CJW: But the rest of the stuff I’ll pay for. Okay. Where was the second CD actually recorded at?
TLC: At the Porter Center in Brevard, NC., which is actually on the campus of the college. It’s their music venue. They do a lot of orchestral performances there. They have this huge wooden stage – (whispers) it’s just amazing. They marketing as the second best live room in America. I don’t know what the first is. We swung that and I was like, “All right, sign me up!” And that was pretty funny ‘cause that’s the college where I played the show where I met the guy that changed the direction.
CJW: Right. So it all comes back around, and that is a circle. So how was the audience for that show, ‘cause they come across well on the recording?
TLC: They were amazing. People came from 17 states and three countries. People flew in from Arizona, Kansas, Texas – is he calling my name? Okay, anyway. They were great. They were really great. There’s a tendency with live albums for people to push like the you bust out with the audience real loud at the beginning. My purpose in doing a live album was not like how great and whatever – I wanted to capture what it felt like and sounded like on stage. To really capture the audience – they’re toned down a bit. Even the parts where they’re supposed to stick out, like when they sing along with “Power of the Gospel,” you can hear the audience and there’s this lady sitting right in front of the mic who did not sing well. She’s like (off key singing), “That’s the power of the gospel,” we had to like drop the mics out so it’s really quiet. It sounds like a couple of people singing along, like a background choir. But it was a lot of fun – they were great. Some of my best friends in the world are people that came down for that show from Pennsylvania and Ohio that I’d never met before and I met them at that show, thought they were super cool and they ended up being one of the reasons I moved to Nashville. They kept coming to shows and I kept thinking, “You girls are awesome, I wanna hang out sometime.” They all moved to Nashville, and I would stop through and see them when they came to Nashville. I was like, “I’ve got to move here and hang out with you girls.” I met them for the first time when they came to that show. There are a lot of things that come back around. There’s a song that we’re doing on this album called “Here’s to Hindsight,” which is about looking back at all those things that come full circle in your life. It’s sort of being appreciative of that, because you can’t see at one point what’s going to happen on the other side, but then you get around and you’re like, “Ohhhh – that’s how I got here and that’s why.”
CJW: What other factors finally pushed you to decide to move here?
TLC: All my friends live here. I lived in a very small town of 13,000 people. The very popular thing to do in my hometown of Greeneville, Tenn. – which is G-R-E-E-N-E-V-I-L-L-E – everybody would either move around after graduating high school and never return, or they would stay in Greeneville and get married and have babies. I had no peers. When I was on tour, I was by myself all the time. I’d be by myself traveling and driving, and when I’d come home, I’d be by myself. My friends who were my age had three kids. So I would spend Friday nights going out to dinner by myself, going to movies by myself, whatever. The only thing that kept me there was my family. I finally just decided, I need peers, I need accountability, I need to go to church where I’m not the only person in my Sunday school class (laughs). So those girls that had relocated here, and then I had some great other friends who lived here, some musicians that I knew and loved, they were all just like, “You’ve got to come to Nashville, you’ve got to move here. Not only will you grow as an artist, but you’ll have growth spiritually too, just from having the peer group and the accountability.” So I was like, six months later I was here. I just packed up and came and never looked back from that. Love it here.
CJW: I’m jealous. (laughs)
TLC: You should come, it’s pretty amazing!