Mary Mary - Interview with Mary Mary - Music - http://maxpages.com/chartmusic/Mary

Mary Mary ,bringing their hip gospel sound to the masses with their debut chart smash! Californian sisters Erica and Tina Atkins are out to prove that gospel music isn't just for Sunday worshippers.

The girls, who honed their impressive vocal talents in church and by writing for top R'n'B acts, are giving gospel a groovy new image with their funky single 'Shackles', currently storming up the charts.

We met up with them when they flew into the UK to learn all about the gospel according to Mary Mary...

Who are Mary Mary?
Erica: We're sisters, I'm Erica and she's Tina. We started out singing in church - our dad's a preacher, so we've been in church all of our lives and our mom's head of the choir so singing was not an option, we had to sing.
Tina: From there we started travelling across the USA and singing backing vocals. Along the way we were developing our writing skills and while we were doing backing vocals we got a publishing deal. We wrote a song for the 'Dr Doolittle' soundtrack and one for 'The Prince of Egypt' and we had a song on 702's last album. Then we were writing for Yolanda Adams, we were in a meeting soliciting 'Shackles' for her album and the president of Colombia Records was in the meeting and it turned into a meeting about 'Mary Mary' - we ended up getting a record deal out it.

What is the single 'Shackles' all about then?
Erica: We actually wrote 'Shackles' for 'The Prince of Egypt' soundtrack, so it is about being free from bondage as is the movie. But the song is more so about freedom and not really worrying about your situation or your current problems. If you can think of God and how great he is then you can deal with your problems a whole lot better. You can dance through and have a good time.
Tina: God is greater than any of your situations so why focus on it? You know, dance, feel free, look forward and be a stronger person.

So, you're here to make gospel music cool?
Erica: Yeah, we wanted to write music that could reach everybody, that was for every geographical area, every religion, every nationality, everything. We had all that in mind when we were writing the music so we made sure it was about things that everybody deals with - discouragement, love, struggles in life...
Tina: We just wanted a sound that was like what we liked to hear in terms of music and we wrote lyrics that everybody could relate to. We're just glad that it's been received by the rest of the world, because we did want more than just the church world to get our music and be able to vibe to it.

Do you worry that the religious aspect to your music might put some people off?
Tina: No, because it's not offensive in anyway. It's not saying 'You should do this!' or 'You should behave like that!' It's just telling people of our experiences, the problems that we've had and the reasons that we've been able to get through them is with the help of God. I think everybody at some point in their lives says 'Oh My God!' or as soon as a tragedy happens they want to pray. Well we're just doing it on a more regular basis and that's what our music is talking about - everyday life and just consulting God for a bit of help. I think sometimes people perceive it as another kind of music because they hear the beats and it's so funky and so current that they don't expect anything that has God attached to it to sound so up-to-date. Our intention was not to sound like anything other than Gospel, it's just the gospel according to Mary, Mary!

Mary Mary take on the world, pitch for their own TV series and declare a war on bikinis (hurray!)

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Page Updated Fri Apr 19, 2002 4:55pm EDT