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