Caleb Garms, the lead singer for the Garms Family, has been singing on the road most of his life. His passion and enthusiasm for the history and message of Gospel Music comes through in this conversation!
Show Notes
The Garms Family: https://thegarmsfamily.com/
The Gospel Gym: https://thegarmsfamily.com/the-gospel-gym
YouTube highlights:
- Legacy Five and 1500 pennies
- Interviewing Daniel Mount
- This World Is Not My Home
- One More Christmas
- A Choreography Lesson with Ernie Haase
Some Garms Family songs to check out:
- I’m Feeling Fine
- Abide With Me
- Joy In the Morning
- Mountain With His Hand
- Unworthy Servants
- Trust His Heart
- Into His Presence
- Beyond the Cross
- I Am But a Stranger Here
- What God Ordains is Always Good
Transcript
Lightly edited for clarity.
Daniel Mount
Welcome to Southern Gospel Journal. My name is Daniel Mount. I have the privilege of being joined today by Caleb Garms. How are you doing this morning?
Caleb Garms
I’m doing great, how about you?
Daniel Mount
I’m doing great also. So I like to always start by asking your background. What’s your background? Where are you from? And your testimony.
Caleb Garms
Awesome.
I’d love to answer that. Me and my family, we are originally from Minnesota. I grew up in a small little town called Braham, Minnesota, for the first 15 years of my life. And for the past six years, I’ve been living in Wisconsin. So just in the Midwest, that’s where I’ve always been, that’s where I love. And so we’ll go into kind of where we are now later on.
But as for my testimony, I’ve been so blessed to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior for all my life. I was baptized as just a little bitty thing. The Holy Spirit worked faith in my heart, and Jesus claimed me for his own, and I have been a Christian now for 22 years. And it has been an immense blessing, the biggest blessing in my life, to know the Lord and Savior. And it’s been a privilege to be raised by my mom and dad in such a biblical foundation, and just to be raised in that environment. It has been a huge blessing.
Daniel Mount
It is. When I share my testimony with people, which of course – different contexts – is a little different than yours, I tell people there’s few blessings that are bigger than the blessing of a boring testimony, the blessing of growing up in a Christian home around the faith from an early age.
Caleb Garms
Mm-hmm. You’re right. Exactly.
Daniel Mount
So, did you grow up around Southern Gospel?
Caleb Garms
You know, I did.
Daniel Mount
You kind of did a different answer from your older siblings.
Caleb Garms
You are so right, because earlier, like in the very early 2000s, the 90s, my family listened to CCM, Contemporary Christian Music, DC Talk, Michael W. Smith, Steven Curtis Chapman. And then it was about 2006 when we stumbled into Southern Gospel. My mom had grown up on quartet music. She loved, there’s an old quartet called the Good News Quartet. And every Saturday morning when they were cleaning, back when my mom was a little girl, her mom would put in that record and they would listen to that while they were cleaning, which I know that’s not the most enjoyable experience, but she loved that record.
And so she grew up on quartet music, but it was not introduced to us until about 2006. And that was when we became familiar with the Cathedral Quartet, and we became familiar with the Gaither Homecoming. I think the first one we watched was Landmark. And that just opened up a whole new world for us, and we just loved it. We just fell in love with it. We watched every Gaither Homecoming we could get our hands on.
We started following Southern Gospel, attending different groups. And so ever since three years old and on, my heroes were George Younce, Glenn Payne, Scott Fowler, Ernie Haase, the Cathedrals I grew up on, Legacy Five, Ernie Haase & Signature Sound, the Booth Brothers, all those groups. So that was my upbringing. It’s a little different from my older siblings, but Southern Gospel, that’s my earliest roots.
Daniel Mount
Yeah, I think you can say you’ve been around it your whole life in a way that, if you’ve been around it since 3, that’s pretty much earliest memories. That pretty much counts as whole life, I think.
Caleb Garms
You’re right. Actually, one of my earliest memories, in fact, is from when my family went to see Ernie Haase & Signature Sound. That was, I believe, the first major Southern Gospel group concert I went to. But I was so young that I did not go. And so one of my first memories is not being able to go to Ernie Haase. I was crushed because I wanted to see him so bad.
Daniel Mount
Well, you got to see him a few years later!
Okay, so your family started touring and singing under a different name than you are today, the Great Adventure Gospel Band. And now you go by the Garms Family. So can you tell us the origins of why Great Adventure, and why you ended up touring and singing?
Caleb Garms
You’re right.
Yeah, so the Great Adventure, that goes back to around 2000, 2001. That was when… we aren’t a very normal family, to say the least. And we went on, so this is right before I came around, but my family, we were living in Blaine, Minnesota, and we decided to sell our house, buy a travel trailer, and go on the mission field. Meaning that we would go down to California, help build churches for an organization called Laborers for Christ. Mom would homeschool us kids, Dad would be helping build churches, it’d be an awesome ministry for the family to experience. Well, long story short, that fell through because kids were not allowed on the project site, and there were six kids in the travel trailer.
That kind of left us in limbo because we had no place to go. Our house was sold. And so we spent the next couple years just living in campgrounds, trying to figure out where the Lord was leading us in this stage. We ended up meeting an older gentleman that would, long story, but he would come to live with us for many years. We would be known as his family.
And God was working through that time. We couldn’t see it. It was extremely hard. But we were in Arizona, California, Nevada. Then we moved back to Minnesota eventually. But that time period became known as our Great Adventure. And so that is what became the basis for our name when we first started out.
And because we loved Southern Gospel music back in 2006 and on, we always wanted to do it, but we never really had the plan to be able to sing, to travel full time, or anything like that. But we started going to a concert series in Cambridge, Minnesota, Northwest Dandy Baptist Church, and we would sit in the front row for all their Southern Gospel concerts. We just loved it, we ate it up, and the promoters would always ask us, “Do you sing? Do you sing, do you sing, do you sing, do you sing?” And the answer was no, no, no, no, no, no, no, every time, because we had no plans to.
But God worked, as he always does, in amazing ways. And one thing led to another. We eventually picked up instruments. We just wanted to start learning instruments. We started singing together. We started experimenting with all sorts of stuff. I started out on a little ukulele. That was my first instrument. And I sat in a little rocking chair because the ukulele was too big for me to hold, so I had to sit down and play it.
We little kids sang around one microphone, and it was one thing led to another. And finally we told the promoters, yes, we do sing a little bit. And so they said, great, you will open for our next group. And so we opened for a group called Living Sacrifice, and that was kind of the launching board. That was the starting point for the next 18 years and counting. So that was kind of the long-story-short backstory.
Daniel Mount
Yes, and there hit a point where it’s like everybody was calling you the Garms Family. So do you remember what year it was? There came a point when you as a family decided, okay, we’ll be known as the Garms Family, which is kind of what people were calling you already.
Caleb Garms
Yeah. I want to say it’s around 2010, I think, we switched it, because we had enough promoters and such at concerts that would absolutely butcher the name just because it’s Great Adventure Gospel Band. It’s a mouthful. And so we were called Great American Bank of America at one time. And so we decided this is just, this is not working.
And so we decided, I can’t remember some of the other names we thought about, but we decided let’s just go simple, let’s just go, we’re the Garms Family, so let’s just go with that. And I think it’s around 2010 we switched. And we’ve been called the Germs a couple times, but other than that, it’s worked out.
Daniel Mount
Yes. So you were part of a moment that, at least by Southern Gospel standards, went viral. And that was where I first came across your family.
Full disclosure to everybody listening, I’ve been best friends with your older brother, Ben, for more than 15 years. One of my best friends for more than 15 years. Sometimes I ask questions in this interview kind of knowing the answer, but knowing the listeners might not, so I’m asking it for their sake as much as anything.
So you were part of a video that got some attention when you sang “I’m Feeling Fine” with Legacy 5 in 2010, and I know that because Ben and I became friends shortly after that came out. So what are your recollections of that moment, and what was it like from your perspective? Because I definitely heard it from Ben’s perspective any number of times we’ve talked about it.
Caleb Garms
Oh, that was an unbelievable night for me. I was seven years old. We’d been seeing Legacy Five for a couple years. That was 2010. I don’t know why, but my sister Taylor came up with the idea because we sang “I’m Feeling Fine.” I sang it as the closing song of every concert basically. And Legacy Five, of course, sings the Mosie Lister song.
So she, that morning before we went to the concert, had sat me down and told me she had this idea for me to sing “I’m Feeling Fine” with them on stage. And so I was pretty excited, no surprise. But we didn’t know whether the promoter would go for it, whether Scott would go for it. But I don’t know when, at the concert, she pulled aside the promoter and asked him what he thought about it, and he loved it. He loved the idea. So he went backstage and he said, “Do you want to have some fun tonight? Because we’re gonna invite this kid on stage.” And so Scott went for it.
Three of my siblings were at home with the chickenpox that night. They were beyond upset that they were not there for this. And so I remember being absolutely scared to death, just because it was Scott Fowler, my hero, Legacy Five. And so being called up on stage, I was wearing cowboy boots about as big as I was. And just walking up there, sitting down with Scott on the steps and talking beforehand, and then going up and singing, unbelievable. Just a surreal moment for me back when I was seven years old. And I was scared to death, but I was having the time of my life. It was like a dream. It was so much fun. And that was our first introduction to you and to the Gospel Blog back then. That was a long time ago. That was fun.
Daniel Mount
Yeah. It was!
It has been a few years. Speaking of it being a few years, I was counting it up last night. Because you were already touring full time by that point. Your dad did not have another job, I think, by that point already, if I’m remembering correctly.
Caleb Garms
Yeah, we had, I think we had just gone full time.
Daniel Mount
I think he had just gone full time because he had been previously an airplane mechanic. There was – 2008, that was the big financial downturn that really hit the airlines hard. And it was somewhere between 2008 and 2010, I believe, that you all went full time. So I was just looking at it. I was like, that means you’ve been touring full time for longer than Chris Jenkins has (Kingsmen). The Mylon Hayes Family children and Wendy, because they really started going full time about 2011 or 12. And every single member of the Inspirations. And between the awards the Mylon Hayes Family, Inspirations, and others have won, I counted I think 11 Singing News Fan Awards, including most of the big ones (of course, the Inspirations almost swept this last year) were won either by individuals who had been touring not as long as you have, or by groups where every single member, not just some of the members, but every single member hadn’t been touring as long as you have.
So someone might look at it like, he’s young, he’s new to this. No, you’ve actually been at this for quite a while because you started so young.
Caleb Garms
Yes, for sure. It’s been, I mean, road life, I’ve grown up doing it, so it’s not like a big transition. It’s just been life. But it’s been full time. Now, not to the extent of the touring schedule that most full-time groups have, but still it’s been, we’ve done 10 or 11 CD projects. I must have sung “I’m Feeling Fine” over 3,000 times. So it’s been a fun road.
We’ve seen everything the road has to offer, the breakdowns. We’ve sung in more than half the United States easily. But we’ve seen God’s faithfulness over 16 years of full-time ministry. And that’s what we always come back to. God’s been faithful every time, every experience. So through 16 years of full-time ministry, it’s been God’s faithfulness.
Daniel Mount
Amen.
Well, there are a few different directions I could go from just the things you mentioned that I was planning to get to at some point in this conversation. Let’s talk about “I’m Feeling Fine” first, and then we’ll talk about road life.
So singing “I’m Feeling Fine,” sometimes like with Ernie Haase and “What a Savior,” there got a point he got kind of burnt out singing it every night, and George Younce told him, be grateful you have a song that everybody wants to hear you sing every night, because many singers never have that happen to them.
Did you ever hit a point of burnout with “I’m Feeling Fine” where it was just getting a little old, you had to change it up, freshen it up? And how did you get past that if that ever happened?
Caleb Garms
Not really. There was a time back a dozen or so years ago, more than that, we actually stopped singing it for a little bit because I was getting a little big-headed about it. So we stopped singing it for a little bit.
But other than that, it’s been the closing song every night for the past at least 16 years. The first time I sang it was 2009. The hardest time I sang it, especially in the middle of my voice change, was when we were trying to figure out where to key it. Because when I sang it with Legacy Five it was in C. And about 15 years old, I just couldn’t do it, so we started dropping it. Back when going up to that high note at the end, when I couldn’t do it as best I wanted to every night, that’s when it was hard for me to get through that. But other than that, I enjoy it every night. I love seeing the faces light up in the crowd. They know it’s coming because we say one more song and they know immediately what it is, at least people who have seen us before. But I love it. I mean, it’s a fun song. It lends a concert to end on a high note. People leave feeling good, feeling fine, if you will. And I enjoy it every night.
Daniel Mount
Yeah, your dad will have different ways to set it up, but “how are you feeling,” that kind of thing. Just a consistent way that people who have been to your concerts enough through the years will know the cue and know to call it “Feeling Fine.”
So if that wasn’t your signature song, do you have a song that you wish would be your signature song, that you think you could sing for 16 years and not get tired of singing? Is there any other song you like that much? Either way, that you have sung or that you haven’t.
Caleb Garms
Okay. One that I would probably say, my favorite song to sing is more of the slower ballad. One that I can more kind of dig into the notes a little bit and really communicate a lot of expression and kind of take the audience on an emotional journey. I like singing “Be Still My Soul.” We’ve got an arrangement of that. I love singing that live. That is one of my favorites.
As for songs I haven’t sung, I haven’t really thought about that. But “Be Still My Soul,” we’ve been singing that a lot recently, and that has got to be one of my favorites to sing, for sure. As for growing tired of that, no, never.
Daniel Mount
Cool!
Okay. So you mentioned navigating that song while your voice was changing. And it wasn’t just – you know, there are a lot of boys who start singing with their family for a song or two a night and then continue singing as time goes on and grow into a full-time role. But when your voice changed, you were already kind of an anchor to a lot of the arrangements your family did, and you had the lead on a lot of songs. Not like a CCM band where the lead singer sings the lead on everything; your family all takes turns singing. But there was a good percentage, maybe a third, of the family songs you had a solo on. Thankfully, because you play instruments live, you’re able to adjust keys, where if you had been going with tracks, that would have been a bigger problem. How did you navigate re-keying everything and redoing all these arrangements in that time period?
Caleb Garms
Yeah, it was really difficult. It really was. Because before my voice changed, I had an extremely high voice. I used to be able to out-sing all my sisters for range. But then my voice started changing. And since I had grown up loving George Younce and bass, and always wanted to sing bass, I started trying to hit as many low notes as possible. And so that really, my voice didn’t drop as rapidly as some of my brothers, but I did not retain a lot of that high range that I used to have, at least with the ease I was able to sing it. And so that was difficult because the harmonies had to be changed. In the alto part, I had to switch to the tenor part, like “I’m Feeling Fine” or all sorts of stuff. We had to drop the keys, we had to switch up the harmonies. If there was one below, I had to go one above, all sorts of stuff. Since I sing so much harmony, that affected some of my harmony singing. If I wasn’t singing the lead, I couldn’t hit those harmony notes. So that was tough. It really was. Especially since my voice changed a little later. But that’s the whole thing with live music, live instruments. We were able to do that instead of having to record a new track or all sorts of stuff. We were able to just adjust on the fly. And it worked out, but it was a tough season. It really was. And same thing with my brother Sam. His voice dropped so fast, we were recording a CD, and within a week he could not sing what he recorded. It was just absurd.
Daniel Mount
I remember talking with Ben during the recording of it. I don’t remember, was that the Out Front CD or was it one of the later ones? It was Out Front, wasn’t it?
Caleb Garms
Yep, Out Front.
Daniel Mount
Yeah. I remember talking with him. That was an interesting one to navigate, that recording process.
Well, something we touched on a few minutes ago was definitely that there are people who think the life of a Southern Gospel singer is kind of glamorous. But I can’t count the number of times I heard from Ben that your van or bus was broken down on the side of the road or whatever else. What are some of the challenges of road life, but on the flip side, some of the blessings of getting to do what you do?
Caleb Garms
Yeah, well, the blessings outweigh the challenges by far. Just seeing God work through unworthy servants like us, just seeing him touch lives is worth it all, for sure. But there are times when, especially with the vehicles we’ve had, things have been very interesting. We started out with a 15-passenger van with a trailer. That was our first vehicle, Chevy van.
Daniel Mount
Yes.
Caleb Garms
Nothing would break that thing down. It ran forever. But that got cramped, so we decided to move into a shuttle bus from Logan Airport in New York City. And so we traveled in that for three years, maybe? Four, five, I can’t remember how many years. But that thing, that thing had some problems. And it was one of the weirdest vehicles you’ll see on the road. It was really strange. But we called it the glory bus. And we had a fun time with it. It was a unique vehicle, that’s for certain.
And then we transitioned into a motorhome. God provided a motorhome for us because we were transitioning more and more into a full-time schedule. And that motorhome was by far the hardest, just because, well, it was much easier to travel in because we could abandon the hotels. We used to stay in hotels every night. And with a family of six kids, a mom and dad, it just didn’t work. The multiple rooms, hauling in at one o’clock in the morning with a bunch of worn-out kids, it just didn’t work. And so with the motorhome, we were able to stay in Walmart parking lots overnight, do that. And so that worked a lot better, but the vehicle itself was not built for the travel we were doing. We broke down time after time after time.
A part called the turbocharger, in a motorhome like ours, we got very well acquainted with that part because we went through at least seven of them, I think, in the six or seven years we had the motorhome. And that part is because not only do you have to cancel concerts when you’re on tour, when you break down for multiple days, which is, we just hate canceling for all the obvious reasons, but then the part’s so expensive. Like that turbocharger, it’s two, $3,000 each time. And so we’re sitting on the side of the road. Being broken down on the side of the road is not something I wish on anybody. I mean, it really isn’t. Because you’re stuck there, you don’t know what the problem is, or maybe you do know and you’re dreading it. You’ve got to cancel concerts, you’re stuck there, nothing to do, and sometimes your tour lasts longer than you wanted it to just because you’re broken down.
But those are times, like my mom wrote a song called “Each Moment, Each Mile,” and that’s something she would say all the time when we were broken down. Each moment, each mile, God is faithful. And that’s something we had to lean on because we didn’t know where the money was going to come from for the repair sometimes. The concerts canceled, we didn’t know how long we were going to be in the repair shop. And it was just hard, and it is hard. But God is faithful, each moment, each mile. And he provided for us a tour bus that we had prayed for because the motorhome was just falling to pieces. We had so many problems with the slides on the motorhome. We had awnings coming off, we had the slides getting stuck, we had everything.
And so God provided a tour bus for us called BERTIE, spelled B-E-R-T-I-E, because we grew up on the show Thomas the Tank Engine, and so there’s a red bus in there. We call our bus Bertie. But that has been so reliable, such a blessing for us. We have had to cancel maybe once in … how many years has it been? I can’t remember, three or four? Three years, I think. It has been a blessing for us. So it’s built to last the touring we do. So that’s been a huge blessing. I’m trying to remember your original question.
Daniel Mount
I know, I was just talking about the challenges and the blessings of road life. We can talk more about the blessings in just a minute. But one thing before we move on entirely from the challenges, one of the ones that sticks out most vividly in my recollection is there was at least a three- or four-month period, and it might have been six months or more, when you all would just get cold symptoms and get sick every time you’d go out on the road. And you were like, boy, we’re just really catching bugs. Must be the first concert, because as soon as we passed that first concert, everybody in the family is sick and sinus issues and all that. And was it, I’m thinking it was the motorhome, but was it the motorhome or the bus that was just totally mold-infested? And that was why you were getting sick every time you went out on the road.
Caleb Garms
You’re right. Yep, that was the motorhome. Yep. The famous Nautilus, the motorhome.
Daniel Mount
Naughty, it went by!
Caleb Garms
And it lived up to his name more often than not! Because we were, yeah, like you said, we were getting sick all the time, every time out. And yes, there were times in the middle of summer, we were just coming out of these horrible colds and we’re thinking, what is this? And we were doing everything we could possibly do to not get sick. We were doing everything. We read somewhere that onions are good, and so I got to the point where in my bunk in the RV, I put a bag of onions in my bunk. So during the night, I smelled onions for the whole tour. And it didn’t work. I got sick. So it’s like, what gives? And then, yep, we found out there had been leaks in the slide and such and in the roof, and it was mold, and that was the problem. And we ripped everything out and took care of that, and that cleared that up. But that was not fun at all.
Daniel Mount
No.
That’s, I mean, that’s up there with getting stranded in, was it Oklahoma? Again, maybe on a turbocharger thing? You were out west somewhere and got stranded for a while.
Caleb Garms
Yeah, Colorado.
Daniel Mount
Colorado, Colorado. It was out west.
Caleb Garms
We got to sleep in a church as some people brought air mattresses, and we had air mattress hotel in the church. And that was, and we lost our trailer in Oklahoma.
Daniel Mount
So then pivoting, we talked a little bit about it, but the blessings. What are some of your favorite ministry moments or other blessings that have happened in your years on the road? If you just think of the highlights, what comes to mind?
Caleb Garms
Man, there’s been so many. Because we value ministry more than anything. That is the essence of what we do. We try to work as hard as we can, presenting as professionally as possible, but the ministry, that is the most important thing. And we know our shortcomings. But to watch God use us to touch people, to touch individual hearts, to touch individual lives, has been one of the most humbling things for the past 16, 18 years. And to hear people come up afterwards and say, you know, I’ve been going through this and that, but God knew exactly what I needed tonight, and this concert tonight is what I needed, hearing that … just sometimes if you’re having a down night, you get off stage and you think, ah, that wasn’t my best night. I should have done this better, this better. I didn’t feel God working at all. And then you have someone come up to you and say, God worked through you tonight. You touched my heart. That just keeps you going. And God reminds you, it’s not about how good you do on stage. It’s not about will you hit every note perfectly. It’s not about what you feel. It’s about God’s working. And it’s humbling to be reminded of that, and that’s been the biggest blessing.
And also another blessing, we were homeschooled. And so being on the road enabled us to do the homeschooling. And it’s been a blessing for us in that we have experienced so much. I have experienced a ton of stuff, meeting thousands of people, experiencing touring. And being together as a family has been just an immense blessing. We have become so close. Yeah, we’ve got our moments. We’re real like anyone else. But we have experienced what it’s like to be just together as a family, working as a team, ministering, and it has been an experience I wouldn’t trade for anything.
Daniel Mount
Yeah!
That’s great. So we’ve talked about two of the three categories I had in mind. One were challenges and one were ministry moments. I kind of can’t move on from this part of the conversation without asking if you have any favorite funny memories.
Caleb Garms
I’ve got a lot of them. Man, if I were to pick one, so many, but if I were to pick one that was probably the wildest venue in some wild circumstances, we were, it was probably around, I want to say 2011, 12, somewhere there, I want to say. We were doing a Christmas concert in Minnesota.
And I don’t even know how we got booked into this, but it was booked at a barn. Minnesota winter. And so the promoter assured us, don’t worry, there’s a stage, it’s heated, it’s lighted, all that sort of stuff. It’s a good venue. And so we pulled up, and the first thing we see, it’s bitterly cold. It’s absolutely, it’s gotta be, the wind chill’s gotta be around zero. And the first thing we see is the promoter screwing a piece of plywood over this big hole in the barn wall. And we’re thinking, uh-oh, what’s happening here? So we go inside, there’s a polka band playing off to the side called the Country Squires. And they’re playing polka music. There’s a handful of people. And there’s like a Santa Claus. It’s like, what is this?
And so we go into where the stage is. It’s not a very big barn. And the promoter comes in, he welcomes us, and there’s no stage whatsoever. There’s a big pile of building materials and wood, and there’s nothing. And we’re thinking, what is going on? And so the promoter, there’s no stage built, the barn is not heated, and we’re supposed to sing a concert here in like an hour and a half. And so we decide there’s gotta be a stage. So we go into the RV, we change clothes, we get our work clothes on. We go in and get the saw running, and we start building the stage. And so we do that for, I don’t know how long it took us. And the polka band keeps playing, and the people keep sitting there, and the Santa Claus is doing whatever he’s doing. And so we finish building the stage. We’re freezing because it’s so cold in there. We haul in everything, quick run out, get changed. The polka band must have been playing for three hours by now. They’ve probably played everything they know and something they don’t know. And so we run in, and we do a concert. And you know, it’s probably 20, maybe less, degrees in the barn. Our fingers are falling off because it’s so cold. And we were singing on the stage we had just built an hour before. There’s one light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and there’s like 15 people sitting there. But you know what? It’s amazing. That was one of our hardest times.
But a couple years ago we ran into a family that said, we saw you in that barn, like that Christmas concert years ago. And they sent us pictures of that night, and that is the only record we’ve got of that. And they said they loved the concert. They absolutely loved it. They thought it was so cool to be in a barn listening to a Christmas concert. And so even if it was just for them, it was worth it. But building our own stage before we had to sing is absurd.
Daniel Mount
Yes, that’s up there!
This doesn’t compare to that, but when I was thinking of funny moments, it wasn’t actually one of your concerts, but I remembered when I put you up to buying a Legacy 5 CD with pennies. That was a fun memory. Yeah.
Caleb Garms
That was awesome. Yeah, we’ve got video of that, I think, on our YouTube, that one memory. I don’t think Scott Fowler was expecting that whatsoever because that bag of pennies was absurd. I mean, the pile on the table of pennies was huge! I’d have hated to clean up that mess of pennies, but it was awesome seeing the look on his face. It’s just priceless. It was worth 15,000 pennies.
Daniel Mount
Yes, it was!
You know, I’ll put a link to that in the show notes because I just checked into it, and it’s still up on your family’s YouTube channel.
And I’ll mention two other things on the YouTube channel, because why not? This is as good a part as any. One is years ago, back when I was blogging and you and Sam and Jamie were still pretty little, you interviewed me for my site. And that interview is a lot of fun. And just for fun, I’ll put that up. My favorite memory of that is the off-the-wall questions and everybody’s cracking up laughing. We did so many takes on that interview, but we had a lot of fun.
Caleb Garms
Yep, we had loads of fun.
Daniel Mount
And then the other thing was, like your first song to more or less go viral was “I’m Feeling Fine,” but we should probably also mention a much more recent one your family did of “This World Is Not My Home.”
Caleb Garms
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so for many years we kind of let our YouTube kind of go to waste, but in the past year and a half we’ve been posting more on there. Because there are a lot of people who follow us on YouTube, and we have Facebook also, but we want to kind of grow the audience. And so we did, and people love them, and we love them.
Daniel Mount
Mm-hmm.
Caleb Garms
And we recorded “This World Is Not My Home” on our hymns project, and not many people do it the way we do it. Most people do it upbeat and it really clips along. We kind of slowed it down, and it’s just a beautiful, gentle reminder, beautiful words, wonderful song. And we went out to a corral at the fairgrounds next door to us, and we asked the owner whether we could go out and take a video there. It’s a beautiful setting. The grass is really long and there were flowers and the fence. It was just a beautiful, beautiful day. And we went out and did a video of that, and that has been touching a lot of people. We just checked the other day. It’s 2,000 away from a million views.
Daniel Mount
Mm-hmm.
I was gonna mention that. It’s 998,000, and there’ll be some people listening to this. Hey everybody, go play that video, maybe play it more than once. Like this video is so close to a million, let’s just get it there. Anyhow, that’s my little pitch. We can go back to talking more seriously about the video, though.
Caleb Garms
Yep.
Yes.
No, but it’s always surprising to us when, especially a video of that extent, that’s been the first time for sure. We’ve had a couple at multiple hundred thousands, but getting close to a million, right there at a million, that’s been, it’s really humbling. It’s really awesome that people have been identifying with it and just liking it.
And so along with that, we’ve been trying to do a recent series every week of posting a chorus or two of a hymn or something in our gym we’ve got here in this building, and people have been loving that. And so we’re excited to just keep making content like that and just sing a chorus, whether it be a chorus or a whole song like “This World Is Not My Home,” but just putting it out there and having people enjoy that.
Daniel Mount
Just a couple days ago, as of recording this, there was a bass singer from, I think it was Romania, did a little duet with your family, “Softly and Tenderly.” And that turned out really nice. You all shared that. It turned out really nicely. And boy, he can sing a deep bass, very Southern Gospel style. He’s singing those low notes. Yeah.
Caleb Garms
Oh yeah, we were blown away.
And it was awesome. We loved to have him. Sebastian, yep. He did like a duet with us, and that was the first of that, anyone doing a duet with us like one of those videos. And he did an incredible job. I mean, he just solid as a rock on those low notes. And my bass-singing brothers, Ben and Sam, they were, yeah, they were a little jealous of him. Man, he was really doing good. So that was really awesome to see.
Daniel Mount
Yeah, if you weren’t on opposite continents with an ocean between, that’d be fun to see live sometime, but you just never know. Maybe someday.
Caleb Garms
That’d be awesome. Yeah, he’s tremendous.
Daniel Mount
So something you talked about with “I’m Feeling Fine” and taking a break from it for a little while, you were really candid about how, you know, getting a big head. How do you navigate the applause and stay grounded?
And you’ve had it from a different standpoint than a lot of people because it’s a little different if somebody gets really good and people recognize it when they’re in their twenties and they’ve had a life of being off stage to get them accustomed to it. Like Pat Barker was probably late 20s, early 30s when he really started catching on as a bass singer, which for bass singers makes sense because the bass part of a register tends to mature and get stronger as somebody gets older. But you’ve had that challenge, that’s a blessing of people appreciating what you do, but also a challenge from when you were quite young. And so how have you navigated that through the years and kept a level head about things?
Caleb Garms
Yeah, especially when I was first six or so years up into my voice change, I didn’t have the best perspective on it. That was when it would get a little more to my head, stuff like that. But then as I started maturing, the perspective, it didn’t change. I always knew where to keep the focus. And sometimes even nowadays, it can be hard. But overall, just keeping the focus that it’s all about God, it’s all about Jesus Christ. And they’re not applauding for me. They’re applauding because God is working through this unworthy vessel, and they are being blessed by the message. And yes, I love to use the gift of my voice and instrument playing, and voice especially, for Jesus. I love praising him with my voice.
And yes, I try to do the best job I possibly can. And I’m a perfectionist when it comes to singing and music. So if every note, if it’s not just right, I get on myself anyway. But it can be a challenge. Really, I’ve just come to, it’s not, I don’t focus on the applause anymore. I used to think, how am I doing? How is the crowd? Is the crowd really liking me or what I’m doing? I don’t really focus on it anymore. It’s just something I’m thankful for. I’m grateful for when people respond well to something like “Be Still My Soul” or “I’m Feeling Fine.” If I can put a smile on people’s face, or if I see someone being touched and crying, that’s something that I’m thankful for more than anything.
Daniel Mount
Very, very neat.
Now, sometimes I will ask people if they have other musical talents like playing musical instruments or songwriting. And I kind of know the answer here, but I’ll ask anyhow. What are some of the other musical instruments you play? Because you play several on stage, but I think several besides what you play on stage. So what are the instruments you play, and any songwriting or other musical activities?
Caleb Garms
Yeah, so I mostly play guitar, any type of guitar, acoustic guitar, electric bass, acoustic bass, electric guitar. I play acoustic bass on stage. I play some drums. I play a little banjo. I stay away, for the most part, from things not having frets. Like I can play a little piano, I should probably be able to play a little more, but I just haven’t put the work into it. I’ve been learning mandolin, so that’s a new one for me. Let’s see, what else do I play? I have not learned violin or anything like that, but I play mostly guitars, mostly fret instruments, a little dobro. I played dobro on one song on a CD, so yeah.
Songwriting, I’ve done a little bit. We started doing a song this past Christmas called “One More Christmas.” And that was a song I’d written, and we’ve recorded that, so we’re gonna release it as a single next Christmas.
And so we are starting, right now, in the process of getting songs together for a new CD, start recording that. So that is exciting. And I’ve written three or four songs that we’re still in the process of narrowing down our options on, but we’re gonna give those a shot. So I’ve delved a little bit into songwriting, not as much as my sister Taylor, my brother Sam. They’ve written some winners, and they’ve got some winners in the works that we just can’t wait to record. It’s gonna be great. But I’ve delved a little bit into that. As for, I’m not prolific, but once in a while I can put a couple thoughts down on paper. So that’s been fun, and that’s been a fun experience.
Daniel Mount
Neat.
Neat, and I will say to “One More Christmas,” even though you might not have a version out on streaming yet, your family did put a live version up on YouTube. So I can go ahead, I’ll plan on linking to that in the show notes as well as the other videos we’ve mentioned, just so people can get a feel for that song, even if the final full polished version you might have to wait till winter for.
Caleb Garms
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Daniel Mount
Well, I suppose this is as good a time as any to talk about another major initiative and project your family has taken on for the last five or six years, I guess, and you’ve been thinking about it for years before that, in the Gospel Gym.
Caleb Garms
You’re right. Yep. It’s always been a dream, a dream of ours. We always dreamed of a ministry center, a center where we can kind of, a hub for the community to bring in. Before we got into music, it used to be more of speakers and seminars, so that sort of thing, to have a space to be able to do that. And living in Braham, Minnesota, where we were, it was just a regular house. We didn’t have space for it. But it was always kind of a dream in the back of our minds. And finally about, I don’t know when we first started looking, probably around seven years ago, because we moved here at the end of 2019. We started looking, we started looking finally. It got laid on our hearts that let’s look, let’s see if there are any buildings, and maybe God will open doors and lead. Because we had outgrown that house in Braham, Minnesota, and we had so many more ideas. Like my brother Ben has a recording studio, and there’s no room to do that. He wants to do it for other clients as well.
And so we started looking around at school buildings especially. And it’s a long story about the search, all the different buildings we went to, how even going to see one school, we hit a deer and just about totaled a vehicle, and we thought, eh, maybe not that school.
And so we searched in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and we came across this one in Arkansaw, Wisconsin. And it was a building of 55,000 square feet. Big building, a beautiful gym. And one thing led to another. We finally got a showing for it, went to see it, and my sister Leesha, she’s kind of the barometer for, ah, this school is not that great, this school is not that, this barometer. But she walked into door one, the entry area, the foyer of the school, and she thought, oh, this is it. I can just see people coming here for events and concerts. And we really liked it. It was really big, a lot bigger than a 3,000 square foot home. With 55,000 square feet, it’s just huge. And we thought, oh, we can never use all these rooms for anything. There’ll be rooms sitting there useless forever.
But the owners were Christians, and they really felt strongly that God was also calling us to this place. And so, a step of faith, we put our house up for sale, and that was a huge struggle in itself because we found out we didn’t have a title for our house. And then we moved everything, all our furniture, everything, to the school because we thought we were gonna close. But at closing, we found out we did not have a title. And so we waited for, it’s gotta be seven, eight months.
Daniel Mount
Including over Christmas, I think.
Caleb Garms
Yeah, we moved right before Christmas. Yep.
Daniel
Okay. Right before Christmas.
Caleb Garms
And so we lived most of that year with no furniture, nothing in our house. A plain empty house. And that may not sound like a big deal, but it was hard. And things were moving so slow with the school, moving here. And we thought, what is God leading us to? Is He telling us no? Is He telling us yes, but this is Satan hindering us from what God wants us to do? So it was really hard. That was some of our darkest moments as a family ministry because we didn’t know whether we should keep touring. We started questioning a lot, whether we should go get jobs, whether our ministry calling was over. But long story short, God brought us through. He started putting things in our path, confirming, yes, you’re still called to this. You’re still called to this ministry. And even, yes, this school is what I have in mind for you. This is where I want you to be. And so God worked through that. And it was, yeah, we closed on the school December 20th of 2019. And it was amazing.
We didn’t know what in the world we were doing just because it was a step of faith, it really was. But coming to this building, and that Christmas we went down… One of the reasons we wanted to move here in the spring or in the summer is that there was no heat running. We had no clue what the heating system, the apparatus, was like. It had been closed as a school since 2016. So we didn’t know whether the lines had been blown out, whether there were leaks everywhere in the water system because the water hadn’t been turned on. And so we wanted to take care of that all in the spring and summer. But then December 20th is when God brought us here. And we had our first Christmas here. We were in, there’s a little principal’s office, and there’s a little separate heating unit above that just for the principal. And so we got that working, and that was our first Christmas here. And it was such an experience. It was a blessing. It really was. We had a wonderful time. And knowing that that time of questioning was behind us, we were ready to go on this new adventure. And it has been an adventure for the past six years.
Our goal here, because right now I’m sitting in the old library, we now use this as, right now we’re using this as a concert venue. We do open houses twice a year, and this is our recording studio as well. And so for the past six years we’ve been renovating, slow but sure.
Our goal is to make this into, well, it’s the Gospel Gym. It is kind of a performing arts center. We want to hold concerts here, also speaker seminars, maybe some renting out the gym. It’s a beautiful gym. It’s a beautiful venue. But we’re working on that, especially the gym, to get that to hold concerts. That’s kind of the goal and the vision, because we’re doing some ourselves here in the library. And every step is closer to getting that gym up and going.
We’re getting our acoustic treatment in there pretty soon, the next month or so. We’ve got the boilers working. I mean, it’s been an incredible adventure trying to work through the stuff you never think about. All the mechanics, all the boilers, the roof, everything. It has been cool to see how God has provided in his time. Sometimes it’s been hard because we want to put stuff on a faster timetable, get stuff done, we want to get going on it. But you need to have resources to continue the renovation. And we’ve got all sorts of dreams and plans, but God has got His dreams and plans and the uses He wants for this building. And trusting His timetable, trusting the way he wants this building to be used, that’s been sometimes hard, but it’s been really rewarding. We really see God working through the open houses, the events here.
We’ve got a hymn sing in a couple weeks. We started Hymns in the Gym last year. We had great turnouts and awesome times singing hymns in the gym. It’s beautiful. The acoustics in there, at least for a hymn sing, are just wonderful. And in two weeks, we’ve got our first one for the year coming up, and we’re so excited.
And we feel we really see God working through the events we’ve been holding here. We see Him working in the community. A lot of unchurched people in the Arkansaw, Wisconsin, community. And so having us here spreading the gospel, we’ve seen the effects in the community, and it has been a blessing.
Daniel Mount
Yes, and I will say to the listener, that’s two weeks from the time of recording, but I record a few weeks early. So there’s probably a decent chance, depending on how the rest of the schedule shakes out, that this episode may well come up after that has happened. But even if it does, if you live in Wisconsin, Minnesota, or within a reasonable drive, especially for this purpose, I would encourage you to go to thegarmsfamily.com and sign up for the email list.
Caleb Garms
Good point.
Daniel Mount
There’s links for following on Facebook or other Instagram or other social media. And then you can keep up on future ones because you do your concerts in the gym and the hymns in the gym on an ongoing basis. And even if you don’t quite catch this one, you can keep up for future ones.
Caleb Garms
Yeah, that’s a good point about the timing. Also, thegospelgym.com. Also, you can go there, and all our events, you can sign up also for the emails there, get notified what events we’re having. And so yeah, that’s a great way to stay up to date.
Daniel Mount
Yes. All right. Another Garms family question. I have a hard time believing somebody would listen 57 minutes into a conversation if they haven’t heard your music before, but maybe somebody has. And if somebody has, surely they’ve heard something in this that is interesting to them, to hold their attention to get near the end. What are five songs that you would say somebody can go on streaming, check out, go on YouTube, go on Spotify, and check out from your family as a good introduction to kind of the scope of styles that your family does?
You pretty much have to have “I’m Feeling Fine” on there, even if it’s a song everybody’s heard from elsewhere because you do it every concert. You don’t have to have it on there, but I’m assuming that’s probably the top pick. What are the other four?
Caleb Garms
Ooh, good question.
To kind of cover the, because that’s kind of our calling card, so to speak, is the variety. I would probably say, hmm, first of all, you know, that was a really good question, because we do so much.
Daniel Mount
Yeah.
You do have such a spectrum. This is the harder question than for a lot of other groups. Cause like I could talk to Tribute Quartet, Joseph Habedank, and they can just pull out, well, these are our five radio hits that stayed at the top for long. They do a lot of the same vein, and they just pull out the most recognized songs in that vein. You do such a spectrum that this is a harder question.
Caleb Garms
Yeah. So I would probably go, well, you could do “I’m Feeling Fine,” I guess.
We do quartet, so I would probably go, you know, “Step into the Water.” We do that song every night also, because that’s been a big request of mine.
I would go with an instrumental. We do just an instrumental song every night. I would probably go off our latest CD, Living Faith. The song is called “Joy in the Morning.” Our drum player, Sam, he wrote that. So that is just an instrumental. We drop all the vocals and we do just an instrumental piece. Jamie’s great, my sister Jamie on the violin. She’s the lead player for that.
I would go probably “Abide with Me” because almost every night, people love it, we gather together as a family and we do a cappella, just all eight of us singing a cappella. And just to have just eight voices singing a cappella, we do that and people love that.
I would also go, you know, I would probably go “This World Is Not My Home.” That’s a great example of kind of the, we can do like a guitar-driven, or “It Matters to the Master,” either one. We do what we call the girls trio. My two sisters and my mom, they have a great trio sound.
Hmm, that’s four, I think. So for one more, I’m gonna go original song because we have written a number of songs and we’re writing more. I would probably go “Mountain with His Hand” or “Unworthy Servants.” We have written both of those songs. “Unworthy Servants,” that’s an older song for us. But it’s a great anthem for where our ministry is, where our heart is. And “Mountain with His Hand,” written by my sister Taylor, that’s another great song. And my sister Leesha does a great job on it. So yeah, those are the first five I thought of.
Daniel Mount
Cool. Five or six, yeah. And “Unworthy Servants,” even though it’s fairly simple, there’s something special about that song, and I think to this day it remains my favorite song you all have ever put up. Love that song.
Caleb Garms
Yeah, that song, going back to our breakdowns, we wrote that song while we were broken down in Minnesota. So that’s where that song came from. That’s a beautiful song.
Daniel Mount
Yes. Yeah.
Do you have any other favorite deep cuts? Like a song from your family’s music that might not even be one you still sing often, or might be one that you sing periodically. But do you have a few more favorite deep cuts?
Caleb Garms
Hmm, good question. I love “Trust His Heart.”
Daniel Mount
I was gonna bring that up at some point in the conversation. It’s just such a good song to not mention.
Caleb Garms
Yes, it is a beautiful song. And we recorded that on our project, Each Moment, Each Mile. That was, well, I want to say, what was that, eight years ago maybe? But that has been a song we’ve done live and people love it. It’s one of our, I think, top streaming songs online. And it is a timeless message, a powerful message, and one that really has spoken to us.
Because that’s the thing. You can’t really communicate a song without believing it and without really taking it and believing it yourself. And that is a song that’s hard to sing sometimes. It really is. “Trust His Heart.” But it is, we believe that. And it has been an awesome song. My mom and I do a duet on that song. And it has been one of my favorites to sing live just because I love singing with my mom. She’s a great singer. And just the communication and the great song, so yeah, that’s one. That’s one for sure.
Daniel Mount
Mm-hmm.
I’m going to mention a few also, because why not? Because I’ve been listening to your music since the first CD came out. So some more recent, some going further back, and I’ll maybe go with the furthest back of them. I really like “Beyond the Cross.” You did that on Out Front in 2013. And that was the first … because before that I’d heard the fast songs that you can do. And that was the first one where I kind of heard the potential for what you’ve done since then. It’s a great song, but I also really like how you sing it.
We talked about “Unworthy Servants.”
This is a hymn I did not know until Ben introduced it to me. I think it’s sung in Lutheran circles more than maybe anywhere else. I don’t know if any other denomination sings this hymn, and it’s a shame because it’s a phenomenal hymn. “I Am But a Stranger Here” is a wonderful song, and I also really like how you sing it. And several members of your family have a solo, like step-out lines on that one.
And we already talked about “Trust His Heart.” I already talked about “Unworthy Servants.”
“Into His Presence,” an old Cathedrals song. And you know, that actually brings out an interesting point. There’s something you all have in common with the Collingsworth Family that very few other groups do. And not that you do it on every single song or that they do it on every single song, because you both have the ability, have enough singers, to shake up and not put more than one or two songs in a row with the same vocal lineup, which is a characteristic that both of your two groups and very few other groups share.
But another thing is Southern Gospel record producers in maybe the late 90s, early 2000s figured out that there’s something especially sonically pleasing to maybe all human ears, but to at least Southern Gospel fans’ ears, of having two voices on a part. You know, we call them stacked vocals. It’s no big secret, especially people who listen to other episodes of this podcast will have heard of these kinds of things. There are, especially in the 90s and early 2000s and to even some extent through today, some Southern Gospel groups who will, maybe not so much on the solos, but on the choruses at least, have their voices singing live and their voices singing their same part on the track for a fuller sound. And it’s just because there’s something sonically pleasing about hearing two voices on a part.
Where if you have 10 voices on a part in a choir, some people love that. For some people it just starts to sound a little muddy. And for me, the lack of the precision kind of leads me toward, I have a harder time making out what exactly is being said if it’s not a piece I know well already. There are advantages to choir music, but when you have a whole bunch of people on a part, then there’s a lot more imprecision in enunciation and placement and everybody being on the exact same timing, all that kind of thing.
There’s just something special and sonically pleasing about two voices to a part that the Collingsworth family, when they have their full six-person lineup on soprano, alto, and tenor, and you all on soprano, alto, tenor, can do. And that’s part of why I like “Abide with Me” or “Wonderful Grace of Jesus” or I think you do it on “Into His Presence,” I’m not 100 percent sure. That might be a more limited group. But those songs where you have the whole family and you have two voices a part, there’s just something sonically pleasing about it.
Caleb Garms
Yes, yeah, for sure. Exactly, yeah. And we’re all live music only, so we don’t do stacks regardless. But God has provided the ranges that we can do natural stacks, and that is amazing because not only do you have a full sound when you’re doing just a regular chord, but you have the freedom to embellish and create all sorts of really full sounds. Because if you have the two parts, if they split up, hit different notes. But it is, I love it. I really love it. The Collingsworth family is one of my favorite groups, and I love that sound, the two voices on each part. It’s so full, it’s so rich, especially when they’re singing the same vowels, they’re singing the same, it’s just beautiful. I love it.
Daniel Mount
Yeah, very sonically pleasing for sure.
Caleb Garms
Now one more song I was going to mention, you mentioned the hymn “I Am But a Stranger Here.” Another one that we do from a Lutheran hymnal is “What God Ordains Is Always Good.” And that is just, the words are so amazing on that. My sister Taylor rewrote the tune just because it’s a little hymnal-ish, if you will, just to make it more singable and more flowing. But my sister Jamie does an awesome job on it. Just a beautiful song. The beautiful words, it’s just, we have recorded that one and it’s one of my favorites. The words are so amazing on it.
Daniel Mount
Which reminds me of another one. In 2020, 2021, your family did a lot of livestreams whenever everybody was home and couldn’t go many places for a stretch there. And I forget if it was ’20 or ’21, but you did an Easter livestream and did a hymn medley. And you never put that on a CD, but that hymn medley is probably in my top 10 favorite songs you all have done, or favorite, in this case, medleys. That was really good.
Caleb Garms
Yes.
Yes, that was the fun thing. Doing that with those livestreams, we could experience, we were doing it every week. And so we ran out of material pretty fast. So we were experimenting, we were pulling out songs we had never done before. And that hymn medley is just beautiful. And we had thought about, we want to do eventually like a Holy Week CD, bring you through Holy Week. And that would be –
Daniel Mount
That would be amazing.
Caleb Garms
I don’t think hardly any groups have done that. And it would be just an experience, just a wonderful journey through, you get the Good Friday and the Passion and the Resurrection. You get everything, and that would be so wonderful. So yeah, that’d be great.
Daniel Mount
No. Fernando Ortega did with The Crucifixion of Jesus. I cannot think of a Southern Gospel example. So I think of Fernando Ortega, Michael Card’s Known by the Scars. That came out all the way back to like 1983 or something like that. And then Andrew Peterson did Resurrection Letters. I think it was volume 2. Volume 1 or volume 2, one of them was pretty close to a Holy Week, but none of them necessarily in full Holy Week. A lot of it was more a Thursday through Saturday focus. Although I know Michael Card actually did have “Ride On to Die,” which was a Palm Sunday mournful song in D minor, which that’s not what you expect to hear out of a Palm Sunday song with that title either. But with that said, I listen to an awful lot of music, and I can only pull out a few examples of a couple people from contemporary. I can’t think of anything that’s Southern Gospel, family, bluegrass, and those lines that’s remotely close to this, and it’d be really, really cool to hear.
All right, I’ll do one more typical podcast question. Then if you have a few minutes at the end, I might wrap up with a little extra time with a few fun questions, if that works for you. Okay, so one more before we get to the fun questions, and that is if someday your family came off the road, at least as a full-time touring group, maybe you’d still do Hymns in the Gym and stuff locally and that kind of thing, but if you decided to ease back from a full-time touring schedule as a family, what do you think you would do for a career? Be it something else in music, or do you think you’d go do landscaping and snow removal or something else just totally in a different line of work? A bit of an inside joke there.
Caleb Garms
You’re right. You know, I haven’t put some thought into it, not a whole lot, but one thing I do know for sure, if the Lord would lead and would allow, I would try to stay in music, because I love it. Preferably singing. I love instrument playing, but I love singing even more.
I don’t know what type of singing, whether it be starting a group, I doubt, but maybe starting a group or something along those lines. But for sure using that gift; I have other gifts and talents, but that is the gift God has given me that I can see. And I want to keep using it as long as I can. So if we would come off the road, full-time touring, I would still look for some form of music, for sure, for absolute sure, because I love it.
Daniel Mount
Actually, that was one question I asked I don’t think I knew your answer to, but I’m not surprised. It seems like God has just cut you out to be in live music somehow or another, not knowing what exactly the road might look like to get there.
Okay, so here’s a fun question. Last year sometime, maybe last fall, I think, you and I started doing something we call Top 5 Tuesday. We will come up with a Southern Gospel-related topic and swap top fives. So I thought it might be fun, if you’re up for it, to just pull in the audience on one and let’s maybe go back to the one we did this last Tuesday. Okay, so we take turns, and this was my turn, and I said, let’s suppose Southern Gospel was more popular than Star Wars. And because the biggest franchises in the world, Lego does Lego versions of, you know, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, other popular movies and franchises, that kind of thing. So let’s say Southern Gospel was more popular than Star Wars. What would five good Southern Gospel Lego sets be? And we have the flexibility to have the small minifigure scale, or where you’re making the person out of Lego to a much more intimate, different scale. So either of those scales. So do you want to give us a top five, your fifth one?
Caleb Garms
Sure, I’m gonna start with one of the signature, we’re gonna go with building the individual rather than the minifigure for this one at least. I’m gonna go with McCray Dove doing his signature “Didn’t It Rain” dance. Yep, that’s Southern Gospel in its essence right there.
Daniel Mount
“Didn’t It Rain” dance?
Yes, it is. I’m going to go on the minifigure scale, just for my first one, and I’ll go Singing in the Smokies circa 2005, let’s say, so Archie and Mike Holcomb and all the older singers are still there. Singing in the Smokies with Inspirations on stage, and of course Archie doing his signature lean-way-back, because Lego minifigures are really good at that, leaning way back to hit his high note. And if you have the scale for it, thousands of figures sitting on the side of the mountain.
Caleb Garms
Oh yeah.
Daniel Mount
Now that’d be an expensive set. You can get just the Inspirations on stage for less. Okay, what do you have at number four?
Caleb Garms
Woo, awesome.
Yeah. Number four, I’m gonna go, this is minifigure scale, and I’m gonna go, it’s a big set of the Collingsworth family’s four buses. So of course, they’re all similar, but yep, exactly, yep. And so just building those four and having those four laid out, that’d be awesome. So I’ll go with that.
Daniel Mount
Okay, Howard, Vestal, Sam and Rusty. [The names of the buses.]
That would be. And I’m actually going to go Collingsworth also for my number four. And that would be, not the minifigure scale, the larger scale, building the person out of Legos. I’m going to go Kim sitting at a big black grand piano, the one they take on the road, finishing “How Great Thou Art,” with her hands just raised off the keyboard, with her swoopy sleeves swooping up as she’s just finished “How Great Thou Art.” I think that’s a good iconic visual moment.
Caleb Garms
Yeah, that’s awesome.
So I’m gonna keep with the bus theme for my number three. I’m gonna go Silhouette, the Cathedrals’ bus. That’s kind of iconic. And of course you’ve got to include, yeah, I don’t know what lineup with the Cathedrals, but got to have some lineup, at least Glenn and George minifigures in there, maybe Ernie, Scott, Roger. Let’s go with that one. So that would be my number three.
Daniel Mount
Works. And you’ve actually been in the, you’ve actually seen that bus, haven’t you?
Caleb Garms
Yep, I’ve been inside that bus and got a tour of that, and that was unforgettable.
Daniel Mount
I’m going to go with one of the people you just mentioned. I’ll go with Ernie Haase & Signature Sound circa 2006 doing the “Get Away Jordan” choreography, because I think that’s pretty visually distinctive.
Caleb Garms
That’s tremendous. Well, in one of the interviews we did for you, to Southern Gospel Gospel Blog, Ernie taught us a move. Yep, that was awesome.
So number two, I think, right? So I’m gonna go, this is gonna be a big set. I’m gonna go Gaither Studios. Building Gaither Studios, minifigure scale now. If you could have minifigures for all the Homecoming, that’d be like Landmark or something like that. That would be awesome. And of course, you’ve got to include this rare Bill Gaither minifigure, for sure.
Daniel Mount
Definitely, definitely.
I will go non-minifigure scale. This is my last one that’s not. But I’ll go non-minifigure scale for my number two. I’ll do Vestal Goodman with her beehive hairdo, about 1974, waving a handkerchief. And what do you have at number one?
Caleb Garms
There we go.
Number one, of course, this is the grand high standard. Freedom Hall, you got it. What a colossal set that would be. It would take forever to build that thing, but it would be so incredible. Yeah, that would be so, you’d get your revolving stage, you’d get all sorts of stuff. That Freedom Hall by top, by far.
Daniel Mount
Mm-hmm. It would.
And that’s actually my number one also. I will go with Freedom Hall, and I’ll be really specific. I’ll say 1998 with the Cathedrals on stage, because that’s the last year they were on stage with Glenn, because he passed away before NQC 99. So I’ll go Cathedrals on stage. And yeah, when it was the Cathedrals or Martins on stage, every seat would be full. So we’re going to go 20,000 minifigures in the seats.
Caleb Garms
Wow. Man.
Daniel Mount
And of course you have to have the rotating stage and the soundboard and the artist circle and all the cameras and the big boom camera. A big boom camera out of Lego would be fun. And the tunnel to get in. Yeah, that would be cool.
Now, if it were to be something that was actually built, you could probably do a smaller stage with like two or three rows of the closest seats around it and some cameras and the rotating stage and the piano and all that to just make it a little more affordable. But it is fun to imagine.
Caleb Garms
Uh-huh. Also, because I know Lego, because we got lots of Legos, but because they have sound bricks, so that would be awesome if you could, like, you were on stage, you could load up “Boundless Love” into the sound brick and have that in Freedom Hall and have that playing. That would beat everything. That’d be awesome.
Daniel Mount
I actually have never seen one of those, but that sounds cool. And you know, it’s funny because this is like a very whimsical top five, but it’s a roundabout way of getting at what are some of Southern Gospel’s most iconic visual moments. Yeah. All right.
One or two other fun questions. Maybe this one isn’t a fun question, but what do you see as the impact of AI on what you do?
Caleb Garms
Hmm, interesting. Yeah, well the first thing that I would say is that because people are getting leery of AI, they’re trying to figure out, because AI has gotten so good, what’s AI, what’s not exactly?
Daniel Mount
Mm-hmm. What’s AI, what’s not?
Caleb Garms
And so they are wanting, like there’s a radio station I heard recently that said “guaranteed human” on it, so you’re hearing, you know it’s full, it’s live, it’s human, it’s real. And so that’s something that I would say, live music like we do, no stacks, no tracks, it’s all being played, it’s all being sung right there, I think people are starting to really appreciate that more, how there’s nothing canned, it’s all right there, they can see it. So that’s one effect that I would say AI either is having. That’s good for us, I mean, given that we do all live music. Also, I mean, AI, it’s helped us so much with all the recording material, recording software and stuff like that. AI is great for that. But as for that, that’s probably the biggest trend I would say I could see happen.
Daniel Mount
And I actually feel very much the same way. I feel really bad for groups that don’t have a single live musician, that everybody in the group sings and nobody plays an instrument, because I do think the questions over what’s real and what’s not make it an extra advantage to be a family where every note you do on stage is done live. I think that actually helps what you all do as much as, sadly, it is a challenge for some groups that don’t have any live instrumentalists. Okay, and then last one before we do how to keep in touch. Now, last one is, do you have any thoughts on what you hope Southern Gospel looks like 50 years from now, and what the fans and artists can do to help us get there?
Caleb Garms
Ooh, that’s interesting. Well, for sure, I just want the best for the genre. I want to see it because for Southern Gospel, I’ve seen more of, I don’t know, they’re kind of stuck in a rut in some ways. I would like to see kind of the excitement come back like it used to have back in the heyday.
I mean, people would pack out venues. The groups were excited about what they did. There was charisma. Southern Gospel was not only great music and great songs, it was entertaining because the groups were so energetic. That’s something I would love, because Southern Gospel, the music that Southern Gospel has been for the past how many decades, is really good, and I don’t want that to change. I just want more people to appreciate it and to really clue into, wow, this is cool music. I mean, it’s really awesome. So I would like the excitement to come back to the genre. And if 50 years from now NQC is still going, I’d like to see it back in Freedom Hall if there is such a thing, or something like that. That sort of venue, sort of vibe, that sort of energy, that’s what I would love to see.
Daniel Mount
That’d be cool. That’d be cool. Yeah.
That’s a good marker. Southern Gospel back. Whether or not Freedom Hall is in a state of repair 50 years from now, who knows how well they’ll keep it up. But Southern Gospel filling out a 20,000-seat venue again would be really, really cool to see.
And I will say to the point you said about the excitement being back, I got to go see the Inspirations live a week or two ago. And it was cool to see the excitement back with them. And that’s part of why they’re sweeping things right now is because it’s fully live, and there is some excitement, buzz around when they hit the stage. And hopefully we’ll see that grow.
Caleb Garms
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Daniel Mount
All right, how can people keep up with The Garms family?
Caleb Garms
Yeah, there’s a lot of different ways. You can follow us on Facebook, like us, follow us on Facebook. We do a lot there. YouTube, subscribe to our YouTube channel. We’re on Instagram also. You can stream our music on Spotify, Apple Music, all that sort of stuff. You can sign up for email updates. If you want to keep up with what’s happening at the Gospel Gym, you can go sign up for that email update, follow the Gospel Gym, and be watching for our new videos every week. Our new CD, we’re gonna be working on that here this year. So a lot of things happening. Yep, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, all that sort of stuff, email updates. Those are the best ways.
Daniel Mount
Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate you coming on today.
And thank you for taking some extra time for some fun questions at the end. This one runs a little longer than some of the other episodes, but I think those people who listen through all the way to the end will find plenty of things to enjoy and think about.
Caleb Garms
Thank you, Daniel. It’s been a pleasure.
Daniel Mount
And why not, I’ll throw in one little teaser. It might not be that long before you, Caleb, and me sometime again on this channel pretty soon.
Caleb Garms
Yeah, for sure!
Daniel Mount
Stay tuned. And to the listener, thank you for listening to Southern Gospel Journal. Keep up with the latest episodes on YouTube, Facebook, your favorite podcast platform, or on southerngospeljournal.com. Thanks for listening.