Bart Millard and Mark Nicholas share industry insight with Trevecca students
Christian artist Bart Millard and music publisher Mark Nicholas spent time on Trevecca’s campus last week, sharing about their music industry experience, writing process and the story behind the hit song and movie, “I Can Only Imagine.”
“I literally wrote the lyrics to ‘Imagine’ on the bus,” Millard said. “It took 5 or 10 minutes with no mistakes. It’s literally word-for-word exactly the way the song is sung. It was definitely a God moment.”
The event featuring Millard and Nicholas was part of the School of Music and Worship Art’s ongoing Music City Colloquies events. A way to give students insight into the music industry as well as learn from professionals, the speaker series is in its third year. Previous events have featured a wide variety of artists and industry professionals, from country artist Hunger Hayes to Christian musicians Lauren Daigle, Mike Donehey of Tenth Avenue and more.
During the lunchtime event, John J. Thompson, associate dean of Trevecca’s School of Music and Worship Arts, facilitated a wide-ranging conversation with Millard and Nicholas, touching on everything from how long it took Millard to write “I Can Only Imagine” to the bands’ decision to start a publishing company, Simpleville Music.
Millard spoke candidly about the moment he knew there might be something special about MercyMe’s career-making song, “I Can Only Imagine.”
“We added ‘I Can Only Imagine’ last minute to finish out the album, and we didn’t play it for about a year,” he said. “We avoided it, but some church camp asked us to play it—and we didn’t know it. So, while he’s preaching, we’re behind a curtain learning our own song to play at the altar call. When he got done, we played it. When we finished, it was dead silent, and we thought, ‘This is the worst idea ever. They hated it.’ Then, the lights came up and people were at the altar praying. It was definitely a God thing.”
Nicholas, who currently serves as the head of publishing at Integrity Music, has been involved with MercyMe since before the band was signed to a label.
“[Mark] was the ultimate development deal for us,” Millard said regarding Nicholas. “He was one of the first people I ever met in the industry to say, ‘You have something but it’s not there yet. Keep taking advantage of every opportunity you have.’”
During the event, Nicholas shared insights from the industry side, stressing Millard’s tenacity and desire to grow as a singer, songwriter and performer as well as the importance of “taking care of a song.” Millard said that when the band signed with the label, they had very little knowledge about publishing.
When top Christian stars and companies interested in creating “I Can Only Imagine” products started calling, Millard and the members of MercyMe knew they had to protect the song and asked Nicholas to help.
“We started a publishing company to take care of the song,” Nicholas said. “Usually you’re having to make sure people know about great songs that nobody’s heard about. But with this song there was a [desire] to protect the song. Everyone’s excitement and enthusiasm around this song—if it becomes so ubiquitous, splashed on the cover of all these products, it’s going to harm what is a very special song.”
Millard also shared a little of the story behind the release of the movie I Can Only Imagine. First pitched to Millard and the band almost a decade before the film’s 2018 release, the movie was something Millard and the band really never thought would come to fruition.
“I was approached about the movie about eight years ago,” Millard said. “[A producer from California] wanted to make a movie based on a popular Christian song … She asked where the song came from and we told her the whole story. And she said, ‘I want to make a movie about this,’ and we thought she was nuts … we 100 percent believed it was never going to happen.”
For Millard, the movie, which tells the story of Millard’s difficult relationship with his abusive father, seeing scenes from his life play out on the big screen wasn’t easy.
“Just reading [the script] was so painful, I wondered what I’d said yes to,” he said. “Reading the script for the first time was very emotional. The first time I saw them acting on set was incredibly emotional. The first time I saw the first edit of the film was very emotional … They did a great job of tapping into feelings that I’ve tried to bury for a long time.”
The School of Music and Worship Arts is currently making plans for the next installment of the Music City Colloquies series, which will be held in early 2019. Read more about the school at trevecca.edu/music.
Media contact: Mandy Crow, mmcrow@trevecca.edu, 615-248-1695