Hudson Taylors: Noel Richards, Brian Houston and Wayne Drain's worship collective

Sunday 1st August 2010

Tony Cummings went to Bridgnorth Baptist to meet up with three worshipping veterans THE HUDSON TAYLORS



Continued from page 2

Noel: Yeah, well God breaks in on the humour, and I mean anything can happen because there are three individuals here, and we are all different personalities, and Brian's more likely to be spontaneous on the humour side, because that's kind of natural for him, and in the midst of all this laughter God suddenly breaks in.

Brian: I think also it's about breaking down walls, and the music does that a bit. There are a couple of things that go on, I think, that when we get up there people don't quite know what to make of us quite often, the sound guy doesn't know what to make of us, because who is the lead singer? One minute it's Wayne, and then Noel, then me, and so it's kind of like challenging different people's stereotypes just from the word go. A lot of people have heard of Noel and the first guy to sing in our set is Wayne and then it's me. So it's song three before Noel has even sung. So already people are like, what's going on? And when the jokes start and the banter starts, then people are not thinking this is not just an ordinary worship thing, these guys are clearly doing something else and they are not sure what that is. Then the music can get heavy and into prophetic style things, and that again breaks down another wall because it's not just three guys doing straight worship songs with acoustic guitars. So we then find it's almost like we turn over the soil and God starts doing stuff, and compared to the sort of stuff that I've done in bars and clubs and stuff like that, this is very obviously ministry. My daughter was at the gig last night and she was saying that - and she has seen me everywhere, she's even seen me worship in church - she thinks that this is [as much] ministry as the other, because this is a very real connection to the people because it's bringing something to the people; Wayne's prophesying, he's involving us in that, there are a lot of things going on.

Tony: Of course expanding that idea about breaking down the walls, one of the difficulties is that we've had decades now of the church engaging in worship in what we know define as "modern worship." Hasn't it all got a bit formulaic?

Noel: I think again it's about modelling something. Brian raised the point earlier, this whole cult of celebrity that we've got in our country at the moment. Everybody wants to be famous. You go, "Well, what do you want to be famous for?" and they go, "Well, err, I just want to be famous." I think as the Hudson Taylors, the three of us together are actually greater than the sum of the parts. We're not too fussed about who's taking the lead and who is backing. It's throwing down a challenge to all that worship-leader-as-celebrity nonsense. It's not about who is getting the most solo spots, it's actually as somebody once said, whoever has got the ball, scores the goal.

Wayne: Well, I was thinking how practical the whole Hudson Taylors thing is. We've all put it together, we do all the administration, all the planning, the PA, the calling the organisers, all that. We decided to come together so we just thought, let's just stay at Noel and Trisha's house, that saves a lot of money for the hotels. Brian has got a van, and we thought, well bring it over and we'll take his van. And I'm coming in, just hoping I can get my air fare out of it! The day before I left home some friends come up and said, "We're gonna pay your air fare," and they just laid the money at my feet. So the grand administration is so much better and easier and organic, and we can all do it. But then you just watch it unfold and God is blessing us in 100 different ways: we are able to be together, write songs, Trisha is tremendous with hospitality and she's been taking care of us and feeding us like kings and here we are.

Brian: I think it is also true to say that our entertainment is an act of worship. God has made me an entertainer and that is my day job. So we offer that up as well.

Tony: Is there going to be a Hudson Taylors live album?

Wayne: We're thinking about doing a live album. I kind of feel, just on my own, in my spirit, that we will do some more things, and I feel that we were made to do a lot of albums. But how do we do that when nobody is buying CDs? No companies can put money into us. Again, it's like, if God wants it then it will just fall into place.

Noel: It's interesting, as one of the last things we did in 2003 was a conference in Canada. It was kind of funny really because there were quite a lot of well-known worship leaders there who were all with their bands doing stuff. There were a couple of interesting things that happened. Delirious? showed up. They were just about to release an album and on that album was the song "Majesty", and they were doing a concert in Toronto. Stuart and Martin just turned up for lunch one day, they just stuck their heads in to say hello to everybody and then leave. The organisers were like, well would you just do a song on your own, so Stuart and Martin got up with two guitars and they sang "Majesty" acoustically, and all I can say is a presence of God came down. I remember Wayne whispering to me, "I wouldn't like to be so-and-so following this," no names mentioned, but it was like we were taken into worship by two guys on guitars. We didn't have a band, just three guitars, and actually, we didn't do anything off the album. We basically played old hymns, because we got into a lot of old hymns at that time. And they connected with people. Actually we sold a tonne of CDs and I thought, an album of all hymns done like this would be fantastic. But obviously, that's another idea. We are just modelling something that is ancient and modern, the freshness of the old, done in the way we do it.

Tony: What are your thoughts about the commercialisation of modern worship and songwriters trying hard to write the next CCLi hit?

Brian: I think also you've got to remember that ever since '93, everybody has wanted to write a worship song, called something like "I Could Sing Of Your Love Over The Mountains And The Sea In Christ Alone". I think worship songwriters need to focus on how much of this are they in it for themselves? It's fine being an artist, I'm very much an artist, I enjoy that. But what the Lord has been doing in me is that, for a long time I served my artistic impulse more than I served the pastor of my church or the elders of my congregation. I often got up to lead worship with an artistic impulse. And still, I will always be wired towards that, because it's in me. But God has tampered with that idea. I'm there to serve, and that even when I write a song, it's there to serve the congregation. I think that if the focus is different than that then maybe God will destroy the music industry. I'm not saying this will happened. But the Church has got to stop thinking about being rock stars and start thinking about serving.

Noel: What I'm trying to remind people is that when Trish and I started doing this, there wasn't really a market, we never dreamed that our songs would travel. As Brian says, we were primarily writing for the local church in those days. At that time when I was thinking of making albums, it was much more thinking about contemporary Christian music, because that was what was happening in the '80s. Worship songs were like the poor relation of mainstream Christian music. I was trying to write story songs that would go with what was being preached, and get people thinking about what they had been listening to. We were very surprised when "All Heaven Declares" became such a popular song. I was like, it's good, but it's not as good as some of the other stuff. But we sang it, and suddenly it connected with people. We didn't try to write a big song, I was just playing it and Trish walked into the bedroom and felt there was something special about it. She does that occasionally, when she hears something she'll say, "Oh we've got to write something." We weren't sure it was special, we just wrote. So I would encourage people to get back to that, to get back to writing songs as an expression of their heart, not how can I write the next big worship song. Also to get people back to writing stories, because that is an act of worship as well. There are a million places where people can play. I heard of one Christian artist who is doing a tour, I think, of Costa Coffee shops, and that's what she is doing. There are other things as well, I have heard of people hosting concerts in their lounges and inviting their neighbours in and you get like 20, 25 people in to hear a little set of songs. I just love that because it's getting music back to the people. It's not all about touring and stadiums.

Brian: I think that is true. Like Robin Mark and Delirious? and people like that. They started when there wasn't a Christian music industry. With Robin, it was just him running his business, leading worship three times on a Sunday at our church and when he wrote songs, the motivation was that he needed a song for next week so he had better write something. He was writing them based on our pastor's sermons. And that was about eight years before the album 'The Days Of Elijah'. It was probably five years before the idea that you could achieve an income through worship songs. I produced Robin's first album and I remember thinking "it's just a worship album." Worship was treated, as Noel said, as a poor relation. A while back worship albums were produced with big choral vocals and were definitely not cool, but somewhere along the line that changed. For Delirious?, they were a worship band who played every Saturday night in Littlehampton, at the Cutting Edge youth club, writing songs that appealed to teenagers. They weren't a global band. So it's that idea that we serve in a secret place, we serve in a small place. Then if God chooses to grow it, then fine.

Wayne: Talking about motivation, my dad died back in January and it was kind of a sudden thing, and you deal with all the things you do, but I realised that I had no idea what anybody else who has lost somebody close to them has felt. As a pastor I would try and encourage other people and comfort them, but I'd never experienced it myself. One of the things that got me through was just looking at Hebrews and the great cloud of witnesses that book talks about. The comfort that came out of that. I just wanted to write a song that helps people in that situation, because there are a lot of walking wounded around. Noel has a tune, titled "All The Saints", it's not finished, we're not going to do it tonight. I hope it is a great song, and I hope a lot of people sing it. But the motivation for me is born out of wanting to write something for people who are going through those kinds of things, to take some courage from the song, to help people realise we are all part of it, that there is eternity and we are just here for a little bit of time. So a lot of times my motivation for writing things is like that. Then getting round these guys, they are so talented, and we put our heads together about this song. I keep telling them, come on guys let's finish this song, because I want to take it out and sing it.

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Reader Comments

Posted by Tom Autry, SSR-0001 in Fort Worth, Texas @ 23:33 on Aug 9 2010

Was wondering from whence came the name.
Kinda makes me, also. wonder from when came the name Wayne Drain?
Great interview! Great group!



Posted by Jamie O Dwyer in Dar es Salaam Tanzania @ 15:33 on Aug 9 2010

great to hear of your tour and HudsonTaylors back again. Why not think of an African tour?



Posted by Karl-Arthur Rauxloh in Hanover @ 18:05 on Aug 2 2010

great interview. luv it...



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