The Amazing Adventures Of Tommy Snare!

So my wife gave me one of the coolest gifts she's ever given me while I was home on a quick two and a half day long break last week. The gift? Tommy Snare! Who's Tommy Snare? Well he is a pet monster that Susan hand stitched. Pretty cool huh? She named him Tommy Snare after my obvious love for drumming, (Tom Toms & Snare Drums). So this week Tommy has traveled the country with me going from Ohio to Oregon, Washington, Montana & South Dakota. It turns out he's quite the "Rock Star"; he likes hanging with the fans at the meet & greets, getting his picture taken, eating only the green M&M's and frolicking in the fruit tray. Despite his need for attention and the fact that he won't let me play my drums unless it's show time, his is a good hang. He gets me out of bed before noon, encourages me to eat healthy and checks my email for me when I don't have time. So thank you Susan for my new friend Tommy Snare! I love you and just want you to know that he's lots of fun, (not as much fun as you of course), but he fits in my pocket which is pretty neat!

A Couple Of Fine Young Men

So We Need Each Other the tour is going great! Really great in fact, it's blowing our minds! Many sold out shows and very positive feedback from the attendees. We've been told multiple times that our set on this tour is the best Sanctus concert people have ever seen. So I'm happy about that, but never the less I'm still thankful for a few days off at home with my wife and baby boys! Today we went to a great little family photo place in Perrysburg called Portrait Innovations and got the boys' pictures taken. Susan really wanted to get pic's done of Nate before he loses his beautiful little blues eyes, (Ben's turned hazel/brown around six months and Nate just turned five months old!). So anyway, here's some of the Benjamin & Nathaniel photo shoot results, a couple of fine young men if I do say so myself.

What a crazy week...

This has been one crazy week! You know, me and the Sanctus boys have been anticipating our Fall tour for quite awhile and now that it's here and rollin' I must say that I'm even more excited about it just because it's been such a great first week! I've got to tell ya' though, this stuff is exhausting. I'm wiped out and there's still 29 more shows left to do! Yep, I'm gettin' old. In fact, part of my problem right now is that I somehow pulled some muscles in lower back and so it's been just killing me the past few days. O'well. I can't be young and invincible forever I guess.
Anyways, this week has been great but really busy. Pete and Dan came in from Nashville Tuesday night. We rehearsed our set and tried to figure out ways to make the show fun and unique for those who have seen us a hundred times already. I think I got to bed around 1 am that night and of course with two kids I don't usually get to sleep much later than about 8 am. We met back up at the rehearsal space Wednesday morning, loaded up all the gear and proceeded to meet up with Vota at Cedar Creek Church in Perrysburg, (Toledo suburb), where the first show was to be. We loaded in, set up and did sound check/rehearsal all day long. The Tenth Avenue North guys and Sammy Adebiyi all showed up through out the day and we slowly got things figured out and in order so we could kick off the tour right the next evening. I think I got to bed at 12 am but poor baby Nathan kept us up most of the night. He's apparently teething.
Then we kicked off in our hometown of Toledo, Ohio on Thursday with a great first show. There was about 1000 people there, the concert went great and Sammy's message managed to motivate 193 people to sign up for Mocha Club setting a new record for sign ups in a single night at a concert! I think I went to bed around 2 am.
Friday morning we got early to drive to The Underground in Cincinnati, Ohio. Played to a crowd of about 4-500 people. Again the show went great, but I was rather sad to have to do the three hour drive back home again afterwards. I got to bed about 4 am.
Saturday we got up and drove to Spring Arbor, Michigan to play at the university there. We had about 1200 people attend and the crowd was great, but I must say I felt like I played like poop that night. We had some technical difficulties right off the bat and they kind of continued through out our set making me feel rather nervous and insecure which caused me to make dumb mistakes in my playing. I get really frustrated at that stuff even though I probably shouldn't. I need to allow myself the freedom to have a bad show on occasion. Otherwise I'm simply training myself to be a perfect little robot up there on that stage and actually sucking the life out of the whole concert experience anyway. Who do you want to see in concert; a "play it safe" lifeless machine behind the drum kit or a passionate musician who his confident, fearless, and playing every note as if it were his last?
Sunday was really crazy because we went back to our hometown to do a benefit concert for a family who is going to be on ABC's Extreme Makeover Home Edition. This event sold out and we got to play in front of 5000 people, meet the cast of the show and even have Paul Dimeo play a song with us. Pretty nuts huh!?! Tomorrow we're going to the site of the build for a little VIP tour and to hang with the cast some more. Fun stuff!
Then Wednesday we'll fly to Oklahoma and do tour show #4 of 32.
Probably the thing I'm most excited about though is the fact that Mocha Club's goal for this next year is to build 30 wells in Jaque Darfur Africa. and in just three show's we have enough people signed up to fund the building of four wells! These wells cost about $15,000 to build because they are in such a dangerous and remote area in the Sudan, but one of them can supply clean water for up to 500 people. That's a good thing because there about 70,000 people there in need of it!
I believe God could very well use this one tour to supply more than enough funding for all 30 wells to be built. Please Jesus make it happen! For your glory God! YOU be lifted up through all this! In Christ' name I pray, AMEN!
Oh, lastly; check out www.tomsshoes.com to be a part of yet another revolution.
Love you guys!
Mark

I like John Mayer...

Anyone heard that newer John Mayer single "Say"? I keep hearing it on the radio, (Susan's been on a kick where she's listening to 101.5 The River a lot, which is totally meant for her demographic, I find that slightly humorous), and I just love that song! I've always dug Mayer's stuff which honestly I feel slightly less than manly admitting that, but hey; the dude writes GREAT songs! Also, he's pretty much the Eric Clapton of our generation when it comes to playing guitar. If you don't believe me you need to check out his new live dvd called Where The Light Is, it's literally unbelievable. So yea, anyways, just thought I'd tell you guys that I really like that song.
Ok, what's actually going on is that I tried to buy that song on iTunes just now but my debit card was declined because someone stole my card and the bank had to shut off the card. I wish I could listen to that song now but I'm going to have to wait until I get my new debit card. So for now I'll just talk to all of you...Until my card gets here... Then I'll buy the song... And go listen to it... And finally leave you all alone... I'm rambling aren't I?.. That's what happens when I can't listen to John Mayer when I'd like to... Sometimes I just feel like I need to hear those bluesy pop hooks that run deeper than an infection... Ok I'm definitely less than manly now... I'm just going to be quiet... Shoooosh Mark... (silence)... Should I be embarrassed?.. Anyone other dudes out there like John Mayer that much?.. Are you all too busy crying with laughter or making fun of me to answer?.. Just say what you need to say...

Mark

Meet Sammy...

Hey everyone! I just wanted to take a minute, (well about 8 minutes actually), of your time to introduce you all to my good friend Sammy. Sammy is going out with Sanctus Real on our Fall tour which starts Sept. 4th at Cedar Creek Church in Perrysburg, Ohio just outside of our hometown; Toledo. Sammy's pretty much one of the coolest dudes ever. I'm excited for you all to not only get to know him and see all the joy and love for Jesus that just kind of radiates off him, but I'm also anxious for you to hear his heart for helping those in need! We're out to save Africa and change the world this Fall so come be a part of "WE NEED EACH OTHER" THE TOUR EVENT!!! Check out this video about how God called Sammy into ministry and then check out www.sanctusreal.com to see when the tour is coming to a city near you! Hope to see you all there!
Mark
P.S. If you want to, you can look up Sammy on facebook by searching for Samuel Adebiyi. Drop him a line of encouragement and tell him how excited you are about his ministry after you check out the video. Also, don't forget that Tenth Avenue North & Vota (formerly Casting Pearls) will be on the tour as well! Peace out.

AAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!

Man! What is my problem!?! My last post was all talking about how it's been too long and that I need to make sure I'm blogging more often and keeping you guys (& girls) up to date on life, blah, blah, blah, and what do I do then? Wait another TWO MONTHS!?! Well if there's anybody out there hanging in there with me and still reading this, please forgive me for absolutely proving that I suck at the whole blogging thing. I'm sorry I've failed you all yet again. I hope you all can find it in your hearts to forgive and forget and be gracious enough to believe in me that I will one day be good at this.
To be honest, when we decided as a band that we were all going to commit to these personal blogs as a part of Sanctus Reality, I knew deep down that I was going to be the slacker at this whole thing. And here in lies the beauty of the blog; like I said in the blogs' original title description, "THE EXTREMELY SCREWY LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN ROCK DRUMMER IN ALL IT'S BRUTALLY HONEST GLORY". I'm going to be brutally honest; I have a hard time staying motivated to do the little things like this. Most of my life I've battled with motivation issues on all sorts of different things. Apparently it's a normal part of my personality type. I've taken two different personality profile tests to better understand myself and how I work with others and unfortunately one of the cons of a character like me is I'm not very motivated to do anything that I'm not extremely interested in. Looking back on my high school career, this definitely proved to be true. I was a horrible student barely passing my classes like Algebra, World History, Anatomy, etc. But then I was a straight A wizard with anything music, I was always at the top of the class in Marching Band, Jazz Band & Orchestra. I could never get myself to stay focused and pay attention in German 101 or to do any homework in that class, but I had absolutely no problem sitting in my bedroom at my drum kit and practicing for six hours a day, literally.
The weird thing is, I need to just remind myself how much I like doing this. Every time I write it proves to be very therapeutic for me and enjoyable. It's definitely not that I'm uninterested or that I don't like doing this, I always end up really enjoying it and I especially love when you all actually respond and leave cool comments. I get all of your comments sent straight to my personal email on my iPhone by the way. If you leave a comment, not only do I read it but I do so probably about five minutes or so after you leave it.
So here's to picking up the blogging torch once again, raising it high and running down the stairs with it! Hopefully I won't crash and burn again. Special thanks by the way to a couple of you who left me comments saying that you were anxious to hear from me again! I appreciate it! It's help with the motivation factor for sure to know that somebody not only reads these but actually likes to. Ok, ta-ta for now!
Mark

Too long, too long, it's just been too long!

Ok so it's been way too long since I wrote anything on here! What can I say, life with two kids has definitely gotten the best of me, (which in my book is fine because my family should get the best of me). But I've neglected you all long enough now. I know you've all been just dying to read a new blog from your good old friend MarkDaDrumma! I know it keeps you up at night with your minds racing! That question! That awful soul twisting question! It's just eating you alive! "WHAT IS GOING ON IN MARK'S LIFE RIGHT NOW!?!"
Well let me paint the picture for; yesterday I went to get a haircut. When the girl finished cutting my hair she handed me a small mirror to look into while the really big mirror was behind me, so I could see the back of my head. I asked immediately if I had a bald spot yet. She asked, "why would you have a bald spot?" I said, "well I turned 30 this year, finally had to get glasses, had a second kid and recently purchased a mini-van. A bald spot is the next step right?"

Introducing Nathaniel Yo-Soon Graalman!!!

YYYEEESSS!!! I haven't been this excited to post a blog in a while and there's not even much to be said about it except; WE HAD OUR BABY!!!
So yesterday morning I woke up in Nashville all ready to go knock out a million interviews in a couple days time for GMA week. I only made it through Monday morning though before my wife Susan called me from her Doctor's appointment and said that they were going to have to do an emergency c-section due to low amniotic fluid. As she was telling me this, us Sanctus guys and our A&R guy Chris York were sitting around a table eating fish taco's in downtown Nashville. I think they all saw the look on my face and knew exactly what was going on because as soon as I said, "huh, guys I gotta go!", Dan immediately jumped up from the table and was like, "I'll drive you to the airport!"
I know the Lord was with me because Dan had me to that airport in about ten minutes flat and there just happened to be a flight leaving for Detroit in 30 minutes that would get me home just two hours before my son was born! Praise God for "making all things work together for the good" huh!?!
So last night on April 21st 2008, my wife Susan and our son Ben and I welcomed our newest family member into the world; Nathaniel Yo-Soon Graalman! He was 6 lbs 10 oz and 20" long. He's healthy and quite a little cutie if I do say so myself! Susan is doing well. Please pray for a speedy healing from the c-section surgery but other than that, she's doing great, Also Ben is being so sweet to his new baby brother. He's pretty excited about this whole thing.
These pic's were taken with my iPhone, so they're not the best quality, but I'll probably be posting some better ones on my facebook and myspace pages sometime soon.
Mark

It's been three years...

So lately I've been thinking about how fast everything seems to be moving these days. I feel like a whole lot of drastic changes started occurring in my life about three years ago and ever since they just seem to keep on coming. I'm sure that most of you reading this are familiar with everything Sanctus Real went through around that time; losing our bass player, close friends getting divorced, our singer's grandmother passed away while he had to be on the road. Finally then, the hardest issue for me personally; on the same day my son Ben was born my Dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Since that time period the crazy changes, both good and bad, have kept coming. Let's see; besides me having my first child and my Dad dying of cancer unexpectedly at the age of 47 (making my Mom a widow at the age of 50), Sanctus Real gets new bass player (Dan Gartley), Sanctus Real puts out third cd called The Face Of Love, Sanctus Real adds a fifth member (Pete Prevost), my sister Patti gets pregnant and has a baby boy named Seth (making me an uncle), Sanctus Real fires management, Sanctus Real hires new management, We go on the Winter Jam tour playing in front of 10-20,000 people a night, We spend all year writing and recording We Need Each Other, Susan and I find out we're pregnant again, Patti gets married to her boyfriend, my Grandma Robinson passes away, I start teaching drum lessons Tuesday nights when I'm home, we go on tour with Steven Curtis Chapman, WNEO comes out, I turn 30, Sanctus Real fires management again (currently manager-less), we go on tour with Third Day, my Grandma Graalman passes away (making me officially Grandparent-less), my other sister Sarah gets engaged (getting married August 31st), Susan and I buy a mini-van (Honda Odyssey) and in less than three weeks my beautiful wife will be giving birth to our second baby; Nathaniel Yo-Soon Graalman. Does that sound like a crazy three years to any else!?! And that's just the major stuff!
So anyways, life is just wild at times and it just seems to be getting wilder all the time any more. But when all is said and done it really just makes me even more thankful that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. He's absolutely faithful. When I look back at the last three years of my life I wonder how I haven't just gone crazy and lost my mind in the midst of all this chaos. It must just simply be that God loves me enough to give me the grace to get through all of these major life changes and to come out the other side sensing His presence, resting in His peace and feeling completely confident that He hasn't once left my side. As my Pastor, Bill Herzog, always says; "God is good all the time because that is His nature".
I think what really got me thinking about these things this week though was Saturday. You see this past Saturday was April 5th, the anniversary of my Dad's death. Three years ago April 5th was a Tuesday night and on that Tuesday night at 10:15 p.m. EST my Dad, Mark S. Graalman Sr. went to Heaven to be with Jesus forever. I guess I've just been thinking about him a lot lately and thinking about how much he's missed, although, maybe he hasn't missed anything? Maybe he can see everything that's going on down here? I'm not sure how that works, but I can think of a couple scriptures that would suggest maybe that people in Heaven are watching us and cheering us on in a sense. I don't know.
Well in memory of my Dad, here are some pic's of him: You see, he had some unique hobbies. At the age of 13 he started getting into Amateur Radio and played around with that stuff all his life. His call letters were WB8JKR. He was also into "Tesla Coils". The one pictured here was the biggest one he ever built. He called it Pandora. It shot lighting bolts over 8' long! Yea, our neighbors thought he was nuts! He definitely was a bit of a mad scientist. He was kind of an electronics genius who could pretty much build or fix anything. He played guitar when he was a kid and then picked it back up later on in life just because it was something he always wished he'd gotten good at. Lastly, here's a couple pic's of him holding Ben. He got two months with Ben, (February 4th to April 5th '05'), before he would be forced to leave us but as he himself said, "Heaven means never having to say goodbye".
I miss you Dad. I love you.

Lovin' Louisiana!

Well we are in Monroe, La. today, as the Third Day tour continues. I think this is show #8. Revive is on stage right now warmin' 'em up real good. We've had a couple great days off in St. Louis where we hooked up with the December Radio guys and thoroughly enjoyed some Macaroni Grill together! Good times. We hung out in a couple malls, saw a movie, kicked December Radio's tail in a couple games of bowling. You know, the usual. Ok so we didn't actually beat December Radio at bowling. We split the teams up so it wasn't band against band, but if it had been DR vs. SR, Sanctus would have prevailed for sure.
Alright, due to lack of time before we played I was forced to put my lil' blog on hold and finish it later. So now the show is completely over. It was a great night. Fun crowd to play for here in Louisiana, but the best part came at the end of the night.
You see some of the locals decided they were going boil us up a big ol' tub of cajun crawfish! I've got to be honest, being a white dude from Northern Ohio, I didn't really know what to think about it at first. The sight and smell of those things almost talked me out of trying them, but I'm glad I got past that and gave them a shot because cajun crawfish are officially amazing in my book! Basically you grab the crawfish by it's head and it's tail and you twist it in half. You throw the head away and suck the meat out of the tail. Now in Louisiana they boil the crawfish in these special cajun spices that make it quite spicy but yet really tasty! Definitely good stuff.
Tomorrow we play in Metairie which is right outside of New Orleans, so who knows, maybe we'll get some more cajun goodness tomorrow. I surely hope so.

Risen Drums Rock!

So this morning I'm going to brag a bit. I'm not usually one for tooting my own horn, but this is pretty stinkin' cool! It actually doesn't have anything to do with me, not in the sense of like I did something great to do deserve it or anything. This is actually more me bragging on one of the most generous people/companies I've ever met, I just get to be the blessed recipient, Risen Drums are the ones that are so cool!
I've been endorsing RD for about a year and a half now, have had an amazing drum kit that they gave me at cost that has served me quite well both live and in the studio. In fact I used that kit exclusively to record our latest record, "We Need Each Other", and it sounds great if I do say so myself.
I happen to call Keith Anderson, the owner of Risen Drums a couple of months ago to let him that we just got hooked up with the Third Day tour and that I would maybe want to get another kit for that tour. Keith decided that he wants all the Risen guys to have at least two kits on hand at all times so he agreed that I needed a new kit but then also took it a step further and declared that I was going to be receiving this kit free of charge! Yea, I about pooped my pants when he said that. I couldn't believe it! So here are pic's of my very beautiful new Risen Custom Drums and this is my tribute to the most generous and amazing drum company in the world! Risen Drums Rock!
Mark

p.s.
O' yea, for all you drum nuts out there, the spec's are this:
All 6 ply maple shells, all wood hoops, except the snare which is 8 ply with a wood hoop on the bottom and a triple flanged steel hoop on top.
Kick 18"x24"
1st Tom 9"x12"
2nd Tom 12"x15"
3rd Tom 15"x18"
Snare 7"x14" and features a Trick throw off
Kit custom painted by Risen and front kick head created by Drum Art (www.drumart.com)

Love your neighbor as yourself...

Hello ladies and gentleman! I hope this little blog finds you all doing well. I had a funny experience the other day; I woke up, looked out the window and saw that there was about five inches of snow on the ground and it was still coming down. Naturally caused it to be a bit of a lazy morning around the Graalman household but eventually I got out there with my new snow blower that I got at The Anderson's. (If you ever come to Toledo for any reason you have to go to The Anderson's because it's a great store!) Anyways, once I got out there I tore that driveway in half! Also, for the record, I cleared my neighbor's driveway for her as well.
Not long ago there was a link posted on one our blogs that took people to an interview I had done where I was asked to give six different examples of ways that we could "love our neighbor". One of the things I put down was, "15 inches of snow just fell, you have a snow blower, your neighbor doesn't. Need I say more?". Well the other morning as I was clearing my driveway and looking over at my neighbor's driveway and thinking about the fact that she's a single mom with two kids I realized that I needed to do it or consider myself a hypocrite. I honestly do desire to show God's love to people in practical ways so I did it. I've got to be honest though, I didn't think she was home, I thought she was at work. Now my neighbor is an excited, loud, outgoing, African American woman. I am a shy, quiet, reserved, white guy. I was right in the middle of clearing her driveway when I hear this voice that was so loud I could hear it over my snow blower! I looked up and my neighbor was standing in her front doorway screaming at the top of her lungs, "O' GOD! O' GOD! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU! THANK YOU SOOO MUCH!!!
I was just glad that the cold outside was making my cheeks red already because she made me blush! I felt a little embarrassed and kind of awkward almost as if I was 12 again. It did apparently bless her though, so hopefully The Lord will be able to use my shy awkwardness for His glory and plant some seeds in her heart.
Her son David, who is a month younger than my son Ben, then proceeded to come outside once he realized that Ben and I were out there and the three of us then built a small snow man. Good times had by all! The End.

Do people really buy this stuff?

Ok so I've been out on the road this week with my Sanctus brothers doing all sorts of promo stuff for the new record and it's been quite the journey to say the least. I'll probably write more about it later but for now, I'm going to ask a simple question; do people really buy this stuff!?!
You see due to the nature of our job, being on the road traveling, we tend to stop at a lot of truck stops and gas stations to fuel up, use the rest room and grab a snack or beverage. What never ceases to amaze me though are the extremely tacky and very strange "knick knacks" that are almost always for sale at these places. For example: The strange stuffed dog with his buddy the friendly Hill Billy. I guess if I was a Hill Billy myself and happened to own a dog that resembled this one then maybe I would consider picking up these lovely items, but I still kind of doubt it.
Then there is the Grim Reaper version of Skeletor, (everyone remember He-Man?), hanging out with a happy little Southern Frog gentleman. Somehow they just don't seem as likely friends, yet here they are, side by side. Rather unbelievable if you ask me. Finally we have Jesus and the Angels on the top shelf, which at first seems appropriate, but then you realize they're standing next to an old outhouse and then it all feels borderline blasphemous. Well like I said earlier; tacky, very tacky.
So what do you think? Do people really but this stuff!?! Would any of you buy this stuff? If you would, are you still willing to admit it now that I've completely made fun of it? I'd love to know your thoughts on this strange phenomenon!

We Need Each Other...

Well, our new cd came out today. It is truly one of the strangest experiences ever to release a cd out into the world and then wait to see how it will be be received. Especially with this one in particular as we've spent the last year writing and recording, re-writing and re-recording, to make sure that this will indeed be the best Sanctus Real record yet. I truly believe that we've accomplished that goal, but there's still that "test of time" to see wether or not those who go out and buy the cd love it as much as we hope they will. The "test of time" causes one to become anxious for reaction, but yet, also causes a sort of anti-climatic feeling as well. You go through this big countdown and then BOOM! The record drops, you're excited about this, but the fact of the matter is you still won't know if it is going to connect with more people than the last one did for a couple of years! So I guess my hope is that by 2010, we'll be able to look back at today and say wow, that record really had a huge affect on people and has completely changed everything in our little world. Truth be told I guess only Jesus can make that happen or not so I probably shouldn't even worry about it. It really doesn't matter as long as God does what He wants to do with it. Anyways, hope you dig the new cd.
Mark

Thanks K-LOVE for my family's first cruise!

So yea, we just got back a few days ago from the K-LOVE Friends & Family Cruise 2008! It was an amazing time I must say. I'd never been on a cruise before, nor had my wife Susan and of course our son Ben hadn't so it was quite the experience. It was Ben's first time ever seeing/swimming in the ocean as well so it was an extra cool trip for us. Not to mention Ole' Sanctus Real rocked it pretty good if I do say so myself. We had a great time playing for all the people on board, I think we all went home feeling like we made a lot of new friends. I'll post some pic's on here for you all to enjoy, there's one of Ben walking into the ocean water for the first time, one of him and Susan posing with some Red Macaws, (did I spell that right?). There's also a cute shot of Ben and I passed out in our state room. Hope you enjoy these and I hope you decide to save you pennies and go on this cruise next year because it's definitely worth it! Be blessed ya'll! Oh, also a quick reminder that the new record, We Need Each Other is in stores everywhere one week from today!