TobyMac Gets Candid About How Faith and Loss Inspired New Album— ‘God Doesn’t Leave Us’ (EXCLUSIVE)
The famed Christian musician opens up about the loss of his son and using music to heal
Award-winning Christian recording artist TobyMac has long created music that reflects what’s happening in his life, and his new album, Heaven on My Mind, is no exception. After losing his eldest son Truett in 2019, and longtime friend and collaborator Gabriel Patillo last spring, the singer/songwriter admits he’s been thinking a lot about life after death and reuniting with his loved ones in heaven.
“My records are always about what I am living,” he tells Woman’s World during a break in his Hits Deep tour that continues through March 28. “I don’t like getting on stage or getting behind a microphone or in a vocal booth and talking about something that I haven’t lived or some pain that I haven’t experienced. My songs always come from the good, the bad, the ugly of my life.
TobyMac says he wants to write about the hard stuff because everyone has the good, the bad and the ugly in their life. “My only hope is that these songs would meet them there,” he says. “My story is not that different from theirs and I trust that whatever I’m walking through that other people have their own version of that. So I try to write from my life and I hope that it resonates with people.”
TobyMac digs deep on his new album
Over the decades, TobyMac has built a devoted following by creating music that helps others connect with God and grow their faith through seasons of both tragedy and triumph. The seven-time Grammy winner rose to prominence in the late 80s delivering pioneering hits with the rap/rock trio dcTalk before embarking on a successful solo career. He’s sold 16 million units, scored more than four billion global streams and has become one of the most beloved artists in Christian music with a broad fan base drawn to his insightful lyrics and danceable melodies. His last album, Life After Death, which chronicled his feelings after losing his 21-year-old son Truett to an accidental overdose, debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Christian Albums chart in August 2022.
During this wide-ranging interview, TobyMac spoke of learning to live through heartbreak and the impact it had on his faith. “There are so many people out there where the mountain didn’t move, but does that mean God doesn’t love you? I don’t think so,” he says. “He does love you and the mountain didn’t move, but maybe the mountain moving looks different than we thought it would. It’s not like I intended to have ‘heaven on my mind.’”
“One of the lines in the chorus says, ‘Life ain’t bad down here, but I’ve got heaven on my mind.’ That’s how I feel. I do love life here. I love my family. I love my community. I love writing songs. I love doing shows. I love playing golf. Life ain’t bad down here, but these last couple of years, I’ve had heaven on my mind a little more, as you can imagine,” TobyMac shares.
“When you have people waiting [in heaven], death is not so scary anymore,” he adds. “I chose to believe. I could have chosen to walk away and there were days that I wanted to, but you are either all in or all out when you face that kind of grief. You are either [saying] ‘I’m done with it’ or ‘I’m doubling down on my belief in God and my trust in Him.’ I believe He gives and takes away and I believe it’s for the good somehow. Even though it crushes my heart, I’m choosing to step out in belief. I did it when I was 13, but I had to do it again.”
TobyMac dishes on his favorite tracks
Even though his new album deals with heavy subject matter, it is lyrically uplifting and sonically buoyant, even sometimes surprising, especially on the country-tinged track “Campfire (That Very Love).”
“It’s my secret favorite song on the record. I’ve never done anything like that,” he says with a little laugh. “It’s so different for me. It’s not really my style, but it’s what we wrote that day. When we wrote it, we jokingly called it ‘Campfire’ because it feels like something you’d sing around a campfire, but TobyMac singing around a campfire is not a picture you would normally come to.”
The album also features talented special guests including the always impressive Terrian on “Resist (Keep the Devil Away)” and Juan Winans on “Rearview.”
“Juan is in L.A. I’ve known him for a long time,” he says of Winans, who is married to Lisa Kimmey from the trio Out of Eden. Toby signed the three sisters to their first record deal on his Gotee Records label where they recorded seven albums.
“Juan has an incredible voice. Of course, what Winans doesn’t, right?” he says of the famous gospel-singing family that includes CeCe Winans. “I loved the song because hip hop and R&B is where I come from personally. And I love the lyrics. Just how many of us does regret trap us? I’m an overthinker. Regret often locks me up so I’m always looking in my rearview. My wife Amanda often says to me, ‘Let’s just look ahead. Don’t look back and regret anything. Let’s be in this moment that we’re in.’ I’ve tried to embrace that but I’ve struggled, so that song was very freeing for me.”
Fans have already gotten a taste of the album with last fall’s radio hit “Nothin’ Sweeter,” which spent nine weeks at No. 1. In December, the record company released his latest single, “a lil Church (nobody’s too lost),” which was the first song he wrote for Heaven on My Mind.
“It’s about people and community,” he shares. “As I was writing that, I was appreciating the love that was around me and my family and as we were facing what we faced. I felt it not only from my community here in Franklin [TN] but I also felt it from the people. I felt the people’s prayers and kindness and to me that’s what the church is. It’s hands and feet of people out here in the community. It’s supposed to feel warm. It’s supposed to feel like love. It’s supposed to feel like somebody wrapping their arms around you and that’s what I leaned into.”
When asked what song feels most representative of where he is in life right now, he responds, “I vacillate between ‘Been Through It,’ ‘Lord It Feels Good’ or ‘Heaven On My Mind.’ There is joy in my soul. There are moments when I’m down for the count, but joy activates my soul. There’s light getting in. I’m walking in faith, trusting and because of that joy, it’s a part of who I am. When you face the loss of a dear loved one, it’s like when you are compressing an instrument that you record. You sort of push the top down a little and the bottom up a little and you make the sound wave more compressed and that’s one of the things I’ve experienced in life. I don’t think I’ll ever have a lower bottom than I was and I don’t think I’ll have the highs I had before, but you can live in that compression.”
Finding God’s joy in heartbreak
In the midst of deep pain and tragedy, TobyMac has learned a great deal about joy. “God says in his word that the joy of the Lord is our strength. What an interesting concept if you think about it,” he muses. “How many things could he have called our strength? You don’t think of joy. You think of courage. You think of faith. You think of discipline. All these things that could be strength, but he chose that little word joy. And the joy of the Lord is something that no one can rob from you no matter what you are walking through. The joy of the Lord can exist if you chose that. I’ve really been meditating on that and trying to walk that out.”
Though he cites “Been Through It” as one of the songs that represents where he is now, he admits it’s not a song he can revisit much now that the album is finished. “I do love that song, but it’s hard for me to listen to,” he says. “The takeaway from that song is that God doesn’t leave us. He didn’t promise us a life of no hardship, he didn’t promise us a life with no pain or grief, no brokenness or loss, what he promised us is He would never leave.”
Honoring a long-time friend
The album concludes with “Goodbye (for Gabe)” written for his friend Gabriel Patillo, who died last April after a battle with cancer. “I had to put words and melody to what I was feeling and to honor Gabe,” he says of his friend who was a singer, dancer and choreographer with Toby’s band Diverse City and also co-produced his tours. “I met Gabe when he was 10 years old, and he came on the road for a summer as a dcTalk dancer. When he was 16, I hired him to work at Gotee Records answering the phones at the front desk.
“When he was 18, I walked into Gotee and I said, ‘I need somebody on my right side to dance and sing and help me navigate this thing,’ and he was with me from age 18-42. We spent our whole lives together. He was always the secret sauce to TobyMac and Diverse City.
“He was so gifted, such a great singer, great trumpet player and dancer,” he adds. “He really was the heart of our band and because of Gabe our tour culture was this thing of beauty where community really took place. There was no competition between bands backstage. There was always camaraderie and fellowship. When our bus door opens, love pours into the backstage to other bands and crew. If you have that kind of community backstage, then on stage is just a spillover from that. If you don’t have that community backstage, and then you walk on stage and talk about community and the love of God, then you are just a hypocrite, but if it is backstage then it will automatically happen on stage and that’s what we developed. That is our philosophy and that had a lot to do with Gabriel.”
TobyMac songwriting for the soul
TobyMac has always been known for his energetic live shows and the love and joy that flow from the stage, but as much as he loves performing, he admits he’s really a songwriter at heart, and that has helped him get through these last few difficult years.
“Songwriting is how I process things,” he says. “I decided that I’m a songwriter disguised as a pop artist. That’s what I am. I feel like that’s been my existence. I always knew I was a songwriter, but I wasn’t aware how much the craft of songwriting has meant to me until I started to look back on the last two records, the things I’ve walked through and the way I’ve processed these songs. I might look like a pop artist in whatever arena we’re playing, but the truth is I’m a songwriter. I think it’s very hard for a pop artist to do it for a long time, but it’s not that hard for a songwriter to do it for a long time.”
TobyMac says over the last few years he’s learned that everyone grieves differently, but he’s hoping this album will point to God’s faithfulness in tough times. “Life is full of hard things. God didn’t promise us anything other than that, but what He promised is He wouldn’t leave us and that we can count on,” he says. “That’s why I can have heaven on my mind. When you have the courage to turn your face to God, there’s love there and kindness that surpasses all understanding.”
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