Third Day setting out to spread righteous message
By THOMAS BOND
Get Out

Mark Lee, guitarist of Christian rock band Third Day, sees the United States as a nation polarized.

“It's an election year and there are so many issues churning with the war and terrorism and then to see a movie like ‘The Passion of the Christ’ come out and stir up all these feelings. It's a time when people are taking sides,” he says.

And that's fine by him.

“It's so easy as Christians to let people know what we're against, but we feel like it's time for us to stand up for something,” Lee says. “It's crucial for us to know what we believe and why we believe it, but the most important thing is what we’re going to do about it. We feel like our voice and the voice of our audience is just as legitimate as anybody else’s. We feel like we’ve been given a platform and we want to use that.”

To that end, the band took sides last month at a press conference for MTV’s “Choose or Lose” campaign which encourages young people 18-and-older to vote in the coming presidential election.

“It’s not really the cool thing for bands to come out and speak on political issues — you don’t want to alienate any of your audience,” Lee says. “But we decided there are enough artists speaking out against our president, if we’ve got this chance, let's go stand with him.”

Lee formed Third Day with singer and longtime friend Mac Powell more than a decade ago.
“Mac and I knew each other in high school and started out playing in some garage bands with big dreams.”

Since those days, their aspirations for a successful musical career have come true.

“It's pretty amazing,” Lee says. “Sometimes we have to step back from it and realize how blessed we've been and what a dream we're living out.”

And things just keep getting better. Last month, Third Day was honored with two Dove Awards by the Gospel Music Association, bringing their collection to 21.

“It never gets old, it's still a very big honor because it's our peers and our industry,” Lee says. “For them to recognize us with an award is always special.”