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