Mark Jennings - 00:04 An interesting thing that ended up shaping much of the rest of not just the career of the band, but really world history was a part of that. There was a Tuesday in September that were scheduled to do a conference call and I woke up late and took a shower as I typically did. And my. The phone rang and I thought it was gonna be. I thought it was a little early because the other guys weren't there yet to do the conference call. So I thought it was gonna be either Bruce or our management company. And it was. My mom said, you need to turn on the tv. We've been attacked by terrorists. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 00:40 Hey there, it's ife Mikey Fata, the host of the talent next door, the show that celebrates everyday people with extraordinary talent. Watch the space for new episodes coming soon. But today on the show we talk to Mark Jennings, former lead vocalist of 38 Parallel. We hope you enjoy the show. Hey, Efe here again. Now, before the show begins proper, I'd really like to introduce you to our partner here, the talent next door. They help make this show happen every week and we love, absolutely love to give a shout out to them every time we're on air. Now. VOIE Marketing Inc. Is a great marketing company out of Edmonton, Alberta and the mission is to create value by helping to present a neighborhood and community information insights through innovative products that contribute to excellent home buying experiences. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 01:37 They are the makers of the community feature sheet, a great two page infographic document that has been used by brokers all across North America in helping home buyers and renters make the all important decision of fnding that perfect community and neighborhood to locate their families and create a home. If you're interested and want to take a look, you can fnd them at www.communityfeaturesheet.com now enjoy the show. Mark Jennings - 02:17 Another day burned away in the darkness Another blink on the eye of time I am straining through the blackness ever search. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 02:43 And what you just listened to was horizon by 38 parallel. And you have my guest on the show today, Mark Jennings, as lead vocal on that song. Okay, so we're going to begin from the start. Logically. I just want to know who you are, where you're from and tell us a little bit about your. Your childhood, your upbringing. Mark Jennings - 03:03 Sure. Well, I'm Mark. I'm from central Iowa. I was born in a little town called Carroll, Iowa. And Iowa is a very agricultural state in the midwestern United States. I was raised mostly in Ames, Iowa, which is where Iowa State University is situated. And both of my parents were registered nurses. So I Grew up in this very rural agricultural environment. I spent a lot of time on the farms. You know, my frst job was baling hay and detasseling corn. That's, you know, how I bought my frst car. It was an old car sitting in a barn, sitting in a shed from 1973. Sold Ltd. I loved it. I wanted it. I was 15 years old and so I was going to work on the farm and my uncle had died. My aunt had no one to help her. Except that previous winter he died. Mark Jennings - 03:57 So I helped all winter long and farmed. And that's how I earned money for my frst car. So that's a part of my background growing up. I think relevant would be the music bit. My dad was a singer and he'd sing for weddings and all kinds of stuff. And he had this big, beautiful operatic tenor voice. And so I grew up with music in my bones, just hearing it around it all the time in a live context with my dad singing and practicing in the house and always just kind of had it as a part of my soul without giving it much thought, obviously, because I was just a little kid, right? And when I was about 12 years old, there was this big solo contest at school for who was going to sing this opening line from A Whole New World, Aladdin. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 04:41 Okay. Mark Jennings - 04:42 And, you know, I can show you the world. Okay. Cool thing. And so I. I tried out and I won the contest. And I had no idea that I was gonna win. I was like, sure. Why the hell no? So I did it and then sang in front of people and got, you know, I was the nerdy kid I got made fun of that wasn't an athletic kid at all. So, you know, he's. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 05:01 That's changed now. Mark Jennings - 05:03 Yeah. No, I was the pudgy kid in the corner that didn't do anything. It was kind of dorky little love Star Trek. Still love Star Trek. It's tattooed on me, all that kind of thing, right? So then I open my mouth and sing. All of a sudden, I'm not a loser, Nobody anymore. Everybody responds and there's audience applause. And I kind of start getting into it and it becomes, you know, that the entertainment aspect of it appealed to me and the attention, of course, appealed to me. But where it stopped being so much about the attention. And this again, is relevant to the upbringing and who I am because it really is all very interwoven. Yeah, I was. I always grew up as a person of faith and started taking it seriously somewhere in my high school years. Mark Jennings - 05:38 And I saw Jesus Christ Superstar, Andrew Lloyd Webber's piece. And at frst I was a little puzzled by it because there was no dialogue. Nobody talked. Everything was sung. I was just destroyed by the beauty of the music and the expression in it. And it occurred to me, you can. In. In a song, you can take that moment in life that's a split second, and you can draw that out into three minutes, or you can take. Sometimes there's dead silence, but there's a vibe, there's a feeling, a palpableness to the atmosphere. You can give that a voice with music. And that's what Superstar did. And it occurred to me, you can say more with music than you can with anything else. It's a language. It's the language of the ephemeral. Mark Jennings - 06:25 So I got to thinking, I really want to be a part of this and do this. So all through my high school years, I got into doing that. I got into singing through all the plays and all that kind of thing. And then I had these buddies who I was very close with. Guy named Jeff Barton. Smart guy, bass player, great guitarist. And he really wanted to be in a rock band. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 06:45 You could tell. Mark Jennings - 06:46 Yeah, he wanted to be in a rock band. He talked all the time when were, like, 8th, 9th grade about starting a rock band. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 06:51 Okay. Mark Jennings - 06:52 So I was like, okay, whatever. I wanted to do show tunes and Broadway and all that kind of stuff. That's what I wanted. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 06:58 Because I was just gonna. If I could. Mark Jennings - 06:59 Yeah, yeah. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 07:00 I was gonna say, if you've made reference to Lloyd Webber that, you know, I followed for years, then the music you eventually got into doesn't quite. No, it doesn't. Doesn't match up with Lloyd Webber. Mark Jennings - 07:11 Yeah. All I ever wanted to do it, still would want to do is stuff like. Like that. You know, pieces like Superstar or Phantom of the Opera or to get outside of that, things like Rent or anything. Broadway, Les Miserables. I sang for several county fairs in the state fair. Empty chairs at empty tables from Les Miserables. You know, that's the stuff that I wanted to do. Not that I didn't want to do rock, because I loved rock. I thought it was neat. I thought. I liked the energy in it. I thought it was a great way of expression as well. It just. I wasn't as big into rock as I was into this other stuff. But Jeff wanted to be in Rock Band. Jeff was my good buddy, and we had this other friend, Aaron, who we met. Mark Jennings - 07:53 He was just game to try and do anything. He was in all the plays with us, and he wanted to, you know, do cheerleading and we had nothing else to do all winter long, so we thought we'd do it and it didn't. That didn't go over very well. Bunch of male cheerleaders in a rural backwater kind of situation. It wasn't well accepted by. By some of the other kids, but that's okay. We were very progressive, if you can call that progressive. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 08:16 I bet you couldn't. Mark Jennings - 08:17 Well, it seemed to us at the time. But Aaron was in on it and he liked the idea of a rock band so he just learned how to play the drums. That's it. He's a genius, this guy. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 08:28 He picked it up. Mark Jennings - 08:29 He just picked it up. He'd never played a drum in his life and he just grabbed a pair of drumsticks and a kit and learned to play drums. We had Jeff's brother play guitar and his buddy Eric played guitar and they were friends with another guy named Shane who was just kind of always in the background. Background at frst. And so we started this band and we frst called it Doctorok. We were 17 and were God awful. It was so bad. I had a good friend of mine who was in a band called Mr. Plow, a guy, his name is Sam Johnson and they were. They would showcase for all these big labels in Los Angeles. They were really something. They were really good. Unfortunately they didn't. They never really went anywhere with it. Mark Jennings - 09:00 But they did some really cool stuff and so good stuff. If any of us still hiding out there, look for Mr. Plow. Fun stuff. But Sam once said if any band knew how bad they were when they started, there wouldn't be any bands. And he had a good point there because went through a lot of permutations. We got through the whole high school thing, which was a whole longer story here. But you'd be here all day if I tried to do that about the interplay of music and faith and relationships and all these things. But it kind of came to a head when we all moved into this duplex together. We rehearsed every night. We conscripted this guy named Sean McMahon, Shane actually to back up. He ended up joining the band. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 09:36 And you guys were still in Ames at the time? Mark Jennings - 09:38 We were still in Ames. Shane joined the band. Eric left. Well, we politely asked him to leave because he just wasn't evolving where were evolving to. And so we said, you know what? This isn't a good ft. Shane joined. Will had left. That was Jeff's brother. And so it was Shane, myself, Jeff, Aaron and this other buddy that went to high School with Nate, who was good with, like, the rappy hip hop stuff. Very good friend, awesome guy. And we moved into this duplex together, and we would rehearse every night. And we connected with Sean, and Sean had done Slipknot's demo that got them their record deal with Roadrunner. We spent way more money than we really had. Mark Jennings - 10:19 We took, like, two weeks out, recorded all night long, did this demo, busted our asses, tried real hard, spent the next several months shopping this thing out to record labels, just waiting to get a bite. And then fnally one day, we get a call from Word Entertainment, and they want to see us play. So this guy comes and sees us play, and then he fies us out to Nashville and. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 10:37 And that process happened how fast? Years from the point where somebody was interested in your work. Mark Jennings - 10:45 Well, that part was quick. Okay, that was. Let's see the demo. We got the call about the. We recorded the demo in 2000. We got the call about the demo in the spring, like, March or so of 2001. And then in May of 2001, were fown to Nashville to perform these songs live in front of the record label. Biggest. What's called a showcase. And then the next day, the A and R guy, the artisan repertoire is what. That's the only. That's where he brings us into the record label building. There's this lady named Judith Volt. She was the vp, the vice president of A and R at the time. She's very sweet lady, and she says, I don't want to be too forward, but we really liked you all, and we gonna sign you all. Mark Jennings - 11:29 So we're sitting there, you know, and we've been doing this since were 16. We were now 20, 21. So four or fve years. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 11:36 And so that's how long it actually took. Mark Jennings - 11:38 Yeah. With this life of, like, just background love of music in this whole long arc, I'm telling here, it kind of comes to a head in this moment. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 11:49 Okay. Mark Jennings - 11:49 And you picture yourself in this moment so many times. It's like the. The append. The. The crescendo of your life. Yeah, Right there. So you're sitting there, and this person who is in charge of this kind of thing at a record label in Nashville just told you she's gonna sign you. And you're sitting there, and you're all trying to be a rock band. So you're all doing this. All right. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 12:11 You're trying to be cool. Mark Jennings - 12:12 Yeah, we're trying to be cool. We all walk out of the building just losing it. So excited. Yeah. So. So, yeah, and then we. We spent that summer negotiating the deal and it was interesting. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 12:25 Okay, so did you guys already know the kind of music you wanted to make at the time, or you guys were just trying new hands and different material and stuff and seeing how it. Mark Jennings - 12:33 Sounded at the time that we got signed, you mean? Efe Mike-Ifeta - 12:35 Yes. Like, all the while you were making the demo and trying to shop it to record labels, you already knew the music you wanted to make. Mark Jennings - 12:42 By the time were doing the demo, we had pretty much found what our sound was really. Which isn't to say that you notice this with a lot of artists that you listen to. Your sound is going to evolve, it's going to change over time, but you start to get a kind of direction, and typically you stay somewhere in that vein. We started by playing covers and we covered all sorts of alt rock stuff, a little bit of heavier stuff, some punk stuff, and eventually started settling into this kind of melody oriented rap rock, which wound up being where a lot of people were going in the early 2000s. You know, were doing it and we thought were so unique to have two male vocalists and the rap rock thing with the singing. Mark Jennings - 13:24 And then we heard this band called Linkin park and were like, well. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 13:27 Crap, it's crazy that you bring that up. So. It's crazy, man. So I. I'm listening to your music this morning and I'm like, I can hear a bit of. So I was gonna ask you the. Your infuences, right? And I'm like, I can hear. I can hear a bit of gorillas in there. I can hear a bit of Linkin park in there. So I was gonna say how, like, what were your infuences? Mark Jennings - 13:49 As a. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 13:49 As a band? Yeah, as a person as well. Mark Jennings - 13:52 This comes as such a shock, and I know people don't believe me, but Linkin park was not an infuence. They were not an infuence. They were out at the same time. And I guess we just kind of struck on some of the same things, which is great, you know, and I'm glad that they did as well as they did with it, because it's incredible. But no, my infuences in terms of rock came from bands like this band called Thursday, which is a kind of underground pop rock band. And there was a band called Finch that was similar to that kind of a pop punk, new. I don't even know what you call them. Mark Jennings - 14:34 And then there were also, you know, lyrically I was infuenced by this guy named Andrew Schwab from a band called Project 86, as well as this guy Jeff from Thursday And a little bit of old T.S. Eliot poems and that kind of thing. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 14:46 Funny enough, when you say Project 86, I recall seeing there. So on Spotify you have related artists, right? Yeah, similar artists. And when you. Mark Jennings - 14:54 Oh, they put us in the same vein as Project 86. Oh, I love it. I loved Project 86. I listened to a lot of Project, but, yeah, those are my infuences. And then, you know, Nate, he. He brought in a little bit of the Cranberries. Incubus was a big infuence on him. Incubus was really a big infuence on all the guys in the band. A little bit on me as well. So if you listen, go back and listen to it some now, you might hear a little bit of Incubus infuence. But really those were the infuences. Linkin park just wasn't, again, an awesome band, but they weren't really. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 15:30 If you just joined us, our guest is still Mark Jennens, former lead vocalist of 38 Parallel. And here is the rest of the interview. So was everybody who was a member of your group, were they Christians? Did you have to try and inject your faith into the band or everybody was on the same page in terms of the kind of message you wanted to be singing about? Mark Jennings - 15:56 Yeah, everyone was a Christian in the band. There was never any sense of injecting Christianity into it. It was really a natural expression. I mean, to make art, to make music, which is a form of art, is. Folks will say art imitates life. And I used to say, and would still say that art imitates one's worldview. It's a refection of what you perceive life to be. And as Christians who grew up in the Midwestern United States, we had a Christian worldview. So, therefore, the music we made refected a Christian worldview. And in fact, it was funny. We talk about where were at in our lives in the songs and the things we'd wrestle with as Christians and. And all of this, obviously with a view to expressing Jesus and talking about the love of God. Mark Jennings - 16:44 But it wasn't artifcial or forced in any way, if that makes sense. It was just what you did. In the same way that a fower grows or as a particular color. It's just what you do. And it was funny because we sometimes would get fack from other Christians because weren't Christian enough. We had a little girl come up one time. We were doing a song signing, a CD signing at a Christian bookstore in Ames, Iowa, when the record came out, and she wanted to offer a kind rebuke to us because we didn't Say the name Jesus once in the whole record. And I was puzzled because I was like, sure I did. And then I stopped and thought about it and I was like, I guess. No, I guess I didn't. Mark Jennings - 17:21 And it wasn't for any reason that I was ashamed of it or anything. I mean, for goodness sake, I'm sitting in a Christian bookstore talking about music that's about promoting Christian values and the gospel, the good news of Christ become king. Clearly, I don't have a problem with that or have any shame about it. It just didn't. It would have been forced if I were to make that the lyric. I wasn't. I just. I wasn't talking about that aspect of the faith. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 17:47 So I didn't seem necessary if you just joined us. Our guest is still Mark Jennings, former lead vocalist of 38 Parallel. You got a record label to be interested in you guys and offered you a deal. What happened next? Mark Jennings - 18:02 Well, you know, what happened next was the negotiation process, which is a long and grueling thing. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 18:07 Did you guys have representatives? Mark Jennings - 18:09 We did. We had a lawyer named Bruce Phillips, I believe was his name. Awesome guy. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 18:14 He was in your corner. Mark Jennings - 18:15 He was in our corner. And Bruce would go back and forth with their lawyer. And so every week we'd have these conference calls where he'd talk about their latest proposal and his counter proposal and what he thought we should do. And he did buy this. And he. And my favorite thing he would say is, now he must have really thought I fell off the back of the turn up truck. He'd say things like that. It was really funny. So that was. It was a negotiation process and an interesting thing that ended up shaping much of the rest of. Not just the career of the band, but really world history was a part of that. There was a Tuesday in September that were scheduled to do a conference call, and I woke up late and took a shower as I typically did. And my. Mark Jennings - 18:56 The phone rang and I thought it was going to be. I thought it was a little early because the other guys weren't there yet to do the conference call. So I thought it was going to be either Bruce or a management company. And it was my mom. And she said, you need to turn on the tv. We've been attacked by terrorists. And I thought she was just, you know, maybe something that was an accident. And it was a little bit of exaggeration because it's a lot to process. So I turn it on and lo and behold, I'm watching the planes go into the towers and the whole nine years. It was Tuesday, September 11, and were just shocked. Mark Jennings - 19:28 And Mike, our management, called us and said, you know, obviously everything's kind of cooled out now for the week, so we're just gonna hit it next week. You know, hang on to the ones you love and do the things that matter. And that was an opportunity to sit down and do some writing, do some thinking. And. And it was that September 11th, 911 ended up being this kind of thematic thing for 38th parallel. The guy that was the pilot for fight 93 was our bass player's, like, third cousin. He didn't know him very well. Met him maybe once or something, but he did know him. And then the guy that ended up producing our record, Tony McEnany, was Good Friends with Todd Beamer, who is, if not the guy, he's credited as one of the guys in. Mark Jennings - 20:11 Involved with the phone call where they said the Lord's Prayer and said, all right, let's roll. And they attacked the terrorists in the front of the plane. Brought that plane down in Pennsylvania. Tony was very close with Todd. In fact, we ended up doing a tour called the let's Roll Tour that Tony put on to raise funds for families and so on that were affected by 911 and in Todd Beamer's name, with Lisa, his wife's blessing, that kind of thing. So, yeah, that whole thing. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that as part of what 38th Parallel was involved in, there was a record that came out also promoting that we had a song on called Higher Ground. We just wound up getting really interwoven with all that stuff. Mark Jennings - 20:51 But it really was this watershed point to deal with evil in the world and the love of God. And music as a way of entertaining, is bringing healing and as speaking truth. And so, you know, what happened after the beginning of the negotiation process, and the excitement was reality. It was, let's get a record deal, let's do this. But let's. Let's actually do this and do it in a way that matters, because the world has shown that it needs something like this right now. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 21:13 Of course, of course. And that's just a perfect segue into what the name of the band actually means. I was reading up on Wikipedia, so I'd love for you to just. That's just a perfect segue into what 38 parallel means and how you guys came up with that name. Mark Jennings - 21:31 Yeah, well, when we frst heard it struck Jeff as a neat sounding name and that'd be kind of fun. And I was very refective and I Wanted everything to mean something. And it occurred to me that, you know, the 38th parallel is the demilitarized zone between north and South Korea and has been up until recently and I think still is, but I'm not sure what's going on at frst there right now. It's all over the news and I'm. I don't know, but it's this no man's land. It's between two warring worlds. And the concept there was that we found ourselves as Christians and Christian artists making art in a world of conficting ideas. Mark Jennings - 22:13 A world that is governed by the coldness of a methodological and metaphysical naturalism that says there's no such person as God or nothing, like God and ethics are relative or an extremist view. The other way that thinks that God is not a God of love and hope and healing, that he's the one out to kill the infdel. And we didn't agree with that either. There was a sense of the prophet is never welcome in his own country sort of thing to talk about an unyielding cross shaped love, Christian love. And yeah, 30th parallel was about that. It was about just being really human and really Christianly human in a world that's under siege, that's a whole mess of ideas and try to bring some semblance and peace to that situation. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 23:05 How did you guys make out with music after that? Like after 9, 11 and all of the, you know, craziness that came with it. And you guys found hope in your music and saw that it could bring healing to a lot of people. You know, what happened, as I think we spoke once, that you guys went on tour, like even as far as Africa. Mark Jennings - 23:23 Yeah. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 23:23 I just want to, you know, what did music do for you guys going forward? Mark Jennings - 23:27 Yeah, well, it became the job. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 23:31 And was it tedious? Mark Jennings - 23:33 It could be like any other thing in life. It became, you know, you were at the beck and call of your record label and your booking agency rather, and you were touring. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 23:45 We're trying to get you guys into places as much as possible. Mark Jennings - 23:48 Yeah, touring is a marketing tool. It's what it is. It's you go out and you perform in front of people and you're an opening act for a long time and then you start doing your one off shows and there's nobody there and it's not very much fun. You're, you know, we did a show in Texas and there was like two people and they were the promoter and the security guard. Like no one came. You do that For a while. It's called paying your dues. And so there was this rough period really, after the frst tour we did, we toured with Skillet, which was a lot of fun, huge tour. We were very well received. And then started doing one off shows and stuff by ourselves. And suddenly nobody and had to start building it on our own. Mark Jennings - 24:28 Couldn't ride on anybody else anymore, which is okay. We'd gotten used to being this big act in central Iowa that was everybody come out to see us. And then you get out of Central Island. Nobody, you know, and then. But we. We'd fnd that we would really have a great response in markets that had certain media tools. So things like TVU was really big in like Ohio and much like Pennsylvania, this whole eastern quadrant of the United States, even up here in Toronto, anytime we would come out this way and do a show, thousands of people, a couple that stick out as being really cool. For a while it was Shane as a guitar player. And he eventually left after roughly the frst year. And we picked up this kid named Jason Monday. Mark Jennings - 25:09 And you know, at frst I was opposed because he was just out of high school. And I, you know, they were like, you gotta hear this kid play. And I was like, okay. This kid walks in and he's got his guitar around his knees and he's chewing his dog. Looks like he doesn't really want to be there. And I didn't realize that's just how he looks all the time. He starts playing his guitar and I. It was magic. I'd never heard talent like that. And now, like, you're with us the next day, man. Like he. He was just on board forevermore going forward. And he was a lot of fun. But it was when he joined that touring stopped starting to feel like. And this wasn't Shane's fault, by the way. This was where I was at. Mentally. Mark Jennings - 25:43 It just become this monotonous drudgery of a job where no one cares. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 25:48 Is there a thing, do you think that's a danger for your passion or whatever you like, because it comes into this place of structure for you to start hating it? Mark Jennings - 26:00 In a certain sense, yes, 100%. Because it stops being about your freedom of expression or being about creating beautiful art with your friends or even entertaining. And it starts being about just working very hard and it's exhausting. And sometimes you just want to be home. You know, it's Christmas Eve and you're in New York City in some hotel. Sounds great, but it's not. You want to be with your family, you Know, having a cup of hot cocoa or something. I don't want to be in some bar in New York, you know. But by the second year we kind of had, you'd learned to cope with that reality a little bit. But you do have to be very careful with that because it can kill your passion, it can make you hate it very easily if you let it. Mark Jennings - 26:52 And so that's an issue of making sure you're keeping a proper perspective. And Jason was helpful for that because he was this wide eyed kid who had never done anything like this and he goes on his frst show and we're in a lineup, we're sitting at a table with people to come do autographs. By this point were established. People knew who we were and they were, you know, sold a lot of records and we're doing really well and we're in there for three hours and this kid, he's losing his mind. He's always up or wanted to be in a rock band all through high school and boom, he just walks into one, you know. So he had a lot of fun with it and I got to be very close to him, still talk with him a lot. Mark Jennings - 27:22 He's probably one of the most gifted musicians I've ever met. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 27:24 He still makes music. Mark Jennings - 27:25 Jason? Yeah, yeah, he's incredible. He hasn't in a while. That's actually a good case in point. He, he got burned out on it because he went to LA and was doing some stuff for a while and it was just a fruitless endeavor for him and became just work and he just started to hate it. So I don't think he's touched it in some time. But we talk. Mark Jennings - 27:43 When Aaron got Married October of 2016, Jason and I were there and Jason and I just kind of stuck together the whole time and talked about some point when I get home if he's around he and I might hook up and just do some project just for fun like of thing would be cool but yeah the story thereafter was that it was touring and a lot of hard work and two guitar players and Jason just being a lot of fun. He did. I got to mention one show if I can that was kind of the apex of the whole thing when it really met its wow. We were in Pennsylvania, Hershey, Pennsylvania for this big festival. There's all these big Christian music festivals was Creation east coast and Switchfoot was playing at the same time that were. Switchfoot's huge and we thought oh My. Mark Jennings - 28:32 There's not gonna be anybody at our show. But were like, you know what? That's okay. We're gonna go have fun. It's in a coliseum too, right? Massive, beautiful sound system. We're gonna sound. It gonna be incredible. So we're in the wings behind. It looks like there's a few people, you know, that have come in. We can't really see the audience, but we see there's fairly packed on the sides and. Okay, well, that's good. There's maybe a couple people going to be here. The Guy announces this 38th pro. I walk on the stage, places at capacity, 6,000 people. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 28:59 Oh God. Mark Jennings - 28:59 And we look at each other and we're just like, what? So we're in the frst note and this place looks like waves on the ocean. I mean, it's just going nuts and there's all these people. And I'm like choking up, tearing when I'm doing this because all these people are yelling we lyrics back at me. I wrote my parents basement when I was, you know, 20 years old, 19 years old, 6,000 people in a coliseum in Hershey, Pennsylvania. I wrote that in my mom's basement. And it was the only other experience I've had that comes close to. That would be the frst time my wife told me she loved me. And the day we got married, those are on par and probably a little. A little better even. Mark Jennings - 29:39 But I can say that's what pretty close that was to be on that stage with those guys. And we'd been through so much together to build this thing, to have that happen. We were just on cloud nine. This thing that we had done together, like, that was it. We'd sold a lot of records, we had entertained some people. We have brought some hope and some light into people's lives. That was it right there. And that was also where I would be like, if this is as good as it gets, that's good enough. You know, it was. That was a cool thing to get. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 30:09 To do, that incredible story. Mark Jennings - 30:10 Yeah, it was a lot of fun. A lot of fun. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 30:12 That's incredible story. You know, it's just a beautiful thing like. Like you said. And you know, a bunch of people have expressed the same sentiments. You know, when. When you, when. When you create something and somebody else takes it and runs with it, you know, your creator, right, like you. You resemble your maker in that instance, right? We are all benefactors, benefciaries rather of all of this stuff, but you're able to create it in your own space. And you've Given it to somebody else. It's just beautiful. I think it's just beautiful. If you just joined us, our guest is still Mark Jennings, former lead vocalist of 38 Parallel. So you guys had put out just one record at a time and that was it. And that was what you guys were touring on. Did you guys write more material? We did, we did. Mark Jennings - 31:08 We had written a second record and we're working through the material on that. We were going to do it and there was. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 31:14 We get the only write up, by the way. Mark Jennings - 31:16 Oh, no. It was a collaborative effort. We all wrote. I wrote most of the lyrics but we worked together on pretty much everything else. Melodies, the whole nine yards. But yeah, we'd done a demo and some of the songs were good. Some of the songs we didn't really like very much. We did a second demo, had a few more on there that we liked a little bit better. So we had a good chunk of songs we'd set into the label and it was just taking forever to get to the second record. And I was starting to get a little frustrated and disillusioned and feeling jerked around a little bit. And then fnally the fall of probably 2004, I believe it was maybe the spring. I don't know, it was a long time ago. I fnally called our manager and said, what's going on? Mark Jennings - 32:07 It's been months. We've got enough material here that we can work it out with a solid producer and make a good record. And they dissolved. The rocktivate neglected to tell us this. So that was when I kind of decided maybe. And a few of us were starting to lean this direction because we've been doing it since were 16. We were in our mid, you know, early mid-20s, 23. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 32:31 Solid decade. Mark Jennings - 32:32 Yeah, almost a long time. And we just said, you know, maybe it's time. Move on, move on with life. And so I. I was the frst to. To say. Except to follow the lead of Shane before me and say, I think I'm done, I think I'm good. And it just kind of followed from there, just kind of dismantled the band just kind of dismantled from there. There were other opportunities, there were other labels that were interested in us, apparently, like Tooth and Nail Records, which is a big indie Christian label. I heard a rumor that they had reached out, but it just wasn't. It was just time, you know, we'd done our thing, we'd run the course and it was like, let's. Let's move on with life. And so we did. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 33:21 It, at any point, feel like you were walking away from. Okay. Did you ever see this as a calling? Like, did you. Did you see. Did you see it as like you were responsible for doing something and at the time, the band, everything came to an end? Did you see yourself as walking away from something? Mark Jennings - 33:37 I did see it as a calling. I did see it as a massive responsibility, but also as a calling for a season. So there was no sense of abandoning the calling. There was a sense of change the way we're called. So it was, you know, no longer would I be doing this, doing the music and expression I was at the time I was going to go to school to be. I wanted to get into New Testament studies and maybe philosophy. So I started going to school to do that, and that was how I was gonna serve the kingdom. In short, for lack of a. A less Christianese way to put. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 34:27 It's just amazing. Like, it's a treatable moment. Like we can be called, but for a season. Yeah, I think that's a beautiful way. Mark Jennings - 34:38 To. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 34:41 Express what I think a lot of people go through. Right. So, yeah, you go through a place, and when it's time to leave, you got to know time to leave and, you know, move on to other things. But you're still within the fold. Mark Jennings - 34:56 Right? Efe Mike-Ifeta - 34:56 You're still serving. I think that's perfect. Mark Jennings - 34:59 My brother has helped me think through that and work through some of that. In the ways he's just dropped lines here and there because I did. Years later, I struggled feeling. Did I walk away from the most important thing I ever did? And I can't remember exactly how he phrased it, but he's. It was something along the lines of the point, Mark isn't to do big things. It's just to love in big ways. And it struck me, you know, so much of my life has been this kind of calling, mission, whatever. And it's expressed itself differently. For a while it was that and then it was, you know, I worked for a church for a while with some kids, and they've. Some of them have gone out, several of them gone to become pastors and that kind of thing. Mark Jennings - 35:42 And then, you know, so what am I doing now? That's where I get, man. What am I doing now? And I stop and think, and it occurs to me, am I kind to the guys I work with, who. We have a rough job? Yeah, I try to be. So I make my wife's life easier by working hard so that she can do the things that she loves doing. Yes, I do. Okay. So if you are giving yourself in Love to the world around you and fnding a sense of fullness in that, a sense of being truly human. What kind of divine lightning bolt do you need? I don't need a divine lightning bolt. It just occurs to me that you can still fulfll the mission, fulfll the call by being truly human, which is to live a life of self sacrifcial love. Mark Jennings - 36:30 And that's I guess, kind of at the core of where I'm at these days. Somebody asked me right recently, what are you working on right now? And I wanted to be like just being good at loving people. That's about it. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 36:43 If you just joined us, our guest is still Mark Jennings, former lead vocalist of 38 Parallel. So this whole other life, because I met you in a different place, I met you as a new person. Mark Jennings - 36:57 Right. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 36:57 Like if I hadn't heard you say sing or I wouldn't have known that you lived a whole other life at one point, you know. So how did we, how did the new life you now live? Mark Jennings - 37:08 How. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 37:09 And it's so new you had to move countries? Mark Jennings - 37:12 Yeah. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 37:13 You know? Mark Jennings - 37:14 Yeah. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 37:16 How did it begin? Mark Jennings - 37:18 Well, it started with Harry Potter. I, I Ministry of Magic. Yeah, I was missing doing music and Jason and Aaron were doing this thing with a guy named Luke Connard that was just a very independent, fun thing. No record labels, none of that. And I was like, I'd love to sing on a couple tracks. And one thing led to another and I wound up being a part of this goofy boy band, Ministry of Magic. Then we travel around a little bit and do shows and had quite a bit of a positive reaction and some success. So that was gratifying. It was fun to be a part of and it was very much a sort of self discovery stage. I was in a, I don't want to say a dark place, but defnitely a different place. Mark Jennings - 38:00 A place of questioning and fguring myself out, working through some issues. And then I met, were doing a show in Boston and I met this absurdly attractive blonde girl who was just so kind, confdent and energetic and interesting and kept talking to her and started coming out to visit her and then, you know, fell in love with her and then moved to Buffalo to be closer to her. The Ministry of Magic thing kind of slowly died away and I was just living in Buffalo by myself. Coming up here every weekend to see her, fully aware of what I was trying to do, which was marry her. And she knew that too, and then got married to her. I had been working for this belting company called Sample Belting in Buffalo. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 38:51 I don't know it. Mark Jennings - 38:52 Yeah, maybe you wish you didn't know it someday. But they had a satellite branch up in Milton. So when I got married in 2012 and came up here, started working there, and, you know, left a couple times, tried to be a manager for Starbucks, that really wasn't my cup of tea or coffee. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 39:15 Oh, God. Mark Jennings - 39:16 Okay. I didn't even mean for that. I had to let it happen. Like, man is what it is, man. And then came back and worked for a while and got real frustrated. So I left again and was a personal trainer for a while. But that last time leaving was really gave me some perspective and some insight, which was, you know, it's really not that bad. It's nice to actually get paid for the hours that you're working and if you usually get it, go home when it's over. And the hours aren't that bad, really. Yeah, you work a lot of overtime. But am I every day working 17 hours? No, most days I'm not doing that. So it just. You kind of look back and you say all this stuff that frustrated you. What were you really frustrated about? Mark Jennings - 40:04 And you start to realize there was other things going on in your life that you weren't being attentive to that you weren't dealing with for yourself. And so you put those in check and you stop and think, well, I could go back and accept that something's going to frustrate me sometimes and accept that it's going to be challenging, but I will at least be able to make some money, support my wife, and eventually one day retire. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 40:24 What's your current relationship now with music? Mark Jennings - 40:26 I think my relationship with music now and vocal performance is kind of like the relationship you have with a lifelong friend. You know, you can always pick up where you left off and they're always a part of you. Just don't always talk to them as much. Don't always necessarily see them as much, but they're still in your bones and they always will be. That's just the way those kind of relationships are. Or like a relationship with family. You know, I don't talk to my mom every day, but it's my mom. I go home and see her, it's like nothing changed. Same thing with my dad or my brother. So it is with music. It's like family. It's like an old friend. It's just in the fabric of who and what I am. And it always will be. Mark Jennings - 41:06 But it's just not a thing I do every day. It's not a thing I do as A vocation anymore. It's certainly true that I sing in the car and I notice that I'm out of practice because, no, it used to be pretty easy or pretty. Not anymore. But yeah, it's. It's. It'll always be a part of me, but it's like an old friend. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 41:28 And do you think you and that friend at some point could just go town and just paint it red and have a ball? Do you think if the right situation presents itself again at some point you. You might consider, like, forming cording or picking up the mantle? Mark Jennings - 41:51 I would absolutely do that. If the stars aligned to balance the equation of living with that, then, yeah, I mean, if there was. The biggest thing is to do too much music vocationally is very demanding on the resources of your life, on your time. And so when you are trying to support a wife and build a life with a home and so on, it can be challenging. It would require a radical shift. But if it was a case where my wife said, let's, you know, let's not worry about it. Let's sell it all. Let's just go do this, and if it seemed reasonable, then, yeah, I would do that. But I would need the stars to align in a proper way. Right. I would never say that my days are over as a singer. I would be a pretty arrogant thing to say. Mark Jennings - 42:42 I have no idea what's gonna happen, but I can say I have a hunch about what the conditions would need to be. And so it makes me question whether it would ever happen, but I'm not at all opposed to it. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 42:53 Okay, so just in general, as we wrap up, what, what. What does the future to your best assessment? I know we don't know that. That far ahead of time, but what. What would you know, what would you like to see happen as we. As we proceed into the future as you continue? Mark Jennings - 43:13 Yeah, this. The story of Mark. Where does it go from here? Well, in the short term, I know there's some things my wife and I are planning. We're going to do this trip to Israel, which I've always wanted to go. I've recently reconnected to a large degree with some of those. Those roots, faith, things in me that I had been struggling with for a while, and that's been rewarding. So what I'm seeing for myself in the short term, that I hope and plan for to translate to the long term is growth as a person of. I guess I'll use the word virtue, by which I mean who lives a good life, a life of developed intellectual virtues, Thinking about the big questions. A life of love, self giving, love, a Christ shaped life. I want to be like Jesus, I think. Mark Jennings - 44:06 And so my hope and prayer for the future is that I get better at doing that. What exactly that looks like, I don't know. I have no idea. I wouldn't even hazard a guess. But you know, as I'm kind of thinking out loud trying to answer that question, I think the best thing I can say is I just, I want to be more like Jesus. And I'm going to do my best to do that, whatever that means. I guess maybe I start fguring out exactly what that means a little bit more. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 44:32 And that's a beautiful way to end this. I don't know what to say. I think I've been thoroughly educated today. You know, I've just picked up a whole lot of stuff and I'm sure when I'm listening back to this recording, I'm going to learn even more and write just been a little anecdotes here and there that touched me so. But you've been fantastic. Mark Jennings - 44:55 Thanks. Happy to do it. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 44:57 I just want to say thank you. Thank you for doing this. Mark Jennings - 45:00 Yeah, man, it's my pleasure. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 45:01 All right. Thank you for coming on. Mark Jennings - 45:03 Yeah, no problem. Thank you. Efe Mike-Ifeta - 45:05 And that's our show for today. Thank you so much for taking out the time to listen to us. We are hard at working on brand new episodes. Keep checking the space and until next time, take care.