CMZ: You’re just about to release a new album “I Have A Dream (It Feels Like Home)”,
but maybe we can get a little bit of background on you before we get started. How did
The City Harmonic come together as a band?
Elias Dummer: Well, we’re four guys who have known each other for some time and played together in
various bands over the past years. At some point in 2009 we decided to start fresh and
write worship music, but really just try to write music that we loved. That’s what we’ve
been trying to do ever since.
CMZ: Last year you came out with your debut EP, “Introducing The City Harmonic” on
Kingsway, how did you hook up with the label and how have they been treating you so
far?
Elias Dummer: Actually it’s been a fantastic, and very relational, thing – we love it. In fact, we were
just in Colorado Springs hanging out with the team last night! I (Elias) have been a
songwriter for a while and had some friends on the publishing side of things. So, when
we made TCH and recorded our EP, they began to pass it around and we had quite a bit
of interest. In the end we loved Kingsway’s relational and ministry-focused approach.
Not long ago we had a dinner with an exec from the UK, and the entire time all he talked
with us about was ministry and mission stories – he didn’t mention business once.
CMZ: You certainly have a more indie sound than most bands that play in the range of
popular worship music, are you surprised by the radio success that Manifesto had
when it hit or was that something you were really aiming for?
Elias Dummer: To be honest, I’m not sure what “Indie” sound means anymore, but thanks!
Yeah, “Manifesto” took us somewhat by surprise; we had never imagined it to be a radio
single, so the response it’s had has been pretty humbling.
CMZ: Now how about the new album, was it difficult to turn around and write almost a full
new album just about a year after the EP came out?
Elias Dummer: Not necessarily, although we wrote and recorded it within only six months of the EP’s
release. In early 2011 we began to look at our schedule for the year and realized that if
we didn’t write and record the album prior to our first runs in March, that we wouldn’t
have time to do it. So we locked out the studio and brought our producer up for 11 days
and got down to work. It was a long (but rewarding) 11 days, but we’re please with the
result. I personally can’t wait to get this out.
CMZ: What was it about Martin Luther King Jr. and his speeches made them so integral
into the writing of this album, with the title track and “Mountaintop”?
Elias Dummer: In his speech entitled “I Have A Dream” Martin Luther King Jr. called on people to live
up to the promises inherited within the American story – calling out the very foundations
of the country as an inspiration to live by. He spoke of a dream to be shared and he gave
his life for this cause and for Christ, ultimately being assassinated very shortly after
delivering his moving speech, “I’ve Been To The Mountaintop”. He made it clear that he
lived for something bigger than himself, and he fully believed in, and lived and died for,
the story he told.
In a sense, this album, including the songs “I Have A Dream (It Feels Like Home)”
and “Mountaintop”, seeks to ask the same thing of the Church. It’s time to get our story
straight, to live for something bigger than ourselves or even simply our own personal
salvation, and act like what we do here matters. The title track is inspired by the speech,
Revelation 21, and interestingly enough, the Wizard of Oz – which told of a journey to
find an ultimately fraudulent wizard in an effort to be home. We often speak of the idea
of “hopeful nostalgia”, the idea that each of us (Christian or not) wrestle with the feeling
that the world is not as it ought to be – that we don’t feel fully at home. C.S. Lewis talks
about this too, saying, “If I find in myself a desire that no experience in this world can
satisfy, the most probably explanation is that I was made for another world.” What’s
amazing about what the Bible reveals to us about our world, our story, is that it isn’t
simply about what happens to us when we die. It’s a story about our betrayal of a loving
creator and his promise to put things back together despite our many shortcomings. It’s
a story of Jesus giving of himself for others and now asking us to do the same in his
strength. It’s a story that begins with God and creation fully united, and ends the same
way. But for now, we live life in between. Ultimately, this is our best effort at an album
of longing, hope and love for the life lived in between – the story of a now-but-not-yet
people looking through a glass darkly and eagerly anticipating the day we’ll, altogether
standing in the Son-light, finally feel at home.
CMZ: You’ve been on tour lately with Aaron Gillespie, Co-Headlining the HELLO
SOMEBODY tour, how has that been treating you?
Elias Dummer: It’s been a lot of fun! What excites me most about it is just being able to help HELLO
SOMEBODY get out there and tell its story. It’s a perfect example of exactly what we’re
talking about, using the little things God gives us to do to make a big difference in the
world. Thanks guys! Grace and Peace.
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