TobyMac Talks New Album ‘Heaven On My Thoughts’

In August 2022, Recent Christian Song mainstay TobyMac issued a mission, Existence After Dying, that discovered the singer-songwriter wrestling with the emotional turmoil that adopted the loss of life of his 21-year-old son, Truett, in 2019.

Just about 3 years got rid of from Existence After Dying, the 14-time Billboard Christian Airplay solo chart-topper returns along with his 9th solo studio album, Heaven on My Thoughts, on Friday (March 7) by the use of Leading edge/Capitol Christian Song Crew. The brand new album unearths him finding a brand new equilibrium, whilst proceeding to honor the sense of loss.

“My remaining report used to be simply dealing with issues no person will have to have to stand… the private, heart-crushing you need to ever have in shedding my first-born son, however I felt like this report used to be me gaining my footing just a little. Understanding, ‘Okay, I will breathe, and I will get my fist up within the air about issues I imagine in,’” the seven-time Grammy winner tells Billboard.

As with Existence After Dying, TobyMac grew to become to songwriting as an outlet to procedure this new lifestyles season, announcing, “I’m a songwriter at the start. I’m a songwriter disguised as a pop artist.”

The album’s central theme is possibly embodied in his uplifting, most up-to-date Christian Airplay chart-topper “Nothin’ Sweeter.”

“I sought after to summarize somewhat bit that lifestyles is stuffed with twists and turns and that I’ve noticed a large number of it, and I’ve noticed the sweetest portions of it, the most efficient portions of it, and I’ve noticed some truly difficult portions, and I landed on my toes used to be the goodness of God.”

TobyMac has weathered a couple of heartbreaking moments in recent times — now not most effective the passing of his son, however the loss of life of shut pal and longtime affiliate Gabriel Patillo, who died in April 2024 following a struggle with most cancers. Patillo used to be a member of TobyMac’s Numerous Town Band and an entertainer who had labored along TobyMac for 25 years, after first becoming a member of as a dancer when TobyMac used to be a part of DC Communicate.

He will pay homage to Patillo on a couple of songs at the album: the folk-oriented “Campfire (That Very Love)” used to be written as a plea of therapeutic, adopted by means of the mushy tribute “Good-bye (For Gabe).”

“Gabe used to be the pulse of Numerous Town. We did the entirety in combination,” TobyMac remembers. “The behind the scenes tradition that we have been at all times striving to create on our excursions, Gabe and I got here up with that in combination — how will we make behind the scenes now not aggressive? How will we make it a group? How will we make it to the place we’re praying for each and every different, hoping for each and every different, and cheering for each and every different after we’re on level as opposed to feeling aggressive? My philosophy is {that a} wholesome [environment] behind the scenes ends up in a wholesome [environment] on level. It made the presentations more potent, extra tough. We produced each display in combination, wrote songs in combination, and he helped me assume via the entirety. He used to be simply my right-hand guy for the entirety that I do.”

Resolution and a refusal to lose hope pulsate throughout the album on songs such because the resolute anthem “Can’t Forestall Me” (which feels paying homage to TobyMac’s days as a part of the Nineteen Nineties CCM rock/rap team DC Communicate) and the triumphant “God Did It.” In different places, on “A Lil Church (No person’s Too Misplaced),” which is emerging at the Scorching Christian Songs chart, he seeks to redefine boxed-in assumptions of what a church will also be—focusing extra on group over stained-glass home windows and towering structures.

He to begin with had a present nation song hitmaker in thoughts for “A Lil’ Church.” “I had Jelly Roll in my head, simply because we’ve texted just a little right here and there. I at all times sought after to listen to him on it, possibly sooner or later I will be able to. That may be superior,” TobyMac says.

“Rearview,” that includes Gospel artist-writer-producer Juan Winans, touches on dealing with regrets.

“Juan wrote his verse, and I wrote mine,” he remembers. “We would have liked to write down it authentically so we each and every took a verse. I feel remorseful about is one thing that I battle with. I glance again like, ‘Must I’ve executed this otherwise? Must I’ve executed that otherwise?’ it could possibly truly imprison you. I attempted to appear into the issues that hassle me, [and] into the issues that empower me or make me really feel like I will triumph over.”

Out of doors of his paintings as an arena-headlining artist, TobyMac used to be a part of the workforce that introduced Gotee Information in 1994, creating it right into a outstanding label house, with a present roster that comes with now not most effective Terrian, but additionally Jon Reddick, Cochren & Co. and extra. The label used to be just lately got by means of international corporate Bell Companions.

“Partnering with a larger corporate, we will be able to put two times the facility in the back of our artists,” TobyMac says. “I’m nonetheless doing A&R, nonetheless creating artists for Gotee. I made certain I may nonetheless do this. As a man that’s had a label for 25 years, if I didn’t assume this might serve our artistry in a better means, there’s no means I might have executed it. It’s great to understand that we’ve got a spouse the place anything else we dream of, we will be able to move after it.”

Whilst Recent Christian Song is rising locally, the take care of Bell brings with it the ease that it “is strong in different portions of the arena the place it’s difficult for us to get there and to be represented smartly,” he says. “I’m fascinated with the expansion of our business across the world. I think find it irresistible’s completely transferring in the suitable route, and I sit up for what we will be able to do with Bell.”

Gotee recording artist and previous Numerous Town bandmember Terrian, who launched her personal debut album in 2024, joins on “Face up to (Stay the Satan Away).” Terrian may be opening presentations on TobyMac’s present Hits Deep Excursion.

“After we signed Terrian to a report deal, we began making songs on her instantly and he or she began traveling with Numerous Town,” TobyMac says. “The plan used to be at all times for her to fly and do her personal factor. That is the primary excursion I’ve executed at the moment with out Terrian within the band and he or she’s available in the market opening presentations as a result of I’m tremendous happy with her and wish to give her all of the assist I will to extend the basis of what she’s doing as an artist. I really like creating younger artists, strolling along them, and serving to them acquire their very own imaginative and prescient for his or her artistry.”

His album unearths its heart in growing song of a scope each deeply private and common.

“I name it the nice, the dangerous, the unsightly of my lifestyles. The ones simply finally end up at the pages of my lyric pocket book,” he says. “We’re all dealing with some relationships going nice, and a few relationships which can be suffering and there are deep valleys. If I write from my lifestyles and I’m experiencing all the ones issues, I in finding that individuals relate to it. It resonates with other folks as a result of we’re now not that other from each and every different.”