MERCYME SINGER BART MILLARD’S TIME AS A SALVATION ARMY BELL RINGER
Before he headlined one of the country’s top Christian bands, MercyMe singer Bart Millard was a middle-schooler and high-schooler ringing the Salvation Army bell next to a red kettle outside his local K-Mart.
“The two things that officially start Christmas are hearing that bell, seeing the [Salvation Army] bucket, and the Charlie Brown special,” Millard said of his time collecting donations for The Salvation Army. “It is Christmas.”
MercyMe, who released their new record – their 12th studio album in 20 years – on April 30, titled “inhale (exhale),” is one of Christian music’s most enduring groups, with six Grammy nominations and two American Music Awards, and millions of records sold in their career. MercyMe’s newest release is called “inhale (exhale),” which hit streets April 30, an antidote to the forlorn anthems of the COVID-19 era.
In their 2015 Christmas song, “Hold On Christmas,” Millard, who writes most of the band’s lyrics, gave a nod to The Salvation Army, which is mentioned as a sign of the holiday season.
The colder it gets outside
The more it warms my soul
And Christmas is on my mind
I just gotta make it home
Oh, it won't be long 'till I am singing
To the rhythm of the Salvation Army bell ringing
But this road keeps going for miles and miles
Oh please get me there on time
Millard’s early memories of the Salvation Army were from his volunteer time while in a Christian athletic fellowship. When transitioning to high school, his bell-ringing duties were pulled to give to younger students – until Millard insisted that he stay on to man the kettles.
“We got in high school and were all bothered that we didn’t get asked because it was just a middle-school thing,” Millard said. “They kept letting a handful of us do it. It was weird the first year I didn’t get to ring the bell. I guess that meant I was a grown-up.”
Besides playing in an impromptu basketball game with his band against Salvation Army staff several years ago – “There was so much polite trash-talking,” Millard said – he has a long history with the Salvation Army that still kicks up every Christmas season.
Joined by his children, Charlie, Sam, Gracie, Sophie and Miles, Bart Millard makes trips around his city of residence, Nashville, throughout the holiday season to Salvation Army red kettles to make donations, he said.
“The day after Thanksgiving, we try to find as many Christmas lights as we can driving around,” Millard said. “Then we start doing what we call the bucket hunt.”
Millard explained, “We grab cash, pocket change, whatever we have. We see how many Salvation Army buckets we can find. We’ve done that for probably four or five years, since we moved to Nashville, for bucket hunt. It’s been a pretty fun thing. We drive around trying to find them, with the windows down, listening for the bells, of where we think it might be. … We do it consistently throughout Christmas [season]. It feels like 20 or 30 by the time we’re done. From Thanksgiving on, it’s like, ‘Let’s get ice cream, let’s go find buckets.’ I can tell you where almost all the buckets are, assuming they’re still there is not new locations.”
Millard and his four MercyMe band members, percussionist Robby Shaffer, bassist Nathan Cochran, and guitarists Barry Graul and Michael Scheuchzer, will hit the road for a 30-city tour later this year to support “inhale (exhale).”
For their new music, the band was aiming for something different in the era of COVID sadness, with Millard saying MercyMe was looking for fun songs to help uplift spirits during tough times. “I Will Survive” disco legend Gloria Gaynor is featured on “inhale (exhale)” on the song “Brand New,” for example.
“There are a couple of powerful moments on there, but most of it, we wanted songs that people would dance again,” Millard said of the new music. “You get caught at a red light dancing when no one’s looking. Our theme was, ‘If it doesn’t rip your heart out, it should make you dance.’ That’s where it ended up.”
View full Zoom interview with MercyMe singer, Bart Millard.