I’ve been on board with Colton Dixon for longer than most people. Unashamed, I am a devout American Idol fan. Before Fox changed up the voting process, I even had a scientifically-formulated theory on how to effectively narrow down the contestants weeks before it would happen. (But I digress.) Dixon, a former contestant, always had a flair for the unique. On stage he’s flamboyant in dress, unabashedly skinny, perpetually cool. But when you meet him, there’s a disconnect. He’s just always so damn nice. He’s almost an anti-rock star. Always, the kind of nice you are when a friend invites you to a football game to sit in his box seats. You soak it all in, you abuse the open bar but you don’t touch anything. Dixon’s like that, ever-thankful for his career because he’s truly a humble man at heart, allergic to lying. He’s always dressed the part — the one where he’s on stage behind a piano rewriting legendary radio rock music with ease — but I never thought that image was the essence of his being. I’d still argue it’s not, and I now believe it’s due to an unending appreciation for the chances he’s been giving. It’s his life, and he’s still trying to figure out how ‘Colton Dixon’ adds up to ‘rock star.’ But there he is, up on stage, ruthlessly slaying his music. It’s good to be him.
It was nice seeing you the other day. It was such a fun day. We really enjoyed Sonshine. When we talked last year, your first record had just come out, and now we get the chance to talk to you about this new one, Anchor. Now you’re a little bit older. Maybe a little bit wiser. And as you age, you’re solidifying who you are as an artist and developing roots. Yeah, absolutely. We started touring the first record, and I quickly realized how easy it was to get swept away in a schedule and in distractions out on the road. I realized how important Jesus time was every day, and also realized that, now that it’s as my profession, I can’t count the times on stage as my Jesus time. If you’re doing ministry for a living, you can’t count the times you’re pouring into other believers as your Jesus time because it’s really having the opposite effect. You’re draining that time, so that other people can get a taste of what God’s shown you. You need to make sure that you have the time to fill yourself up. That was just something I realized really early on, and
again, how important it was. That inspired the thought of Anchor, as simple as that: finding stability while out on the road in this crazy lifestyle (laughs). First of all, it takes a lot of maturity to realize that, you draining yourself and how exhausting it can be. How did you manage to find ways to recoup yourself? The best time I found is before I even get out of bed. I’ll wake up, and I’ll grab my phone and start going through different passages, or open up my devo app or whatever, and spend my time there, first thing in the morning. First of all, it’s a great way to get started, but before your feet the hit the floor, there are no distractions. I’ve found it to be the best time for me, and it’s something that can remain consistent. Ideally, if you’re sleeping every night that is. Yeah (laughs). You want to advance as an artist with your second record, and especially with ones further down the road. What steps did you take to ensure you didn’t write the
same record again and how did you apply the new knowledge and skills you’ve learned to the new record? That’s a great question. I feel like I wanted this new record to be a continuation of the old, but at the same time, show improvement and maturity. Not only as an artist, but as a person. Even in coming up with different song ideas, it could’ve been personal experiences that helped in maturity, in my walk with the Lord. It could’ve been anything. I think the biggest thing was just pulling out the stops and trying really hard to explore new territory, new sounds, as far as the music side of it goes, and I think we did that. There are some songs where we wouldn’t stop until we got out exactly what we were hearing in our heads. I think it turned out great. I’m stoked for people to hear those tracks. It’s about taking your experiences from the road, or taking the things that God is teaching you, and putting that in song form. As we get older, we’re going to get more experience in life, and God’s going to teach us more and more, and reveal more and more to us.
I think that’s the key to anything, and especially to what I do, and I think that the records will continue to grow and mature just as I continue to grow and mature in life and my walk with the Lord. I haven’t heard the record yet, so do me a favor, and for people that are reading this that haven’t heard the record either, how would you describe the way the album progresses and how would you describe it in the spectrum of what you plan on doing as a career? If I have to give out just a couple words to describe the record, it would be dramatic, theatrical, and passionate.
for the classic rockers out there. There’s a couple that resemble a Coldplay or a OneRepublic vibe, and there are songs similar to the first record. It’s such a diverse record. From that aspect, it’s awesome. Like I was talking about earlier, we really explored some new territory and some new sounds and some new writers and took off. We didn’t want the Christian music bubble to be any limitation on what we would create. We basically pulled out all stops and truly went outside the box on a lot of this. I think it’ll stand on its own and I think people will recognize that.
Exactly like your performances. Yeah. It’s funny. I think this record is geared more toward the live show even more than the last one, but similarly to the first record, we open up with this really cinematic-sounding intro, and I love that stuff. I don’t want to be lukewarm. I want to be far left or far right of something, and I think we accomplish that for sure with this record. There’s diversity, really, something for everybody. There’s a song
You write a lot of your own music. How was it, working with other people? How have you progressed as a writer, and what was different about writing this album from your first one? Man, there was so much more time. It’s kind of backwards from what’s normal. It’s like your sophomore record’s the hardest record to write for, but to me, it was a lot easier than my first. I wrote pretty much every song for my first record in a three-to-four-month period
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