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“It feels like we have some records left in us. Perhaps we aren’t
quite done yet.” Matt Slocum, principal songwriter and founder of
Sixpence None the Richer, one of the most successful pop acts of the
last decade, is sitting at the kitchen table in his East Nashville
home. He is contemplating the return of the band he and his musical
partner Leigh Nash shuttered over six years ago. Nash, sitting just
across the table, immediately agrees and adds her own punctuation.
“The only reason you’d want to get back into it is if you felt you had
something to say.”

In 1992 Matt Slocum and Leigh Nash started their musical journey in
their home town of New Braunfels, Texas. Inspired by the great author
C.S. Lewis and his classic book, Mere Christianity, Slocum dubbed the
project Sixpence None the Richer. Additional musicians were gathered.
Low budget, but spirited records were assembled, and a small, devoted
cadre of fans began to discover this graceful, dynamic and eloquent
little band. A few hundred concerts and a few band members later
Sixpence landed a deal with Nashville label Squint Entertainment, an
imprint of Warner Brothers. Their 1997 self-titled album came, almost
literally, out of nowhere to earn a Grammy nomination, a Dove Award
and widespread critical acclaim, as its lead single “Kiss Me”
dominated radio charts, reaching the #1 spot in ten countries and
achieving absolute ubiquity in the US. From church basements and white
cargo vans to David Letterman, MTV and the top of the Billboard charts
in a short six years. It’s the kind of long slow overnight success
that kills most artists. Sixpence was no exception. In 2004, after
scoring three additional radio hits and having their songs land in
major films and ad campaigns, Slocum and Nash packed up the tent and
shut down the show.

“It’s pretty simple,” Slocum explains. “We needed a break.” Their
musical adventure had started as a quest to make meaningful music that
contemplated life in a broken world through the lens of faith, in a
language accessible to all. Once the world discovered their little
song, though, the gig changed. Constant touring and promoting singles
left them frustrated and sent their personal lives into disarray. “The
time that we have actually spent music-making has been relatively
little compared to the time we’ve been at this,” Slocum emphasizes. “A
lot of our time was spent being a pop band on a major label trying to
‘break’ a single. In the span of thirteen years we have just four
albums. Would it have been cooler to have made an album every year and
keep growing? We didn’t even get to do that much of what we set out to
do in the first place. It just blew up into this thing.”

Slocum started a new progressive pop group called The Astronaut
Pushers and became a sought after cellist in the Nashville music
scene. Nash began a solo career and focused on developing her
songwriting skills with some of the biggest names in the business.
Though the repercussions of their foray into the pop stratosphere
included significant personal pain and brokenness, in time real life
came back into focus. Then in 2007 Slocum started thinking that maybe
it was time to dip his toe back into the water. “Maybe we should have
called it a hiatus instead of just breaking up,” he says.

Towards the end of an extended honeymoon in Europe Slocum called Nash
to see how she might feel about trying to re-start the engines. She
was very receptive. “Putting out a solo record made me miss every part
of being in a band – being in this band,” she admits. When Slocum
returned from Europe the two met and decided to attempt a re-start of
the band. This time, though, things would be different. Soon after
that meeting Sixpence was invited to head out on a tour promoting
Bono’s One Campaign. “We thought it would be really cool to do that
tour,” Slocum explains. “We definitely wanted to have some new music
for it, so we went into the studio really quickly and recorded an
independent EP with producer Daniel Tashian.” Though the tour ended up
falling through, it had very quickly motivated the two to ramp the
band back up. They re-connected with long-time bassist Justin Cary and
discovered some new musicians in Nashville, namely drummer Will Sayles
and pianist Cason Cooley. “We’ve been re-learning the process over the
last two years,” he adds. “Putting a great band together and writing
new songs. I think we needed these two years to know what we wanted to
do.”

After the digital release of their independent EP, My Dear Machine,
the band started to perform live, both around Nashville and at
festivals, and on small tours around the world. They followed with
2008’s independently released Christmas LP The Dawn of Grace.
After months of writing, Slocum and Nash spent a considerable amount
of time considering who they would tap to produce the new record. “We
really stressed out about the producer,” Slocum admits, “because we
knew it was such a crucial decision. We knew that we needed somebody
that would really take the reigns and push us… to not let us fall into
what we would just sort of naturally do. We wanted to pick somebody we
could really trust.” On their dream list was the legendary Jim Scott,
the much celebrated genius behind Wilco’s albums, a favorite of both
Slocum and Nash, as well as many of the most important records of the
last 30 years. “I knew Jim Scott,” Slocum says, “but I had no idea how
many records he had worked on. It turns out his discography was pretty
much my listening experience from about sixth grade on.” Names like
Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, Cracker
and a few more obscure faith-fueled artists that influenced Slocum
early on, like Tonio K. and Vigilantes of Love rocketed Scott to the
top of their list. They met, and Jim enthusiastically agreed to
produce the album.

The band road-tripped from Nashville to Los Angeles to make the
record, and enjoyed every minute of it. From Scott’s state-of-the-art
equipment and engineering prowess, to the hyper-creative and
consistently laid-back ambience of his space, Slocum and Nash crawled
down the creative rabbit hole with great abandon. “The vision for this
record, from the beginning, was to capture great band performances and
to get Leigh’s voice properly recorded and positioned in each song,”
Slocum explains. “Most of our records have been very heavily
orchestrated. There was just so much stuff on there. Jim was very
enthusiastic and encouraging about our past work, but he said that a
lot of what we had done sounded like music with singing on top of it.
I thought that assessment was right on.”

Slocum and Nash showed up at the studio committed to the band they had
been playing with for two years. Half of the songs they brought had
been developed on the road in front of live audiences, and half were
simple acoustic demos. Scott and the band took the arrangements and
deconstructed them together, re-building them in the studio. “I felt
like I was in production school,” Slocum explains. “We played a lot
less on this record, but got better performances. It was a very
inspiring environment sonically.”

Nash enjoyed the experience so much, she didn’t want it to end. “If
things ever got tense or frustrated we just took a break,” she adds.
“And the way they built the tracks around my vocals was just
wonderful. We’ve never done it that way. And every instrumental track
is so tasty. There are no wasted parts.” On her last day of recording,
she literally broke down. “When we left on the last night we were
driving away and I completely lost it. I was bawling like a baby. I
love him. He’s amazing.” In the end both Slocum and Nash agree that
Jim Scott not only captured their best performances, he helped them
re-connect with what they love most about making music.

The resulting tracks unfold as pure Sixpence; melancholy mixed with
romance; pain wrapped up in grace. Themes of brokenness, confusion and
failure amble around encouraging words and pleas for mercy. The
opening song, “Radio,” captures a perfectly catchy pop melody as it
tells the story of an estranged couple hearing “their song” on the
radio and processing the flood of memories the tune elicits. “I think
everyone can relate to that situation,” Slocum says, “but that
probably won’t happen too much anymore. Radio doesn’t have the same
kind of impact it once had. Everyone has their own little world going
on.” Between its nostalgia and its beautiful sadness, “Radio” has all
the makings of a hit.

On “Give It Back” the singer pleads with God to restore what once was.
“If you’ll blow on the ember, the light will shine on my face, the
streams will run in the desert, and sing Amazing Grace.” Slocum admits
that the sentiment is personal and not abstract. “It’s a plea with God
saying ‘I used to have this thing that you blessed me with and it’s
gone away by your choice or whoever’s choice and I’d like to get it
back.’” The prayer seems to be answered as the rest of the songs
unfold. Never has Sixpence sounded this confident, elegant or poised.

Slocum admits that he is more a fan of Nash’s songwriting than ever.
“I really loved Leigh’s solo record,” he says. “I thought she did a
great job. It felt like her writing skills had really blossomed in
that process.” Nash contributes more songs to this collection than she
ever did on any of the band’s previous efforts. The shimmering but sad
“Go Your Way” explores the somewhat disturbing idea that a particular
couple can decide to stay together or walk away. “Should Not Be This
Hard” articulates a frustrated observation about the difficulty of
human relationships, and “Sooner Than Later” observes a failed
relationship through eyes of grace. All told Nash wrote on half of the
album’s tracks.

With some songs by Slocum (with various co-writers,) and some by Nash,
they seem to create a dialog amongst themselves; one that is directly
related to the personal struggles Nash and Slocum have observed in
their own and each others’ lives over recent years. That is the thread
they noticed when they arrived at the album’s interesting title,
Strange Conversation. “We wrote completely separately from each
other,” he explains, “but the songs started having these conversations
with each other.”

Nash adds, “If they seem simpler and more laid back it’s probably
where we are in our lives. We wanted to make a record that wasn’t
complicated. We wanted great songs recorded very well. I think we have
achieved that.”

Entire article from http://www.kenphillipsgroup.com/Phillips/six.htm

http://www.hmmagazine.com/2010/07/top-100-christian-rock-albums-of-all-time/