoyed for listening's sake or used along with the readings and prayers as a resource for home groups or even for people to make use of the material and launch their own Still Small Voice event. On top of all that we like to be different!

Mike: Jon Bowen is a new name to a lot of people. Tell me about him.

Phil: The philosophy of Gold Records is that it is very much a team effort and it is the chemistry of talents and friendships that makes the whole thing work. Jon has been playing percussion on the C of G gigs and is also a worship leader at the Community Church in Derby. Just as friends we started writing together last year about the same time as I was discussing the possibility of Still Small Voice gigs at the Flowerpot with another good friend, Michael Mitton. Both, along with the regular gang at Gold, were very instrumental in getting this whole project off the ground. Jon, apart from doing his own CD, was responsible for co-writing much of the album.