Interview with Randall Goodgame

MBC: What was your most embarrassing moment in college?
RG: I was in a fraternity although I don't recommend it and the girl that I asked to a dance ended up having a fiancée but she didn't tell me - she just said yes. It was a guy that was off campus that was her husband-to-be but she was excited about going to this party so she said, "Yes, I'd love to go!" I kind of liked her and thought, "Oh this'll be fun," and then ten minutes into the night she mentioned that she had a fiancée so that kinda ruined it.

MBC: What's in your CD player right now?
RG: Right now, I'm listening to a compilation of old Jimmy Buffett songs. People don't realize how great of a songwriter he is.

MBC: Any lucky charms?
RG: My daughter. She's on the tour with us right now.

MBC: If you could be any Wizard of Oz character, who would you be?
RG: I would be either the lion or the man behind the screen…the wizard.

MBC: Do you have any conspiracy theories?
RG: I probably do but I can't remember. I have a terrible memory. I lose huge chunks of memories.

MBC: Who are some of your musical influences?
RG: Growing up as a piano player, some of the piano playing/songwriter guys like Billy Joel, Elton John, and Bruce Hornsby; also folky guys like Bob Dylan and Jimmy Buffett's probably my greatest first influence because I was just a crazy fan growing up. His songs were the first songs I ever heard that were a crafted work of art. I just was blown over by him. Also, Patty Griffin is kind of big now, um…Nancy Griffith, she's an old folkie.

MBC: Do you have a certain message that you'd want to convey to the college crowd?
RG: Yeah - don't be confused between worship and work. I like to encourage people that through whatever you do - like in my Charles Schultz song - God will provide opportunities for you to share specifically about Him, but in the meantime don't get caught up in that. Be salt and light, don't worry if you haven't witnessed to someone but be praying that God will provide someone that you can specifically lead to the Lord. In the meantime, worship the Lord with your life and people will ask.

MBC: How has being out of your comfort zone and feeling inadequate helped your relationship with God and your music?
RG: One of the great things about performing is that you make mistakes every night. I made countless mistakes tonight but they're small, hopefully, little things go wrong that I know about but you don't know. It would be easy if there were no God to get upset about that and set your standard by it or imagine that you have something to attain when as Christians we know that everything has already been attained for us. In Proverbs it says, "Man makes a plan but God directs his steps." We are on a path and if I play a show where nobody comes, there's three people or it gets cancelled the night before, rather than getting crazy worked up about it, I think, "Okay God, you can cause the winds and the waves to cease so you must have had a hand in this…teach me whatever you need to teach me. Let my heart be open to you." Sometimes you do that and you're still ticked off, but…did that answer your question?

MBC: You and your wife met in college…did you start off doing music together or did that come later?
RG: Even after we first got married, in the first couple of years, she only sang with me every now and then. She wasn't confident on stage, and eventually out of necessity about three years ago she started singing with me all the time. She always just had an amazing gift for harmonies and it just amounted to her being able to get comfortable onstage to be able to stand there and belt it out, which she does now.

MBC: Have you had to make a lot of adjustments, being on tour with a baby?
RG: I guess you could say our life is a constant adjustment. It's also wonderful; it's what we've prayed for. For a few months, we might be doing shows by ourselves, then we might be doing shows with other people. We did about four shows with a band called Waterdeep a few months ago and there wasn't room on the bus for Amy so I went by myself, so it's always a little different. One thing about living a life like that is it demands faith. I am thankful that I don't have a job where I know my paycheck's coming in because I know the impact that it's made on my life to not have, to not know, and to just pray, "God, provide or show me another way to provide." I've never said, "God, you just didn't come through for me this time."

MBC: Is there any one thing that God has been teaching you lately?
RG: To somehow, I don't know the trick, but to be constantly mindful that God, the Lord of the universe, the Creator of everything, loves me unconditionally and I could even purposely shake my fist at God and say, "God, I'm going to go sin in spite of you," and then come back and He'd still forgive me. And that kind of love just makes me want to obey Him. To somehow remember that God is always singing His song of love into our ears… "Don't worry, I love you, you're provided for, you're taken care of." If I could somehow remember that it just changes everything about how you interact with people, the time you can take to spend with people, things like you asking me to do this interview - there are probably other things I could be doing right now.

A couple weeks ago a kid came up to me after a concert and started talking about how he had a crazy rough life - drug addict, alcohol - and fourteen months earlier he had found God in a rehab center, bright lights and the whole experience, but he came to me because I had been singing about Jesus and he had really been struggling with the idea of Jesus. It was like the whole big picture of God he could accept but he had a lot of baggage with the church and couldn't grasp the idea of Jesus. He didn't get this far into the story at first, and my first inclination was to figure out a graceful way in a few minutes to say, "All right, nice to meet you." But then I was immediately convicted that my time is not really my time, you know? God gets to spend it however He wants.

MBC: Did you ever get flack about your last name?
RG: All the time. Even at the airport I'll give the skycab my I.D. and he'll kind of chuckle, "Goodgame, huh? Goodgame!" I was a big soccer player growing up and with eleven and twelve-year-old soccer players, the whole season it never got old. At the end of the game we'd all line up in the center of the field and say "good game" to the other team. My team was all cracking up because there was one guy on the team whose last name was Goodgame.

MBC: It makes you stand out though, right?
RG: I guess!