CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Being in a traveling band, sometimes you’ll see some odd things - particularly around the holidays.
One thing that sticks out in the mind of MercyMe bassist Nathan Cochran is that not everybody begins celebrating Christmas at the same time.
“There are a few places in the South that get their Christmas trees up sometime in September: The lights, the trees, everything goes up early,” he said.
Cochran, who performs with MercyMe Sunday night at the Charleston Municipal Auditorium, sounded as baffled as anyone about that - not that he has a problem with anyone celebrating Christmas before they’ve even made it to Halloween.
MercyMe is in the middle of a Christmas tour and is performing many of the songs from their second holiday record, “MercyMe, It’s Christmas!” The album was released in October of 2015.
The bassist said Christmas records are sort of a funny thing for a band like MercyMe.
“There’s a little bit of validation when you get to do a Christmas record,” he said. “It’s like, ’Ah, we finally made it!’”
The band released its first Christmas record, “The Christmas Sessions,” in 2005. If it needed any further validation, the second holiday record did better than the first. “MercyMe, It’s Christmas!” went higher on the mainstream, Christian and holiday music pop charts.
Both records lean heavily on traditional carols and popular Christmas songs, but Cochran said playing the songs is fun. Holiday shows are kind of a communal celebration with fans and crowds tend to be a in a good mood.
“It’s just fun to get out there at the end of the year and play these Christmas songs,” he said.
Performing the Christmas songs does require MercyMe to switch gears.
“You essentially have to relearn what you do because you only play these songs once a year,” Cochran said.
But it’s not a terrible hardship. Even going out on the road during the holidays isn’t really bad.
“We’re honestly done around the 18th of December,” he said.
The tour schedule isn’t particularly vigorous and gets them home in time to celebrate with their families.
Cochran said his family doesn’t celebrate the holiday in any unusual ways.
“For us, it’s just a good excuse to get together with extended family,” he said.
The members of the band currently live in Nashville, Tennessee, but Cochran grew up in Columbia, Missouri. Much of his family, he explained, lives about six hours away.
“We used to live further away,” he said. “It used to be more like 10 (hours).”
Being with family for the holidays is about spending time with everyone, making sure they see whoever they can before Cochran has to go home and get back to work.
“About the only other thing I like is for a good pecan pie to show up somewhere,” he said.
With the year winding down, Cochran said 2016 was busy for the band, but that they could be a lot busier. MercyMe has a new, non-holiday studio record coming out early in the new year and Cochran said they planned to hit the road hard.
“We have a lot of excitement for the new songs,” he said. “I think they’re not quite as serious as some of our other albums. The new songs are a lot of fun.”
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Information from: The Charleston Gazette-Mail, https://wvgazettemail.com.
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